Support NeoGAF

[jurgen]

calling for them to be silenced is fine. nobody's forcing anybody to agree with the students who are protesting.

"Calling for the students protesting to be silenced is fine. Nobody's forcing anybody to agree with the speaker."

That statement isn't fine either way it goes.

 

[Snowman Prophet of Doom]

How is it not germane to the topic?

You misunderstand. I was saying that it was claimed (I think by you, actually, though I might be mistaken) that, despite the talk not necessarily having anything to do with the philosophy and ethics of transgenderism, she will almost certainly utter something along the lines of trans women being disturbed men, presumably because she often does.

 

[CLEEK]

Further, both of you have a warped understanding of free speech. You talk of the harm of wanting people to be silenced, but then your solution is to silence people who have concrete reasons why that person should be silenced.

It's clear it's you that misunderstands free speech.

No one is who supports people having a platform for their views is silencing those who oppose them. Its the polar opposite. Advocating open debate and the free flow of speech, ideas and views, in both directions.

If you hold a view that doesn't stand up to reasoned debate, it will fail to get widespread traction. Adversarial debate is at the heart of free nations political and judicial systems, for good reason.

 

[The Technomancer]

If you hold a view that doesn't stand up to reasoned debate, it will fail to get widespread traction. Adversarial debate is at the heart of free nations political and judicial systems, for good reason.

Which is why climate change is so highly accepted. And there's not a recent anti-vaccination movement to the point where eradicated diseases are literally returning. And a third of the country didn't just spend six months in genuine fear of Ebola

Views that don't stand up to reasoned debate gain traction all the time

 

[CLEEK]

Which is why climate change is so highly accepted. And there's not a recent anti-vaccination movement. And a third of the country didn't just spend six months in genuine fear of Ebola

Views that don't stand up to reasoned debate gain traction all the time

Climate change is widely accepted. All major nations have legislation and targets to reduce emissions. Anti vax is roundly condemed by health experts and piliticians alike.

 

[The Technomancer]

Climate change is widely accepted. All major nations have legislation and targets to reduce emissions. Anti vax is roundly condemed by health experts and piliticians alike.

Climate change remains a real fight with real obstacles within the US government with high ranking officials literally throwing snowballs to "prove" the falsity of climate change and it doesn't matter if health professionals decry the anti-vac movement if actual people are part of it and not vaccinating their kids. "Is accepted within a professional community" is not the same as "has traction", especially when it comes to matters of marginalized groups and civil rights

 

[CLEEK]

Anti vaccination is not a new thing. It dates back to the 19th century. It had a renaissance with the fradulent study linking it to autism, but that will die down. Due to the facts being provided to parents and the wider public being against it.

 

[The Technomancer]

Anti vaccination is not a new thing. It dates back to the 19th century. It had a renaissance with the fradulent study linking it to autism, but that will die down. Due to the facts being provided to parents and the wider public being against it.

It will die down...in five years? Ten years? When how much harm has already been done? I mean yes, ideas tend to win out when we look at a long scale of 50-100 years. But you understand why that's not any comfort to people who's lives are affected like right now, right? "Don't worry, if we all just talk civilly and don't get angry in 2035 trans people will be happily accepted" is not actually useful to anyone.

 

[Snowman Prophet of Doom]

Climate change remains a real fight with real obstacles within the US government, and it doesn't matter if health professionals decry the anti-vac movement if actual people are part of it and not vaccinating their kids. "Is accepted within a professional community" is not the same as "has traction", especially when it comes to matters of marginalized groups and civil rights

Greer is not accused of advocating against anybody's civil rights, however. Her sin is being on the wrong side, at present, of the debate regarding whether or not a subjective state of self-identification seemingly rooted in an objective physiological phenomenon should be validated by society. I happen to believe that she is on the objectively wrong side of that argument, based on the presently available evidence and on my own inner ethics, but I don't think being on the opposing side of a view that has only really cohered and gained traction in the last decade or so necessitates total intellectual ostracization, nor am I in favor of protests that seek to silence, rather than to counterbalance, especially in colleges.

 

[A Link to the Past]

I love watching someone bring a "free speech" argument into a thread where no free speech rights were violated and then tell people that everyone else is wrong and that they understand free speech the best.

Also, the issue with trying to equate a powerful group utilizing a tool and a marginalized group utilizing a tool is that one group can utilize it better. Criticizing the use of a tool by any person, regardless of the impact of said tool, is ridiculous. Criticizing the utilization of said tool is proper. The very ideas of silencing and marginalized people are inherently disconnected from one another (except in the terms of these people being silenced). Silence is inherently a tool of power. The tool of the marginalized is the ability to attempt to silence, and the reason they do so is because if they do not, they may not be alive. To you, this is a debate happening between two people on the Internet - to them, it's life and death. And no, that's not an exaggeration. Extreme attempts to silence anti-trans activists is the only way to quickly move us towards progress. Expecting trans people to be patient and polite and civilly debate is to expect them to watch as they're labelled as subhuman, freaks, evil, sinners, and as they watch trans people suffer because of how society treats them. No, I am not about to limit one of the most marginalized groups in the US for the sake of neutering fascists (who are not bereft of means by which to oppress people whose views or being is found unacceptable).

