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Radical Feminists Unite is a Toronto-based organization of diverse women who work toward the preservation and advancement of the rights of women and girls. We have organized a lecture at a Toronto Public Library branch by Canadian feminist journalist Meghan Murphy, taking place on October 29th. We are not a hate group, and we do not espouse hate speech, or advocate for the removal of rights from any marginalized group.
We have invited Meghan Murphy to speak because she is respected as an important feminist voice, not only in Canada, but around the world. She has built one of the largest and most read feminist websites in the English speaking world, and has exemplified bravery and steadfastness in her refusal to back down on behalf of women.
Neither we, nor Meghan, are looking to remove anyone’s right to safety, dignity, and freedom from discrimination. We believe that these are fundamental rights that should be guaranteed to all human beings. With regard to trans people, and specifically trans women, we believe that specialized services such as rape shelters, prison accommodations, gender neutral washrooms, and other social programs should be available to meet their specific needs as a marginalized community. To state that we are looking to take away these rights, and that we even question the existence and humanity of trans people, is an outright falsehood.
In 2017 Meghan Murphy testified before the senate regarding the impact bill C-16 would have on women and girls. She focused on how we define men and women, what it means to be male or female, and how masculinity and femininity have been the tools of our oppression. She talked about the dangers of enshrining something as ill-defined as gender identity in Canadian law. Meghan pointed out that the ability for males to be accepted as women on the basis of their internal sense of gender identity, rather than being classified according to sex, has widespread consequences for women. We believe these consequences cannot be ignored and should be discussed.
Bill C-16 added Gender Identity and Gender Expression to the Canadian Human Rights Act. On the surface, this appears to be an important and progressive step for the rights of trans people. But this amendment actually comes into conflict with other protected characteristics also named in the Canadian Human Rights Act, such as the right to single sex spaces and provisions, and freedom of religion (for women who, due to their religion, are prohibited from sharing intimate spaces or coming into physical contact with males); as well as complicating rights guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, such as freedom of association, and freedom of thought, belief, opinion, and expression. A good example of how these rights compete with each other can be found in the case of JY vs Various Waxing Salons, which was heard before the BC Human Rights Tribunal in July, and is currently pending a decision.
Practically, we believe there is an important difference between males and females, and that being able to distinguish between the two in law is essential to the maintenance of women’s rights. This does not mean we deny the existence of trans people, who may experience gender and/or sex dysphoria and come to identify more closely with the gender roles associated with the opposite sex. We do believe, though, that a discussion needs to be had about how this affects women’s existing, hard won rights- specifically the right to single sex spaces such as prisons, changing rooms, rape shelters, and women’s sports. We also believe that the choice of Statistics Canada to record statistics by self-identified gender, rather than biological sex, will have a negative impact on the ability of advocates to track violence against women and trans people, as well as to know who commits particular crimes, and who the victims of those crimes are. As these stats are used by policy makers and private researchers, it is our contention that the accurate representation of sex in these stats is vital to the well-being of women and trans people.
This event, while now sold out, was open to the public, and will have a question period following Meghan Murphy’s presentation. We consciously priced the tickets at $5 each, so that the event would be as accessible as possible to all. It is our hope that this event will open a desperately needed dialogue among people who hold many different thoughts, opinions, and beliefs.
We are honoured to host Meghan Murphy here in Toronto. An understanding of biological sex is not hateful, and meeting to listen and discuss the impact of the collision of sex and gender in Canadian legislation does not amount to the promotion of discrimination, contempt, or hatred. We would like to see all marginalized people provided for, and think there are solutions to these issues of competing rights, but finding and creating those solutions requires an open and honest discussion of sex, gender, and the law.
The VPS is not allowing both UBC and the VPL to participate in the parade because both institutions allowed controversial speakers to hold events at their venues on the basis of free speech. However, the VPS deems both speakers—anti–SOGI activist Jenn Smith and Feminist Current founder Meghan Murphy—as discriminatory and transphobic.
