Martin Hanson
by Martin Hanson, Nelson
Before I begin, we need to get one thing sorted. My dictionary defines a “phobia” as “a fear, aversion, or hatred, especially (if it is) morbid or irrational”. The Merriam Webster dictionary says it is “an exaggerated, usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation”. So, we can safely say that it is “an irrational or illogical fear, or to satisfy those readers who want some wiggle room, an “unreasonable dislike”.
With that out of the way, I’ll set out my position on some free speech issues raised by the storm around Posie Parker’s visit, and leave readers to decide where I stand.
From the perspective of someone on the sidelines, it is difficult to avoid one’s views being coloured by the more sensational cases one reads about, so if the following case is not representative, I’m sure readers will enlighten me.
Until October 2021 Kathleen Stock was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sussex, UK, but a vitriolic campaign by students calling for her dismissal on grounds of “transphobia” led to her resignation. This, despite an open letter in her support by 200 UK academic philosophers.
So what did Stock actually say? Speaking to a local newspaper she said:
“I am definitely not saying that trans women are particularly dangerous — they are definitely not,” she said.
“Most trans people are law abiding and wouldn’t dream of harming anyone. However, many trans women are still males with male genitalia, many are sexually attracted to females, and they should not be in places where females undress or sleep in a completely unrestricted way.
“Violence against females is endemic. Trans women are biologically male, and though most are law-abiding, some small proportion are not. There is a general social need to continue to protect females in communal female-only spaces from the possibility of male violence.”
In an interview on BBC’s Woman’s Hour, Stock said that a small group of colleagues had “radically misrepresented” her views on gender. She said that “feeling unsafe doesn’t mean you are unsafe” and that she hoped the students realise “the world is not as hostile towards them as they think it is”.
So, it all boils down to this. Two groups of people feel threatened:
· Sussex university students feel unsafe when a professor states that sex (as opposed to gender) cannot be changed, and that biological males should not be in places where biological females undress.
· Biological females in public changing rooms feel uncomfortable, if not unsafe, if a biological male were to enter.
Which threat is the more real? You decide.
For anyone still sitting on the fence, consider the following case. A volunteer working for the Australian Breastfeeding Association was sacked last year for “hate speech” after repeatedly using the word “mother” in social media posts, instead of the transgender-inclusive term “parent”.
Jasmine Sussex was interviewed by Ben Fordham about the association’s push to move towards gender-neutral terminology that would classify the term “mother” as “hate speech”.
Sussex said she lost her job because she “excessively” used the word “mother”, after the association partnered with Rainbow Families NSW to promote the use of gender-neutral language.
The United Nations defines “hate speech” as “any kind of communication in speech, writing or behaviour, that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are, in other words, based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, colour, descent, gender or other identity factor.”
Virtually all the New Zealand population uses the term “mother”. I certainly do, so are we all guilty of “hate speech”?