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Climate change is widely accepted.

LOL, tell that to almost the entirety of the GOP (who by the way controls Congress).

Anti vax is roundly condemed by health experts and piliticians alike.

So? Your claim was that bad arguments won't get traction, and that's demonstrably untrue. If it didn't, the anti-vax movement wouldn't have caused as much damage as it did, what with previously nearly-eradicated diseases coming back.

 

[East Lake]

LOL, tell that to almost the entirety of the GOP (who by the way controls Congress).


So? Your claim was that bad arguments won't get traction, and that's demonstrably untrue. If it didn't, the anti-vax movement wouldn't have caused as much damage as it did, what with previously nearly-eradicated diseases coming back.

The point is they're bad examples. anti-vax views are not widely held by the public, ebola is basically a non-issue, and climate change is even widely accepted and has more to do with issues outside of free speech. It also raises the same problem that if these views were widely held, they wouldn't be beaten back with this specific form of using power structures to squeeze out dissent.

I love watching someone bring a "free speech" argument into a thread where no free speech rights were violated and then tell people that everyone else is wrong and that they understand free speech the best.

Also, the issue with trying to equate a powerful group utilizing a tool and a marginalized group utilizing a tool is that one group can utilize it better. Criticizing the use of a tool by any person, regardless of the impact of said tool, is ridiculous. Criticizing the utilization of said tool is proper. The very ideas of silencing and marginalized people are inherently disconnected from one another (except in the terms of these people being silenced). Silence is inherently a tool of power. The tool of the marginalized is the ability to attempt to silence, and the reason they do so is because if they do not, they may not be alive. To you, this is a debate happening between two people on the Internet - to them, it's life and death. And no, that's not an exaggeration. Extreme attempts to silence anti-trans activists is the only way to quickly move us towards progress. Expecting trans people to be patient and polite and civilly debate is to expect them to watch as they're labelled as subhuman, freaks, evil, sinners, and as they watch trans people suffer because of how society treats them. No, I am not about to limit one of the most marginalized groups in the US for the sake of neutering fascists (who are not bereft of means by which to oppress people whose views or being is found unacceptable).

Who cares about the means as long as I like the ends I think sums it up.

You're also fairly myopic. You think there aren't life and death issues outside of trans specific ones that can lead to be trouble with this type of "tool"?

 

[Kenshin001]

Greer is not accused of advocating against anybody's civil rights, however. Her sin is being on the wrong side, at present, of the debate regarding whether or not a subjective state of self-identification seemingly rooted in an objective physiological phenomenon should be validated by society. I happen to believe that she is on the objectively wrong side of that argument, based on the presently available evidence and on my own inner ethics, but I don't think being on the opposing side of a view that has only really cohered and gained traction in the last decade or so necessitates total intellectual ostracization, nor am I in favor of protests that seek to silence, rather than to counterbalance, especially in colleges.

Good point. Greer doesn't hate trans people, she is not advocating they be segregated or harmed. She disagrees that a former man who identifies as a woman is the same as a woman who was born a woman. If that is something university students can not deal with then they should indeed go and hug a teddy.

 

[The Technomancer]

The point is they're bad examples. anti-vax views are not widely held by the public, ebola is basically a non-issue, and climate change is even widely accepted and has more to do with issues outside of free speech. It also raises the same problem that if these views were widely held, they wouldn't be beaten back with this specific form of using power structures to squeeze out dissent.
t

Something can be a minority opinion and still be widely held enough to be harmful. There doesn't have to be a majority of anti-vaxxers, there just have to be enough of them to fuck it up for the rest of us. And there are. The same with racists: the majority doesn't have to be racist, as long as there are enough racists attitudes and behaviors that minorities face significant degradation of quality of life we still have a problem, even if its only because 15% of the population treats them like shit.

 

[mordecaii83]

I have no problem with her being allowed to speak about empowering women at the college, there have been plenty of people that I disagree with vehemently about something that have still had good thoughts and ideas about other things.

I will say though, even though I disagree with most of what she said in the original post, I do believe that there is a legitimate and pronounced difference between someone who was biologically born a female and someone who identifies as a female without the associated body parts. Things like hormonal differences, having to deal with monthly periods, and other physical differences mean that daily life experiences are going to be different between those two groups. So I do agree with that one singular statement.

And I can understand someone who has been pushing women's rights so hard for a long period of time being annoyed at people who were previously men (and probably considered "the enemy") enjoying the fruits of all your labors. But I won't go into that.

 

[CLEEK]

I think a bunch of you need to read the OP. You are doing the US-GAF thing where you think everything relates to America.

Link talking about marginalised groups in America, others assuming that when people talk about free speech, they mean first amendment rights, people refering to GOP and congress.

