Master and Senior Tutor of Caius College, Cambridge on the subject of free speech

This line from the article struck me:

"You call the likes of Joyce “transphobic”. To this I say, what have you to fear from conversations about appropriate healthcare? What are you afraid of?"

I burst out laughing at that varsity article saying “we are worried that people will listen to her talk and agree with her “easy answers”. Well, that’s how debates work. People have their minds changed by persuasive, solid arguments. If the trans rights activists find their points too difficult or complex or vague such that people prefer the clarity of gender critical concepts they might want to have a think about why this is rather than stomp their feet and say “the gender crits must be silenced!”

its just mind boggling because if you think your opponent is mistaken you would surely LOVE to let them speak so you can point out all the ways they are wrong. See the evolution versus creationism debate or the gay marriage debate. They are straight up admitting that gender crits have such strong arguments that can’t possibly be countered and so they have to be silenced! The only reason trans activists don’t want Helen to speak is because they know they can’t counter what she says (because it’s true).

I also find this idea that you can’t live with people who hold different opinions really bizarre. I’ve worked with evangelical religious people, extreme conservatives… people who I disagree with politically. But the mere fact they hold these views doesn’t bother me. I’m not worried about being bisexual and working with religious people , and it doesn’t upset me that they may strongly oppose my orientation. Why would people’s personal thoughts upset me?

I think you're raising a very good point - if we're going to use the free speech defence, we need to back it even when it doesn't suit our objectives - but I don't think donors are backing out because the college/sociology faculty don't hold their views. They're withdrawing funding because some of the college/faculty staff have abused their power. They've being reactive and repressive, and are somehow not able to discern between uncomfortable views and harmful views. Surely it makes you wonder whether it's worth funding that!

Great piece by Charlie.
I don’t agree there are trans people as some kind of separate entity though. There are people with gender dysphoria, some of whom will have that dysphoria relieved by transitioning.

Then there are people who would like to be perceived as the opposite sex, for a whole variety of reasons, the bulk of which is made up by people with the Acronym That Must Not Be Named.

Yes, a great piece by Charlie.

Douglas Murray has a very good piece about the Gonville and Caius saga in the Telegraph:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/11/07/donors-can-hit-woke-universities-where-hurts/

He argues that donors to universities can have an influence by withholding money when unis start interfering with free speech.

The only thing that worries me is that this is arguably the same position - but in reverse - as that taken by Stop Funding Hate, which lobbies advertisers to withdraw from publications such as the Mail and Telegraph.

Definitely, Victoria Longstaffe should feel flattered.

Glad there's an article to redress the balance a little, and it's a cracker.

LOL - the lad himself was a genius.

Charlie’s article is brilliant. She speaks of her own experience and I expect it applies to many others.

This. So much this.

Wow, super article

That's such a powerful article.

Oh, is Victoria a perpetrator of ‘the slaughterhouse’ (aka criticism) against others?

how completely and utterly astonishing

some people really have no self insight whatsoever, do they?

www.varsity.co.uk/comment/24549

Charlie Bentley-Astor (who I think has written in the Telegraph about her experiences before) also has a piece in Varsity, defending Helen Joyce.

How interesting! It seems Victoria has form when it comes to picking on those Victoria perceives as lesser.

Yes I was coming to post about that. I found this in an article. It’s good to see some students were defending him -

Victoria Longstaff, a Clare student and former students’ union trans representative, said that Mr Price was “unfit both to hold public office and to be in a position of responsibility over students” and that he must resign or be suspended from his college duties.

However, the stance has received some backlash from other students.

One said on Twitter: “I don't think it's even necessary to agree with Mr Price to see that his resignation speech to Cambridge City Council was measured and principled.

“It seems clear that he is acting according to his conscience and compassion as all college staff should be freely able to do.

“Porters keep colleges running, keep students safe, and we wouldn't be anywhere without them.”

Another student said: “That there are students, most of whom have never worked a day in their lives, who are now trying to threaten the livelihood of a man who refused to toe their line politically, is truly disgusting.

Reminded me of:

Does Magna Carta mean nothing to you? Did she die in vain?

'Do the names George Eliot, George Sand or Ellis, Currer and Acton Bell mean anything to you?' How patronising! Funny how Victoria didn't include Robert Galbraith in the list of female authors who have used male pseudonyms!

We couldn’t even get a talk cancelled on home turf

Hooray! This is progress at least. A couple of years back, the talk would have been toast.

Yes it was. No misgendering. Simply linking to another piece of news related to this story!.

The article in that link! ROFLMAO!

And the name "Victoria Longstaff" seems a bit iffy for "She is a trans woman."

Is "she" bragging, or what?!!

I wonder why @Mynewchairhasarmrests 's post got deleted? Iirc it was about someone trying to get a college porter sacked. Maybe there was a misgendering? Don't remember one though.

Oh dear, there’s more, this is the reason for protesting: “it might be thought of as an anxiety that our cisgender peers – the people with whom we share a collegiate and scholarly life – might be taken in by the easy answers. The potential consequence of proudly transphobic speech being brought to this university is that it takes root and spreads;”

a) “it might be thought”? As in, clever people with extra special minds will think this but you’re basic, so I’m using the passive voice to confuse you some more

b) this is proper McCarthyism. If you’re afraid that an idea might spread because it makes sense to people and your best answer is to suppress it, you really have a problem.

I used to think it’s wrong to punch down but I just know that this person will take any opportunity to put others in their place so they can take it. What a pompous ass.

Why do TWs often have such a cloying, cliché-ridden, overly florid writing style? “The night, they say, is darkest before the dawn.” Yes, yes, my dear, very profound. Ooh, “power/knowledge”, how clever, sounds like Foucault!

It’s now thirty years after Saint Judy started with her ‘what mights’ and her ‘what ifs’ and males still remain males and females females, no matter what some arts and humanities graduates think they’ve discovered. Oooh, we’re only noticing sex differences because we’ve decided to look for them! What if we didn’t look for them? A revolution would ensue! And I, MA Cantab, will be right at the helm, boldly treading where millions of other conventional minds have trod before but with added accoutrements …

[It’s asinine to believe this is a free speech issue] but to explain why, we must… [claim] this is a debate between trans people on one side and the slaughterhouse on the other.

They use so many fucking words to prevent people from noticing and mocking the structure of their argument. It’s very tiresome. The above is the structure of their argument!

Or to simplify it further “this isn’t about free speech because trans people are being literally murdered.” But if they said it directly like that, almost everyone would notice how stupid it is. I think they’re preying on people with poor attention spans who are trying to conceal that they are permanently confused by everything.