Cambridge University LGBTQI+ students: we are not attempting to silence free speech, we just want to deplatform Helen Joyce

[snurtifier]

Helen Joyce has been invited to talk at Gonville & Caius College next week. This has provoked the usual outbreak of virtue signalling and the following response from "college LGBTQI+ officers". It is pretty much the full bingo card. Warning: contains complex mental gymnastics.

Dear all,
It has come to our attention that Gonville and Caius college, and the Divinity faculty, are hosting a speaker event on the 25th of October platforming Helen Joyce. This event has also been promoted by the Fac Bio to natural sciences, medic and vet med students. The title of the event is ‘Criticising gender-identity ideology: what happens when speech is silenced.’
Helen Joyce is a ‘gender critical’ activist, whose work largely focuses around anti-trans rhetoric and trans-exclusionary radical feminism. “Gender identity ideology” is frequently used as a dog-whistle for transphobic sentiment, cloaked in the language of free speech and scientific inquiry. It goes without saying that this kind of rhetoric is fundamentally against what we as LGBT officers stand for, and we are unanimously disgusted by the platforming of such views by Caius and the promotion of the event by the various faculties. Transgender identities should not be put forward as a subject for debate, and their existence is not an “ideology.”

Colleges, and the wider university, have a duty of care to their students, no matter their gender identity. By inviting speakers with inflammatory and bigoted views to speak, the staff involved are allowing transphobia to proliferate within the university, lending it a level of credibility, and crucially, potentially putting transgender students in harms’ way. Transgender people are an at-risk minority group – according to the Stonewall School Report 2017:
92% of trans young people have thought about taking their own life;
84% of trans young people have self-harmed; and

45% of trans young people have tried to take their own life.

Further to this, just days before the event was announced, the Home Office published the past years’ statistics on hate crimes in the UK, which revealed that transphobic hate crime has increased by 56% from last year, with 4,355 reports being made in England and Wales. In light of these statistics, the platforming of a speaker with these transphobic views takes on a particularly alarming salience.

Freedom of speech, of course, is protected in law; Helen Joyce has the right to speak as she pleases. The core of the issue we take is with the senior staff and fellows who have chosen to platform this speaker, which we consider a violation of their duty of care. To invite a speaker whose publicly expressed views include advocating “reducing or keeping down the number of people who transition” both legitimises active transphobia and also alienates and hurts transgender individuals on a personal and emotional level. Furthermore, the fact that this has been promoted to medical students, who will inevitably treat transgender patients in their future careers, presents a further risk to trans individuals not just in the university, but in the wider community, with the potential for wide-reaching and long-lasting harm.

This is not an attempt to silence free speech, but rather, us exercising our own right to that speech in the face of an event which is, in our view, not only irresponsible but actively harmful and cruel to the transgender students at Cambridge. Trans people deserve a university experience as comfortable, safe, and joyful as everyone else, and the University should take an active role in ensuring that – a role that they have, on this occasion, failed to fulfil. It is for these reasons that we implore Gonville and Caius to reconsider their decision to platform Joyce.
If any individual feels unsafe, upset or troubled by this event, please talk to someone – your college LGBT officer, an SU representative, a college or university counsellor, or a charity helpline. We have attached some resources at the end of this letter.
With love and solidarity,
The college LGBT officers

@beastlyslumber it is a really difficult area I think. But when there is traction against a particular cohort of people pronounced by a charismatic what are the safeguards for that cohort? It is why holocaust denial is now a crime. To paraphrase, all it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. We have seen again and again recently how good people do nothing to protect and support children against misinformation.

That book was indirectly responsible for the fact I started out pretty suspicious of id pol.

Back when I was still in school, I guess I was about 16, we had a guest speaker come to talk to my class on black history topics, and a lot of his ideas came from Black Athena.

I was quite a history buff and noticed several odd things about what he said, and was foolish enough to ask about one - he claimed Cleopatra was black, and I said I thought she had been Greek, a descendant of Ptolemy. Which, for my trouble, I was told that I was a racist. (By the other kids, he just implied I was a victim of racist culture. My teacher, who was an Egyptologist, didn't say a word.)

I kept quiet about my doubts that Aristotle has stolen all his ideas from the African books in the Alexandrian library.

No of course I don’t think that! I think it is generally widely accepted, though, that we are morally obligated to refrain from conducting or publicising research that sets out to undermine racial equality, which many people think this would do. And I also think that holding a university event on the topic would promote the sense that the university as an institution thinks this is an area of legitimate debate, which would be difficult to square with its public commitment to racial equality.