This is a story about an English man defending the freedom of speech of an Australian women in a university in Wales.

 

[The Technomancer]

I think a bunch of you need to read the OP. You are doing the US-GAF think where you think everything relates to America.

Link talking about marginalised groups in America, others assuming that when people talk about free speech, they mean first amendment rights, people refering to GOP and congress.

This is a story about an English man defending the freedom of speech of an Australian women in a university in Wales.

I mean...we can shift the examples to be about xenophobia and racism in the UK and Australia if you'd like...

 

[A Link to the Past]

That's a pretty good strategy. Make an argument, and declare every single example bad because your argument fails if they aren't.

In effect though, all you're really saying is "I want these protests to only be done by powerful people." Because when you expect trans people to not do every single thing they can to get out of a position where trans panic is still a legal defense for murder, what you're ultimately going to see isn't what you care to see. Finkelstein will still be protested because no degree of stigma attached to silencing will stop the powerful people from trying. Those in power will do exactly as much protesting as they desire, and it does not matter how much the oppressed try to do the same thing. It will not change anything, so any introduction of examples of protesting being done for a bad cause is an attempt to synthesize information. You keep clinging to it, but the problem isn't solved by removing the ability to protest (AKA, "no free speech allowed *fart fart*). T he solution is to target those who are on the wrong side of things. Because without the ability to protest, they will oppress another way. There is not an extent by which we can remove tools from the powerful to limit their ability to exert that power, without entirely removing the power. Removing protesting only hurts the weakest people.

I think a bunch of you need to read the OP. You are doing the US-GAF thing where you think everything relates to America.

Link talking about marginalised groups in America, others assuming that when people talk about free speech, they mean first amendment rights, people refering to GOP and congress.

This is a story about an English man defending the freedom of speech of an Australian women in a university in Wales.

Yo, you gonna clarify what is Americanized about my discussion? Did Australia overnight become a safe place for Aboriginals or trans people? Or maybe you consider that because the UK only just very recently named trans people a protected class, that trans rights are exclusively American now?

I have no problem with her being allowed to speak about empowering women at the college, there have been plenty of people that I disagree with vehemently about something that have still had good thoughts and ideas about other things.

I will say though, even though I disagree with most of what she said in the original post, I do believe that there is a legitimate and pronounced difference between someone who was biologically born a female and someone who identifies as a female without the associated body parts. Things like hormonal differences, having to deal with monthly periods, and other physical differences mean that daily life experiences are going to be different between those two groups. So I do agree with that one singular statement.

And I can understand someone who has been pushing women's rights so hard for a long period of time being annoyed at people who were previously men (and probably considered "the enemy") enjoying the fruits of all your labors. But I won't go into that.

Well yes, but the ability to have a period can also be absent in a cisgender woman. In that singular statement, would we make a point of classifying her as different from women? It's been said at other points in the thread, but the term "real woman" is in and of itself problematic because it implies that there's a specific idealistic goal for what constitutes a woman that really, a lot of cis women don't reach. That's ultimately a huge flaw with binary gender, people don't correspond to the same points on a gender scale.

 

[CLEEK]

Again, read the OP.

This isnt about stopping protest, which is a form of free speech. Dawkins was critical of people trying to block Greer from speaking. That's not protest, that's silencing.

 

[A Link to the Past]

Silencing is an inherent element of protesting. Shouting down your targets. That they tried to get her banned says nothing more than that they were doing what every protester wants to do. The ultimate result? A group that has virtually no power got her to choose to cancel.

The approach you take to free speech is dodgy and all over the place, and it is entirely awkward how people talk of slippery slopes with speech - ie, "if we ban x from saying y, what if someone bans z from saying q?" But in and of itself, the desire to have someone banned from speaking is entirely an act of speech - and the reason given for why it's unacceptable is the same reason why it's unacceptable to censor speech in this scenario.

EDIT: Also, I like that strategy you got there - "they aren't protesting, they're silencing." I see that a lot, where people try to devalue protesters by taking the label away from them and giving them something that's less desirable, to make their actions less reasonable and less justifiable.

 

[mordecaii83]

Well yes, but the ability to have a period can also be absent in a cisgender woman. In that singular statement, would we make a point of classifying her as different from women? It's been said at other points in the thread, but the term "real woman" is in and of itself problematic because it implies that there's a specific idealistic goal for what constitutes a woman that really, a lot of cis women don't reach. That's ultimately a huge flaw with binary gender, people don't correspond to the same points on a gender scale.

Well of course some people are born with "defects", but that's very different from being born with one set of chromosomes, reproductive organs, and hormonal balance and identifying yourself as part of a group with different physical traits.

I'm not in any way trying to go into what is and isn't a "real woman", and I have no problem with how a person wants to identify. My only comment is that someone who is born as a woman with the associated biology will experience life differently because of those physical differences. Hence why I said I can agree with the small part of her overall statement where she said people without the associated biology won't understand or relate to part of what women as a whole experience.