The terms ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusivity’ get thrown around quite a bit these days. I think it is important to note that as of late these concepts are becoming more of gatekeeping ritual than anything else. Quashing and silencing critical opinion in the name of diversity is chillingly ironic, but it is happening and the latest example is in Vancouver with their Pride Committee. I applaud David Cavey and his decision not to attend pride due to the totalitarian stance they are taking toward the Vancouver Public Library. Vancouver pride actively tears at the laws and practices that have allowed events like Pride to actualize, I imagine because ideological purity is more important than the base principles of a free and democratic society.
What was the Vancouver Public Library’s crime? Hosting an event that featured Meghan Murphy as a speaker. Honestly, Vancouver Pride can take the expressway to ‘go fuck yourself’ at this point. If your ideology requires the silencing and deplatforming of feminist critics then exactly how strong and just are the arguments that support your cause? Not allowing your critics to speak is bullshit and is indicative , in my opinion, of an misogynistically incoherent set of beliefs.
In the Feminist Current Tonje Gjevjon writes:
“In Vancouver, federal Conservative candidate David Cavey announced he wouldn’t be marching in the city’s Pride parade this weekend after the Vancouver Pride Society (VPS) banned the University of British Columbia and the Vancouver Public Library from participating. Cavey has marched in the parade in the past, but took a stand in favour of free speech, challenging the VPS decision to ban UBC and the VPL for allowing speakers who challenge transgender ideology to book space for events. In a press release, Cavey stated:
“As publicly funded institutions, both are obligated to ‘host’ whomever wishes to rent their property — within the limits of the law. They don’t necessarily agree with the speakers. But to punish them for following their obligation to respect free speech, the exchange of ideas and intellectual freedom, is plainly wrong…
…We encourage other political leaders and campaigns to join us in taking a principled stand on behalf of UBC and the VPL on inclusiveness, free speech, intellectual freedom, and diversity of opinion and refuse to march in the parade unless its organizers reinstate these respected local institutions.”
He was promptly accused of “transphobia” by Nicola Spurling, a member of the BC Green Party.
When it comes to Pride, everyone is expected to join in, whether they want to or not.”
Free speech, or the ability to speak one’s mind in public without physical/material consequences, is one of the hallmarks of democratic society. Now if everyone was nice, and peace ruled the world, I think the concept of free speech would be less problematic.
I’d like to talk about three ideas regarding free speech, the first being our responsibility in maintaining it, the second being the seeming incongruity when it comes to individuals who use protected speech to promote hate, and thirdly the tie in with Radical Feminism versus the gender identity set.
Free speech, like voting, or freedom of movement for most is a quality we often overlook in our daily lives. We’ve always had it, it has always been there and there has been no reason to critically examine our responsibilities in context of the maintenance of our freedom to speak our mind in public.
Our collective casual acceptance (perhaps even apathy) in terms of the general public is problematic because it would seem that, until one starts feeling the push back when one speaks, the general collective sentiment is that there are no problems with the status quo and people can pretty much say what they want. People in general though, are dumb and we should not be content with this lax stewardship. Please see any social media platform that is open to the general public as evidence of such.
We hive off and create our own tribal communities and proceed to chuck rhetorical rocks over the wall at the other camps that oppose our viewpoints. From what I’ve been able to observe, the process starts and does not end with regards to rocks being thrown. Authentic engagement comes a distant second to outrage, manufactured or otherwise, and debate shares a similar fate versus trading insults and fellifluous comments.
Thank you, Social Media…
Social media has given us the means to exercise our right to free speech, but not the concurrent responsibilities that go along with placing one’s opinion in the public sphere, not to mention the intellectual responsibilities of offering fact based arguments and being charitable to the inevitable counter-arguments that occur. So in a way, we are maintaining free-speech, just that the calibre of the discourse is absolute tosh. Another unsavoury aspect of the current public chatter is that amplification of thoughts and ideas to such an extent that the nuance is lost, and the remaining message garbled as it is, is blasted out to the vox populi to take sides over and being the rock throwing process.
