Trans community wrong in attempt to silence critics

Dialogue is critical to positive change, writes Cleta Brown.

The Vancouver Public Library and the University of B.C. have recently come under fire for giving certain speakers public platforms. Many members of the transgender community consider these speakers to be reprehensible proponents of hate speech toward transgender people, and refer to them as trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs). More recently, the Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter building was defaced with graffiti that read: “Kill TERFs — Trans Power.”

Demonizing and silencing people and ideas has a long and often violent history. Recognizing this dark past, modern democracies have placed a premium value on the expression of free speech. In fact, we have come to define and measure democracies by their adherence to free speech in the public sphere.

In Vancouver, transgender activism is controversial, particularly because there are fiercely vocal groups who refuse to countenance people who question their positions. Their ideology is pretty new to many people and is radical in the sense that it challenges long-established beliefs about who are men and women.

This is as momentous a challenge as the women’s movement or the civil rights movement were in terms of questioning long-accepted norms.

For example, women are no longer the property of their husbands and are equal to men. Men loving men and women loving women are no longer crimes. These ideas are no longer controversial, but they were for hundreds or even thousands of years. Changing our understanding of gender and sex is just as revolutionary.

As in the past, people should be unafraid to discuss these new concepts, to question them and to debate their meaning and potential effects on themselves and society. This is what occurred when people challenged slavery, segregation, Indigenous assimilation, women’s equality and gay and lesbian equality rights. That is how a democracy learns and interprets new ideas. We should not demonize those who disagree with us.

To deny their speech embraces the very intolerance they deride.

Canadians generally do not name call or demonize others, even when there is a fundamental disagreement as to values and beliefs. We engage in civil discussion or we leave it alone. It is therefore disappointing to hear people using epithets like “TERF” toward women with whom they disagree. As Canadians, we are better than this.

The justification for the recent acts in Vancouver is these women are hatemongers who wish to deny transgender people their rights. Many women have challenged the ideology and been attacked for it. To deny their speech embraces the very intolerance they deride. Just as transgender activists are worthy of respect and understanding, so are their critics.

Efforts to silence and exclude so-called “TERF” women from as many public spaces as possible effectively shuts down entirely the voices of women who may disagree, and want to exercise their democratic right to discussion in a public forum.

Imagine if Nelson Mandela had said, “We will not listen or speak to the white man!” It is easy to conceive of the endless bloodshed that would have ensued. Canadians can handle polarizing and passionate differences and move forward if we follow the example of this great man and insist on dialogue.

With these recent actions in Vancouver, we are witnessing what happens in the absence of respectful discussion. Let the libraries and universities and the media provide forums for public discussion, and let individuals speak and debate without fear or intimidation.