 

[East Lake]

Silencing is an inherent element of protesting. Shouting down your targets. That they tried to get her banned says nothing more than that they were doing what every protester wants to do. The ultimate result? A group that has virtually no power got her to choose to cancel.

Not really, some people protest because they want jobs or medical care and silencing is not even a peripheral goal. It honestly sounds like you're just making this stuff up because you happen to think this is a noble goal and don't care that it can be abused. If you want to learn about protesting read Gene Sharp or something. He makes his books freely available for people in countries where the free speech laws aren't so robust, and others!

 

[The Technomancer]

Not really, some people protest because they want jobs or medical care and silencing is not even a peripheral goal. It honestly sounds like you're just making this stuff up because you happen to think this is a noble goal and don't care that it can be abused. If you want to learn about protesting read Gene Sharp or something. He makes his books freely available for people in countries where the free speech laws aren't so robust, and others!

Without diving too much further into protesting in general is it particularly likely that the people protesting in this specific incident were doing it for reasons other than being unhappy with Greer being given an opportunity to speak by the school and wanting her to not?

 

[A Link to the Past]

If we defined something as bad based on whether it can be abused, most of society is pretty fuckin' awful, because virtually nothing is beyond abuse. Boycotting a restaurant can be used abusively - and in fact, the people who are most likely to abuse it are also the ones most likely to be able to hurt the target of the boycott. Would you agree that boycotts are subject to abuse? If yes, do you think that boycotts are bad?

 

[OuterLimits]

The main difference between the Dawkins letter about Ben Stein and the Greer situation is that a commencement speech is obligatory.

If your main concern is "students should be exposed to differing ideas in college", the fact that the speech is not optional is secondary and actually pretty benign for your objectives.

So Dawkins is actually being hypocritical, even if the situations are different.



The difference is that global warming deniers do not normally insult and offend the GW proponents.

Well. Normally.

That's not the case here, Greer is intentionally offensive.

I would be extremely concerned if students started wanting to ban a climate change skeptic from speaking. There is a huge consensus with 97% supporting climate change. However, I see no problem if a scientist among the 3% wanted to argue his or her view.

 

[East Lake]

Without diving too much further into protesting in general is it particularly likely that the people protesting in this specific incident were doing it for reasons other than being unhappy with Greer being given an opportunity to speak by the school and wanting her to not?

You're asking if there are ulterior motives? I'm not saying there are, I'm saying that there are serious problems when this type of tactic is used in this setting with different subjects, which is I think undeniable. And also that it's not even clear that if 'you're on the right side of history" you even gain anything from it besides instituting a more censor prone culture. I mean you could host an anti-vaxxer, climate change denier, or ebola alarmist at Cardiff and I doubt that stuff will catch on there, but if it did I don't think pulling their events would help much.

If we defined something as bad based on whether it can be abused, most of society is pretty fuckin' awful, because virtually nothing is beyond abuse. Boycotting a restaurant can be used abusively - and in fact, the people who are most likely to abuse it are also the ones most likely to be able to hurt the target of the boycott. Would you agree that boycotts are subject to abuse? If yes, do you think that boycotts are bad?

This seems like an elaborate strawman to me. Basically most of us are saying it's dumb to protest in this specific way, not that pro trans rights protests are bad or that they ought to be banned, but in order to avoid this criticism you try to spin it as some kind of censorship itself, when it is nothing of the sort.

So there's a contrast with people who respect protests but think some are misguided with people who don't respect speech.

 

[A Link to the Past]

You never reply to this:

Please explain what it would accomplish if these protesters would not protest in this way. Throughout the entire thread, you have effectively stated that the cause of people like Finkelstein being protested by bad people is that people like these are protesting as well. Are you suggesting that if these protesters didn't protest in this way, that the Israelis you cited would do the same?

 

[East Lake]

I don't think that was asked specifically before, but it assumes something good was accomplished, like the event cancellation actually helps the cause or something, which I think is a dubious claim.

The rest of your response I don't think is quite on the mark either. One is that this type of tactic/protest used by people looking out for minorities, or the good guys lets say, isn't necessarily the cause. I kind of have to be pedantic about this because it looks like you're trying to get me to claim trans rights protesters are responsible for all the bad stuff that happens after because they're the ones who started it or something. I'm not under the impression this is a new phenomenon.

It's worth noting that Finkelstein's views became a lot more mainstream on campuses over time despite protests. So using him as a model is not necessarily an upside for the effectiveness of these types of boycotts. Then you might say "hey what's the big deal then he got past it right?" I think the danger is that it works within the institution but has zero impact on public opinion, so you're left with universities who are prone to caving in to this type of thing and nothing to show for it once people get out and realize they don't know what to so and can't have some op-ed they don't like pulled from publication.

 

[A Link to the Past]

At which point then you are taking anecdotal "it didn't work here, why would it work elsewhere?" shit. In the end, if the worst case scenario is "nothing", then there is no real problem. Ultimately however, it's not your place to determine what helps a cause that you have no real participation in or in-depth knowledge of. You have no basis to declare that it won't affect public opinion, especially when your argument is basically to cite an instance where that type of protest did not affect public opinion, a protest on a subject that is radically different from trans stuff and thus has no business being compared.

