There is a new example of how free speech values are declining in England, particularly on college campuses this week. Students at Cardiff University launched an online petition trying to bar Germaine Greer, the Australian feminist author, from speaking at the school next month because of her views on transgender women. Rather than recognize that Greer has an opinion to share as part of the pluralistic academic forum, these students sought to bar her from sharing her views and engaging in a debate in the area. To its credit, the university has thus far stayed committed to free speech and refuses to bar Greer.
Rachael Melhuish, women’s officer at the Cardiff University Students’ Union, is reportedly the architect of the petition, which denounces how Greer has “demonstrated time and time again her misogynistic views towards trans women, including continually ‘misgendering’ trans women and denying the existence of transphobia altogether.”
England has seen the rise of calls for speech prosecutions, including this month. We have previously discussed the alarming rollback on free speech rights in the West, particularly in England ( here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here).
As we have seen in France and the United States, there is a distressing trend among students in becoming agents for censorship and intolerance of rivaling views. Once the defenders of free speech, college students now often treat the censorship of opposing views as an article of faith.
The controversy over Greer is a good example. Some 880 students signed a petition to bar Greer, 76, who wrote “The Female Eunuch.” The book is viewed as one of the classic feminist works and attacks “traditional” suburban, consumerist, nuclear family” values that Greer views as repressive for women. I do not agree with many of Greer’s views but she is a provocative and passionate voice to bring to a campus. Critics however cite a 2009 column in which Greer describes transgender women as mere parodies of women and reflecting “a man’s delusion that he is female.” She is also quoted as telling the Varsity, Cambridge University’s student newspaper, that transgender women do not know what it is like to have a vagina.
Greer correctly questions the basis for barring someone from speaking solely because you disagree with their values or arguments. She objected that “[w]hat they are saying is that because I don’t think surgery will turn a man into a woman I should not be allowed to speak anywhere. . . . That happens to be an opinion.”
The effort to ban Greer from the university is no noble act. It is actively seeking to prevent other students from hearing the views of a controversial figure. While some of us may disagree with Greer on many of her views, she is unquestionably one of the most influential figures in the area. Barring her is little different from maintaining a speech code at Cardiff.
Source: NY Times
Let’s ask a simpler question:
Who qualifies as a woman now, what is a definition of ‘female’ acceptable to you leftists?
“Women face more hurdles that those concerning their reproductive organs.”
True. And yet, no one argued otherwise.
Logical fallacy number 1.
At a minimum, women do in fact face hurdles having to do with reproduction, including the related organs and hormones.
Transgenders do not face those hurdles, so you are quite wrong, as I stated
I have proven that transgendered women do NOT face the same hurdles that all women face.
“You are reducing a woman to walking talking uterus.”
This deceptive argument is either because:
1. SJWs always project, or
2. you created another Straw man.
Or both.
Logical fallacy number 2.
Women face more hurdles that those concerning their reproductive organs. You are reducing a woman to walking talking uterus. Very telling.
You stated that “transgendered women face the same hurdles that all women face.”
1. Transgenders cannot menstruate.
2. Transgenders cannot get pregnant.
Therefore you are wrong.
Transgendered women clearly do NOT face the same hurdles that all women face.
Moreover, you are reducing being a female to the simple act of saying that one is female.
By your definition, one could change genders 16 times a day.
Ludicrous.
“Being a woman is more than her reproductive abilities and her bodily fluids.”
Attacking an argument that no one made is called the Straw man fallacy.
Steg
1, October 27, 2015 at 12:10 pm
Annie
1, October 27, 2015 at 11:58 am
“Transgendered women face the same hurdles that all women face. ”
Like childbirth? Shouldn’t women find it disgusting that a man can claim to feel he is a woman, and now all of a sudden he just ‘knows’ what it’s like to endure the hardships of being a woman?”
************
Being a woman is more than her ability to bear children.
————————
KCFleming
1, October 27, 2015 at 12:07 pm
“Transgendered women face the same hurdles that all women face. ”
“Do they menstruate?
Do they get pregnant?”
***********
Being a woman is more than her reproductive abilities and her bodily fluids.
What misogynistic nonsense.
Let’s see. There are massive columns of ISIS marching into Europe without restraint.
Gender mutilation and free speech will be the least of England’s and Europe’s worries when Sharia law is implemented. America has already been diluted out of existence.
You can bet that ISIS will repeal the 19th Amendment.
@stevegroen
“The Taliban would love you.”
Comparing traditionalists to the Taliban is petty and weak.
However, you were able to combine the logical fallacies of Guilt by Association, False Dilemma, and Ad Hominem in one swell foop, so kudos on that.
Repeal the 19th Amendment.
Enough with the hysteria.
You humans on Planet Earth are of two sexes. As Mark Twain once said: Never The Twain Shall Meet.
To even suggest that some male who has a p thing is somehow a female because he is “transgender” is a joke. And what doctor on Earth would go so far as to do surgery to cut the p thing off and then carve out a cave for some male to penetrate with his p thing?
This is absurd.