It is therefore unsurprising that many intellectuals and educated individuals want no part of the social media driven discourse. It is a wrestling with pigs sort of situation. However, the problem is that despite the raucous nature of discourse, it bleeds over into the real world and can and often does affect society, necessarily so. It is distressing though, because although the speech is free and generally unencumbered, the signal to noise ratio makes dross the most likely outcome on many of the issues that make it into and out of the public social media sphere.
I’m not sure what we can do about that when we have a media and journalistic corps that are profoundly unable to tell the truth about what is happening in the world. The state of the news media is a post for another though, lets leave it with the very basic idea that GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out) is a maxim that applies to our news media, and we as a society are suffering the consequences of a ill-informed public.
So free speech being exercised and maintained, but in a bluntly oblivious form that may not be beneficial for the advancement of society. We can classify ‘hate speech’ squarely into this category. This is a distinctly Canadian phenomena, so let’s define what hate speech is, via Wikipedia’s entry on Hate Speech Laws in Canada.
“The various laws which refer to “hatred” do not define it. The Supreme Court has explained the meaning of the term in various cases which have come before the Court. For example, in R v Keegstra, decided in 1990, Chief Justice Dickson for the majority explained the meaning of “hatred” in the context of the Criminal Code:
Hatred is predicated on destruction, and hatred against identifiable groups therefore thrives on insensitivity, bigotry and destruction of both the target group and of the values of our society. Hatred in this sense is a most extreme emotion that belies reason; an emotion that, if exercised against members of an identifiable group, implies that those individuals are to be despised, scorned, denied respect and made subject to ill-treatment on the basis of group affiliation.[4]
More recently, in 2013, Justice Rothstein, speaking for the unanimous court, explained the meaning of “hatred” in similar terms, in relation to the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code:
In my view, “detestation” and “vilification” aptly describe the harmful effect that the Code seeks to eliminate. Representations that expose a target group to detestation tend to inspire enmity and extreme ill-will against them, which goes beyond mere disdain or dislike. Representations vilifying a person or group will seek to abuse, denigrate or delegitimize them, to render them lawless, dangerous, unworthy or unacceptable in the eyes of the audience. Expression exposing vulnerable groups to detestation and vilification goes far beyond merely discrediting, humiliating or offending the victims.[5]“
Sounds good, right? The recent rise of the false populist-nationalist right in North America (and the world) has put considerable stress on free speech and what we consider to be hate speech because so much of what these ideologies espouse can be considered hateful, corrosive, and essentially banal in nature.
Should the speech of the false-populist right be banned? Absolutely not, it must be challenged though, at every turn and shown to people for what it is. And that folks, is a tall order because of the problems I mentioned earlier about our new preferred methods of debate and discourse. Social media. The false-populist messaging is simple and stirring and benefits greatly from the amplification in social media, but suffers little distortion because of the simplicity of the message. The message being roughly this:
“Right-wing populism in the Western world is generally—though not exclusively—associated with ideologies such as anti-environmentalism,neo-nationalism,anti-globalization,nativism,protectionism,and opposition to immigration.”
The messaging plays directly on the general populations fears, and allows the problems of the nation to be unfairly pinned on a subcategory of people who are vulnerable and easy 
to scapegoat. False populist messaging can be countered, but the medium of debate works against those who seek to argue and debate false populist points because nuance and detailed refutations are not the currency social media deals in. So instead we get catchy slogans like “punch a nazi” and the “alt-right” which are both statements that originated on the left side of the political spectrum, but are profoundly unhelpful in combating the false-populist ideology and messaging that presently, has a strong foothold in our social media platforms.