 

[East Lake]

The worst scenario is not nothing, and if I have no basis to make claims you'd have even less. I don't think you're even trying to legitimately respond anymore. I write up all these counterpoints in each post with examples and you don't address any of them and just circle back to your "it's good because it's protests." point which you haven't demonstrated to be true in any dimension.

How about reexamining whether protests intrinsically involve silencing people like you said before? Unpack that one before you move on to the next thing. It honestly sounds like someone who's primary knowledge of protesting comes through social media.

 

[A Link to the Past]

Sorry. If only my argument was as good as "bububu slippery slope!" Your original point was that these protests are problematic because they can be used in abusive ways, which as we discovered means literally nothing because for not one second does this kind of protest used by marginalized people cause or encourage its use by people who have the power or authority to abuse it. So maybe you should make sure your argument doesn't rest on a bullshit false equivalence. And make sure that you aren't trying to tell oppressed people to politely and patiently protest. Then again, that entails having a greater perspective than "sitting behind a glowing monitor's screen". I'll be sure to cry tears for all of the Greers out there. Nothing worse than "free speech has consequences."

 

[Agent Gibbs]

Its all very interesting to read, and some very good debate, but the overriding point seems lost, lots of little arguments are going on, so I'm kind of lost on where this thread has gone now, are we arguing protesting could be bad? and that debate is better than a protest?

I'd argue strikes are bad, as a public sector worker public sector strikes just allow the media to further portray us as lazy and not wanting to work, and let a government agenda of reducing public services win out.
But protests as a whole? nah they are useful and can be part of a debate

TERF... learned a new acronym. How is this a thing

Is it fundamentally a denial of the science that being transgender is a real human condition?

This is one part, it's also feminists who feel that men are trying to invade their space by trying to pretend to be women (basically, male privilege).

I wasn't aware there was a term for such beliefs until this thread, but i have encountered some feminists who don't like transgender (MtF) because they see it as men wanting to change to take advantage of the rights achieved by feminists, be them equal or superior to men!
I just thought they were disgusting people but its nice to know they have a defined term for their vitriolic views

 

[East Lake]

Sorry. If only my argument was as good as "bububu slippery slope!" Your original point was that these protests are problematic because they can be used in abusive ways, which as we discovered means literally nothing because for not one second does this kind of protest used by marginalized people cause or encourage its use by people who have the power or authority to abuse it. So maybe you should make sure your argument doesn't rest on a bullshit false equivalence. And make sure that you aren't trying to tell oppressed people to politely and patiently protest. Then again, that entails having a greater perspective than "sitting behind a glowing monitor's screen". I'll be sure to cry tears for all of the Greers out there. Nothing worse than "free speech has consequences."

Usually slippery slope deals with things that have yet to happen. I don't know how familiar you are with the term. It's good to know you don't have an answer to my last question though.

 

[A Link to the Past]

Usually slippery slope deals with things that have yet to happen. I don't know how familiar you are with the term. It's good to know you don't have an answer to my last question though.

When people claim that we'll be marrying children or marrying goats if we allow gay people to marry. This is called a slippery slope. And yet, both have happened (the former has happened many times in history all over the world, and in fact is a serious problem to this day for many people). Or to be exact: "The Slippery Slope is a fallacy in which a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another without any argument for the inevitability of the event in question." Slippery slope doesn't mean "it hasn't happened before, and will now happen." It means "Because X happened, now Y will happen" without any evidence to justify the connection. As-is, there is no valid connection between these protests besides the methods used. The protests happen independently of each other, and are more essential for one group than they are for the other. Bringing up Finkelstein bears no value beyond suggesting a slippery slope.

 

[East Lake]

Yeah I know what it means. The Y already happens and will continue to happen without any benefit, which is why the Finkelstein example is relevant and a slippery slope doesn't apply. I don't know, if you want a more concrete example like a statistical analysis of Nazi organized speech protests at Cardiff University in the 20th century I'll supply it once you have a similarly relevant paper that details all the myriad of profound ways this helps the trans movement.

 

[A Link to the Past]

The only way it's relevant is if you can show a direct connection. Otherwise, it's no better than that one guy linking to a teenager bodyslamming a principal in a thread about the cop bodyslamming a teenager. It's, at best, tangentially linked by similar elements, but they are not remotely the same situation. Without an actual connection besides the category of protest, you're synthesizing information together without the necessary, direct link. This type of protest has happened before, and was used in a bad way? Not surprising. That can be said of any form of protesting, and considering how much more common they are, they are also going to be abused significantly more often and with greater negative impact. That is not a justification for shutting down these types of protests. A minority of examples is certainly not, either.

 

[n00bsauce87]

I mean...the question then is if protests don't explicitly say "this person should not speak" then do they implicitly say it? Would massive protests at David Duke speaking not carry the same message if they were just careful not to verbally demand he not be allowed to speak?