I’m very curious where Turley stands on the fact that Canada and several European nations imprison persons who committed the thought crime of disagreeing with the state-approved definition of the holocaust.
The defense of such thought crime is necessity to defend the lives of innocents. Once you cross that threshold, a lot of doors open to the same argument. In fact some global warming thought police invoked the very same claim to justify global warming thought crime. “Denial” is the key word, cementing the position that debate is closed on the subject, same as the state-approved definition of holocaust.
Some proclaim the state approved definition of the holocaust is as obvious as gravity. It’s ludicrous to support prison term for those who disagree with something as obvious as gravity.
I mean while the child is under your legal responsibility and is NOT an adult you are the parent and make final decisions.
Yours is an extremely traditional position, wherein the parent is the final arbiter of the child’s decisions even when the child becomes an adult.
@ Steve
Do you have a reading comprehension problem? I wrote this You decide all sorts of things for your children LONG before grade school and even longer, during school and until they are adults or reach majority.
Once the child is no longer a child, under your legal responsibility, you are the parent and ultimately make the decisions. Of course, you can and should consult with your kids and let them help make the decisions. However, the big life changing irrevocable cut off your dick decisions are not negotiable with children.
Adults can do what they want and can face the consequences of their actions. Age of majority varies by state but can generally be assumed to be at 18 or upon graduation from school. Age of emancipation can be younger and requires a court proceeding.
This gender debate is beyond strange. Couple weeks ago here in N. Utah (Cache Valley) a guy did the gender change operation, then still did not like him/her/itself any more than before. So he writes a letter blaming the following on all the haters in the world: he jumps IFO a truck traveling 50mph and splatters himself all over the vehicle, endangering the lives of several persons.
In its act of extreme hypocrisy, he/she/it hates haters so much that it endangers the lives of several complete strangers, one of whom might even be a transgender victim of hate like itself.
Yeah, very nice.
The problem seems to be that so many people today view their opinions not as opinions, but as revealed truth. So they become like the Puritans banning speech that, in their view, is not just incorrect but actually a sin against nature. There are many issues on which I disagree with the 1960s left, but I admire their fight for free speech.
The response to speech with which one disagrees is more speech. I am grateful to the 1960s free speech movement – I was a beneficiary when I attended college in the 1970s. I remember heated debates with friends well into the night on all matter of subjects. It bothers me to think that today’s students could be disciplined for saying the “wrong” thing to a sensitive fellow student, or that controversial speakers are routinely “disinvited” to campus events.
All the transgender hoo hah aside.
The issue is that some special snowflake/fascist students want to keep Ms Greer from speaking because she holds an opinion that they don’t like. Ms. Greer said in the interview, that this topic (transgender) was not even a topic that she was going to discuss and which she has not even written anything about recently.
It is just her opinion and they don’t like it, therefore Ms Greer should be silenced about everything and anything. Shut up they explain….
What intolerant, closed minded, ignorant little twits (I wanted to use a letter “a” instead of an “i” here, but also want my post to show 🙂
How in the world are they going to deal with reality when they encounter people who don’t give a rip about their delicate feelings and who are more than willing to let them know that their hysterical reactions and pearl clutching don’t matter to anyone else?
Why is it called gender reassignment surgery anyway? It’s not as though some doctor assigned the individual to be one thing and it was decided at a later date to be assigned something else. It should be more like Gender Nullification surgery.
Annie
1, October 27, 2015 at 11:58 am
“Transgendered women face the same hurdles that all women face. ”
Like childbirth? Shouldn’t women find it disgusting that a man can claim to feel he is a woman, and now all of a sudden he just ‘knows’ what it’s like to endure the hardships of being a woman? Wouldn’t feminists object to this usurpation of identity? All the years of struggles for women’s rights by actual women, can now be enjoyed and utilized by men. The struggle for women’s rights was really for men!
Feminism should be inclusive to these women who choose to live as a woman for whatever their reasons may be.
They can live and pretend all they want. A male XY who chooses to alter himself to look like and act like a woman….can never be female XX.
You can alter your body with modifications, like this guy who wants to be a parrot. http://www.caribbeanfevercommunity.com/profiles/blogs/parrot-obsessed-man-56-has-his-ears-cut-off-to-look-more-like-his Remove your ears, have a plastic surgeon create a beak, glue feathers to your body……you will never be a parrot no matter how loud you squawk>
Germaine Greer said it best!
Just because you lop off your dick and then wear a dress doesn’t make you a f**cking woman. I’ve asked my doctor to give me long ears and liver spots and I’m going to wear a brown coat but that won’t turn me into a f**cking cocker spaniel.
I’m beginning to really like this woman!
“Transgendered women face the same hurdles that all women face. ”
Do they menstruate?
Do they get pregnant?
Do they have trouble killing bugs?
Anorexics aren’t fat simply because they think so.
Transgenders aren’t females simply because they think so.
Putting a cat in the oven doesn’t make it a biscuit.
But the PC fascists don’t care about facts.
This isn’t about facts but feelings.
Emotions rule the liberal’s world.
That’s the main difference here.
On the left, emotion trumps reason.