The medium really is the message – social media is polarizing – let’s look at this latest tweet making the rounds in the left-twittersphere:
“Wenn ein Nazi am Tisch sitzt, und daneben 10 andere, die dasitzen und mit ihm diskutieren, dann hast du einen Tisch mit 11 Nazis.” – (English Translation)- “As we say in Germany, if there’s a Nazi at the table and 10 other people sitting there talking to him, you got a table with 11 Nazis.”
What do we do with this? The sentiment is good, one shouldn’t tolerate Nazi ideology and by sitting idle, one tacitly condones it. But, what about free speech? So many contextual aspects in this situation are rubbing up against each other. Corrosive ideology has no place in a free society, but should there be a space for it to flourish in the public sphere? Is the German quote appropriate for North America where there has been proto-fascist movements, but never in power? Where does the argument for tolerance come into play, because this is at face-value, is most definitely an intolerant statement.
Taken in the German social-political context, I have no problems with it. However, throw it into the social media public sphere where it adds fuel to the fire that generally reverberates as “anyone who I disagree with politically, is a Nazi” and the statement becomes much more problematic. Make no mistake, there is a large nuance vacuum on both the left and right side of the political divide (to both sides detriment).
It’s too easy to simply brand someone a Nazi and demand their speech be taken down. Yet, how does one actively guard against the rise of actual fascism and not curtail free speech in the process is a key issue in these debates. False-populist ideology can easily careen into straight up fascism and the genocidal bent that goes along with it, so how do we deal with it? I do not think there is a good answer, at least not until we get more public engagement and understanding in the social sphere.
I’m a teacher so my biases lean toward more education and knowledge being a strong tonic against the mistakes humanity has made in the past. Yet, all the cruelty and barbarism that has occurred (20th and 21st century) and is still occurring has happened under the not so watchful guise of an ‘educated’ public. The answer might not lay in more education, but a social system that holds each individual to a higher standard of accountability and understanding of their role and responsibility within the world. Something better than the “fuck you, I’ve got mine” mentality that has such a sure grip on the current social zeitgeist.
Let’s make part three a separate post, as this piece is overlong already.
See the other award winners at the Quillette.
Pornography is not free speech. It is a teaching tool for toxic patriarchal values that hurt women. Need to start looking into the topic of the harms of pornography? This list isn’t a bad place to start.
https://bunnyemily.tumblr.com/post/181348764986/radicalacceptance-tell-me-again-how
Longish essay on counterpunch, this pull quote doesn’t reflect the thesis of the piece, but rather something that should be concerning to progressives and people who want to see change in society. The status-quo is resilient for a reason, and not taking that into account pretty much dooms whatever project you happen to be working for to failure.
“It’s foolish to think that the failure of previous non-violent protests to change state structures can be blamed on the failure of the tactics, rather than the failure of the underlying politics in other domains. Those mass movements either did not achieve popular support, or, more poignantly, they did, but that support was coopted and channeled into an electoral theater and a political leadership that undermined and effectively annulled their goals, and turned energetic popular opposition back into apathy and acceptance. The transition from millions of antiwar protestors on the streets against the Vietnam and Iraq wars to <crickets> in the face of Obama’s Libya-Syria-Yemen-drones-around-the-world wars, illustrates that sad political dynamic.”
And there we have the problem folks. The status-quo only persists because we allow it to. Without changing the underlying political structures and features of a democracy, you can only count on one aspect, and that is ‘more of the same’.
The New York Times has featured Lindy West writing on the free speech conundrum on how entitled white dudes are getting their knickers in a knot because minorities and non white dudes dare to criticize features of society that make dudes happy.
See the flaming mound of poo that is “Gamer Gate” or any forum in which a feminist view/critique of society is presented. Good times. Today’s lesson is that criticism is not anti-free speech and conflating the two ideas because your pet notions don’t stand up to analysis is toddler level defence of your position.
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
Dead Wild Roses 
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