Would that mean Anita Sarkiessian and Brianna Wu probability of not speaking due to protests (more likely threats) at events and university is a sign that "they should not speak"?

The slippery slope is the dominating opinion and that's not good. Because it could change to not allowing people with good and productive things to say (again that is a matter of opinion). Just let them all speak. It may end up convincing some people who thought people like her was the gospel to someone deeply flawed. Getting her to cancel will only enable her and supporters.

 

[East Lake]

The only way it's relevant is if you can show a direct connection. Otherwise, it's no better than that one guy linking to a teenager bodyslamming a principal in a thread about the cop bodyslamming a teenager. It's, at best, tangentially linked by similar elements, but they are not remotely the same situation. Without an actual connection besides the category of protest, you're synthesizing information together without the necessary, direct link. This type of protest has happened before, and was used in a bad way? Not surprising. That can be said of any form of protesting, and considering how much more common they are, they are also going to be abused significantly more often and with greater negative impact. That is not a justification for shutting down these types of protests. A minority of examples is certainly not, either.

You're going down a rabbit hole you can't come out of because you don't want to respond to my points, but if the burden of proof is this high and you're going to talk about direct links, I have a few you ought to apply as well.

I want detailed proof that this type of protest helps the movement.

I want detailed proof that other forms of protest are not more effective.

I want detailed proof that all forms of protest involve silencing as you've claimed above without any supporting evidence.

I want detailed proof that universities aren't negatively impacted by this culture.

If universities aren't impacted negatively, I want detailed links that there is a benefit.

I also want detailed proof that this culture is widely held and Cardiff isn't an exception from the norm.

I want detailed proof that this specific petition moves public opinion.

*And remember, apply your own restrictions to yourself. No non-trans movement examples to be used in support of your claims. Also no protests types that do not conform to this specific scenario. I don't want to hear how it worked in another time, or place for a different movement, so it will work here or any of that silliness.

 

[hesido]

I hope that should put Dawkins' defenders to rest.

What a fuckwad.

Very, very different context and meaning.

In the former, an honorary degree is in question, meaning the endorsement of this person directly. I would be surprised if he wrote a similar letter to stop someone from declaring one's views.

 

[A Link to the Past]

Unsurprisingly, almost everything you asked me to prove was "prove my unproven assertion wrong." You and your ilk made the argument of ineffectiveness, and yet the only thing provably ineffective is you.

Yawn

 

[ElFly]

Greer is not accused of advocating against anybody's civil rights, however. Her sin is being on the wrong side, at present, of the debate regarding whether or not a subjective state of self-identification seemingly rooted in an objective physiological phenomenon should be validated by society. I happen to believe that she is on the objectively wrong side of that argument, based on the presently available evidence and on my own inner ethics, but I don't think being on the opposing side of a view that has only really cohered and gained traction in the last decade or so necessitates total intellectual ostracization, nor am I in favor of protests that seek to silence, rather than to counterbalance, especially in colleges.

This is not fucking Fred Hoyle coming to speak about his theory of the static universe and getting people to reconsider the big bang.

Transphobia is a "wrong side of the argument" that gets people killed.

Why do you feel so strongly that colleges should host advocates for hate speech. She is not advocating about anyone's civil rights, but the way she has done it in the past is clearly hateful and damaging and dehumanizing.

I would be extremely concerned if students started wanting to ban a climate change skeptic from speaking. There is a huge consensus with 97% supporting climate change. However, I see no problem if a scientist among the 3% wanted to argue his or her view.

This is different. While Global Warming does pose a problem for our continued existence on the planet, it is not actively killing people right now, today.

A closer example would be antivaxers. Which is a different can of worms. And which I could see certain colleges banning, given how some of them have directly falsified their data to obtain results so the idea of inviting antivaxers to speak on a college is academically dubious.

The point that has not been substantively addressed, at all, is that Greer's talk was on women's place in politics in the 20th Century. There is nothing in the title of the talk that promises comprehensiveness, making "the exclusion of trans women"

The title of the talk is

"Women & Power: The Lessons of the 20th Century,"

It says women right there.

How is that not comprehensive.

a not particularly compelling reason why she should not be allowed to give the talk, and while at least one person says that she'll almost certainly say anti-trans things during the talk, despite it not being germane to the topic - a claim that is pure speculation, by the way

I mean, even if we _assume_ that the talk and trans issues are not related, stuff like this has already happened recently, at Cambridge, where she also gave a talk about something that, according to this assumption, should be unrelated to trans genderism, she still was questioned about trans issues, and she still made hateful remarks on trans issues. She tried to dodge, but, if your worry about colleges being a place to discuss all the ideas, dodging questions, vetoing certain questions from the students or whatever is the last thing to be done. If Greer goes to speak anywhere, she _will_ be questioned about trans genderism.

This is not speculation, it already happened.

it has not been explained how, exactly, this would render moot other potentially enlightening commentary on the subject she might offer, nor why the protest has to be centered around outright excluding her, rather than simply, y'know, creating awareness of her views and then letting other adults make the decision of whether or not the speaker having uttered such views and/or the possibility that they might subtly or overtly creep their way into the talk is enough to persuade them not to listen to her.

Well you got a speaker with a history of giving transphobic remarks during talks that are, according to you, unrelated to trans women. She is the one that pollutes her other, potentially valuable, views with transphobia.

 

[East Lake]

Unsurprisingly, almost everything you asked me to prove was "prove my unproven assertion wrong." You and your ilk made the argument of ineffectiveness, and yet the only thing provably ineffective is you.

Yawn

I don't know if it's my ilk specifically as you've shown that you're quite fine with using unproven assertions (by your standards) to support your arguments when it's convenient. Might be time to come of your high horse.

 

[Azih]

calling for them to be silenced is fine..

No it really isn't. Chilling effects are a thing which should be avoided and it's better to let ugly ideas into the light so they can be shown for what they are rather than letting them fester underground.

Nobody here is saying the students shouldn't protest. I'm saying they shouldn't call for Greer's talk to be banned.

Protest Greer.
Hold a counter-event.
Write articles about where Greer is wrong
Hold a follow-up event that highlights Greer's dangerous ideas.

These are all great and amazing things to do. Calling for Greer to be banned is a whole other thing.

Also if Greer's talk violates hate speech laws then call the police on her. If the law doesn't cover it then as a part of all the other things that's being done urge and insist that legislators expand the coverage of hate speech laws to include what Greer says. There's a reason why criminal activities are covered by laws in a civil society and not left to mob justice. Society as a whole needs to be involved in something as critical and important as what kind of speech is allowed and which is not.

 

[ElFly]

In the 90s Greer protested and then quit her job over the inclusion of a trans woman as a fellow on an all women college.

Trying to get her not to give a talk on a college is basically nothing compared to the shit she pulled.

 

[Snowman Prophet of Doom]

This is not fucking Fred Hoyle coming to speak about his theory of the static universe and getting people to reconsider the big bang.

Transphobia is a "wrong side of the argument" that gets people killed.

Why do you feel so strongly that colleges should host advocates for hate speech. She is not advocating about anyone's civil rights, but the way she has done it in the past is clearly hateful and damaging and dehumanizing.

An idea does not, in and of itself, get anyone killed. It's the human response to ideas that do that. The belief that the existence of sex atypical neurological features that cause males to self-identify as women does not actually make them women does not logically necessitate that they should be discriminated against, or that retaliatory violence against them is acceptable. Even were there not scientific evidence that transgenderism is a physiologically-based phenomenon, eliminating discrimination and the "trans panic" defense in cases of murder would be ethical things to do.

The title of the talk is

"Women & Power: The Lessons of the 20th Century,"

It says women right there.

How is that not comprehensive.

It just says "women" generally. It does not specify that all possible groups of women will be discussed. The vast, vast majority of women are not trans women, and therefore, the vast, vast majority of possible anecdotes and "lessons" about women and power in the 20th century probably do not include trans women, except tangentially or indirectly.

I mean, even if we _assume_ that the talk and trans issues are not related, stuff like this has already happened recently, at Cambridge, where she also gave a talk about something that, according to this assumption, should be unrelated to trans genderism, she still was questioned about trans issues, and she still made hateful remarks on trans issues. She tried to dodge, but, if your worry about colleges being a place to discuss all the ideas, dodging questions, vetoing certain questions from the students or whatever is the last thing to be done. If Greer goes to speak anywhere, she _will_ be questioned about trans genderism.

This is not speculation, it already happened.

Well you got a speaker with a history of giving transphobic remarks during talks that are, according to you, unrelated to trans women. She is the one that pollutes her other, potentially valuable, views with transphobia.

That Greer says such things if asked about them, but not otherwise, implies that, no, she's not going out of her way to spread her anti-trans views. And that this is the standard for disincluding her implies that, yes, the desire to silence her stems not from what she might say during the talk but from beliefs she held going into the talk. I already said that I don't think good ideas are "polluted" by bad ones, that I would be fine with having James Watson give a talk about his scientific contributions despite his throwing in with the dumbass "scientific racists" later in his life, and that I think the purpose of a protest should be to make people aware of what her views are and that regardless of the nature of the talk, they are in the air may be aired, and allow them to make an informed choice as an adult as to whether or not they still want to hear her speak.

 

[The Technomancer]

Would that mean Anita Sarkiessian and Brianna Wu probability of not speaking due to protests (more likely threats) at events and university is a sign that "they should not speak"?

The slippery slope is the dominating opinion and that's not good. Because it could change to not allowing people with good and productive things to say (again that is a matter of opinion). Just let them all speak. It may end up convincing some people who thought people like her was the gospel to someone deeply flawed. Getting her to cancel will only enable her and supporters.

I have no fundamental problem with people protesting Anita Sarkeesian or Brianna Wu. Well, I mean I think they're wrong and they shouldn't, but I don't think there's an ideological problem with the very idea of it or any reason it should be "disallowed"

If Greer was receiving consistent death threats from the protesting group, and the protesting group was going out of their way to harass her, we'd be having an extremely different conversation

 

[Erin S Kittens]

OP-ED: Germaine Greer's 'Censorship' Is a Red Herring

Worth reading all the way through, here's some excerpts:

In May of 2014, my friend Casey went to see Germaine Greer give a lecture in Winnipeg, Canada. Casey Plett wrote a Lambda Literary award-winning collection of short stories called A Safe Girl to Love, which Chelsea Manning was recently punished for reading in prison. Casey is trans, and Winnipeg is her most beloved city. I think it must have been a public silence that drove Casey to protest Greer’s talk—silence on the topic of Greer’s transphobia, silence from everyone but trans activists. Casey helped to organize a protest outside the talk. People asked why she wouldn’t go in, to debate Greer. She told them the event was sold out. But when a guy from Canada’s national TV station put a ticket in her hand, she figured—what the hell.

Why not ask Greer a question, woman to woman? And so Casey did. She got up during the Q&A and cited a piece Greer had written for The Guardian in 2009. That’s where she called trans women “ghastly parodies.” Greer claimed not to remember writing the piece. Casey brought up Greer’s book The Whole Woman, in which she writes that trans women “do as rapists have always done.” Greer didn’t acknowledge that. Then she called Casey a misogynist. The crowd applauded.

Another trans woman, Trish Salah, author of Wanting in Arabic and likewise a Lambda Literary Award winner, rose to ask another question. Greer took one look at Trish Salah and said, “All the trans people I know are such exhibitionists! It’s all about exhibitionism!” The moderator asked the two trans women to sit down. “Can we please have a different question?” the moderator asked. “On a different subject?”

It is fair for my friend Casey to ask a feminist public figure to address her remarks about a certain category of women. She deserves an answer, not the assertion that her question is inherently “highly misogynistic”—Greer’s exact words—and thus forbidden. Trish Salah deserves an answer, not to be told to sit down and shut up simply on the basis of seeming recognizably trans.

Here’s what actually happened: Cardiff University’s Women’s Association had a conversation with its members about Greer’s planned lecture on November 18, 2015. They decided they couldn’t welcome Greer’s unapologetic transphobia into their community. Bearing in mind the way that ideology like Greer’s materially affects trans women—by limiting their health care options as a result of Janice Raymond’s report to the American government on trans health care, by pushing trans women out of domestic violence shelters even though trans women are disproportionately affected by domestic violence—that choice makes sense. It is also worth mentioning that this is an issue of money. Greer doubtless demands a hefty fee to speak at an institution. The Cardiff University Women’s Association seems not to want to line her pockets with money that might otherwise go towards what they view as more worthy goals.

Germaine Greer then wrote an op-ed for The Guardian, a U.K. newspaper read internationally, discussing how she’d been silenced and censored. Then she went on BBC Two, on a show called Newsnight, and she talked about how she’d been silenced and censored. In both of these outlets, she reiterated in even stronger terms her distaste for trans people. I won’t quote her remarks. The inherent irony—that The Guardian and Newsnight are much larger platforms than the Cardiff Student Union—seems lost on Germaine Greer. The facts about free speech and censorship—that censorship is categorically the province of the state, which was not involved here, and that absolute free speech does not legally exist in the U.K.—seem lost on her too.

But the myth of the all-powerful cabal is a familiar myth about oppressed people. It evokes the insistence of the anti-Semite that there’s some huge Jewish banker cabal behind all the evil in the world, or the racist grandfather grumbling that now that Obama’s been elected, the blacks are in charge and ruining everything. Or the entitled men’s rights activist in his basement, exhorting us all to take the red pill so we can finally understand how bloodsucking women control us all.

As for my friend Casey at Greer’s lecture in Winnipeg—she did all the right things. She attended the event. She expressed her disagreement through peaceful protest. She asked a question. Did a robust debate ensue? You already know what happened. And after? The day after, Germaine Greer was interviewed sympathetically on national Canadian television by the very man who’d offered Casey a ticket into the lecture. “We got sympathetic press coverage the day before,” Casey told me. “You can find it in both the Winnipeg Free Press and the Winnipeg Metro. But after this happened—nothing.”

 

[Astral Dog]

Who is this Germaine Greer and why this Richard Dawkins is giving her attention? sounds like an asshole.

 

[Atilac]

OP-ED: Germaine Greer's 'Censorship' Is a Red Herring

Worth reading all the way through, here's some excerpts:

I for one am shocked, shocked a bigoted person would act this way.

 

[karasu]

Good on the students. People don't deserve platforms just because they want to loudly spew their ignorance. If nobody wants to hear that shit, fuck off. This idea that bigots deserve the right to be heard for arguments sake is asinine. if you want to have a discussion about trans issues you have one like a civilized adult without talking down to people and expecting them to listen to you simply because you have a voice.