And I’m not sure about the host vs sponsor a debate issue - I think when a university room is offered (for free) then it’s essentially a university-sponsored event (Complicated slightly in Cambridge by the College system, I realise!).

and as many of us have discovered over the last few years, there many regular people who are taken in by non-logical arguments, and swayed into popular opinion.

If you’re talking about genderism i think you’re making the opposite of the case you’re arguing for! Authoritarian nonsense has flourished because free speech has been suppressed. More people speaking up is proving to be the antidote to the insanity.

I actually would love to see a meta-debate on the hypothetical IQ-race discussion: why is talking about IQ so heavily loaded? Am I a more valuable and more human person than someone with intellectual disabilities? I tend to think not, but IMO assumptions like that underlie the taboo around that debate and I’d love to see them dragged into the light. I think the taboo on that discussion only reinforces what is a deeply capitalist, anti-human and even eugenicist system of values -we should discuss that! I truly believe the principle that the solution to bad speech is more speech.

I agree with you in theory! I’d love for it to be a symbiotic partnership, but right now, one of those two partners is behaving like an abuser and gaslighting the other until they barely know if they are coming or going.

Universities have to re find the old balance before they become utterly useless.

My whole family are arts and humanities grads so I promise I say these things with loving concern rather than a prejudice towards STEM. Deconstructionism was interesting as a literary theory but we can’t let it into the systems we use to organise society and then act surprised when everything around us is reduced to rubble!

Exactally. I can't really think of a worse idea. This is why HJ is being deplatformed right now.

One academic who has been largely deplatformed, who talks about racial groups and IQ, is Charles Murray. People protest his all the time when he speaks at other universities. And the arguments are this stuff about the black and brown students feeling uncomfortable, or it implies his ideas are worthy of respect.

Maybe about a year ago Glan Loury, the black economist, interviewed Murray for his podccast. It was really interesting, well worth listening too, and I think they both found it a stimulating conversation. And maybe this sounds harsh, I think if you are not up to that kind of thing, you shouldn't be at university. Sorry. It's not for you.

I don't think it's difficult. Let people have the debates out. More talking rather than less. #nodebate does not help anyone - even the TRAs are seeing it backfire on them.

If you want adults to be protected from "charismatic people", then their ideas must be able to be aired, discussed and interrogated.

These are the elite minds of the future??? Fuck Me.

Who the hell is going to be running around protecting their fragile little selves from reality once they're in the workplace? Who will be the Mummy they run to at that point?

And where are the colleges raising the ones with the strength of mind and character and common sense who will be the protectors and caretakers of this lot? Fgs someone go and show them the Freedom Programme. You don't have to live your life enabling muppets.

Bookmarking for later, ta!

I love listening to Glenn Loury.

I think what I’m trying to say is NOT that people should be banned from talking about these things - I think people should be able to talk about whatever they like - but that publicly-funded institutions should not be actively promoting their research and discussion in a context where only a limited number of topics can be covered/funded/discussed/researched. Because that implies they are legitimate topics of public interest and concern, rather than fairly niche issues heavily associated with racist ideologies.

(Do note I’m talking about racial IQ issues and Holocaust denial here, not Helen Joyce!)

To respond to above. I'm not really making an anti free speech case. I am undecided personally. But there are issues with charismatics, I think that is undeniable. Yes I am talking about genderism. But free speech has not been physically suppressed, there have just been too many people unprepared to challenge it because it has been promoted by the establishment. This is my point. There are not enough people prepared to challenge bad ideas. Perhaps there is a case to say some points have been well established and therefore are not up for discussion. Racial equality being a case in point. Same with holocaust denial. Perhaps I am coming across as anti-free speech. It is the opposite of what I feel. But I feel there are dangers too.

I think it's widely accepted by people like these kids trying to deplatform HJ.

It's certainly not been accepted overall in English universities in the past.

Here is the thing, if you think it is not the case that intelligence is related to race, good empirical evidence and argument will support that position. Which means it has an advantage against the arguments of grifters and racists.

If you do not have serious discussion about these ideas, neither side has an advantage. Because you will certainly not somehow prevent the discussion from happening, it will simply move to dark corners.

Which scenario is better in terms of what you want more easily influenced people to see?

Laws against Holocaust denial are frankly foolish and will come back to bite people in the arse - they already are.

I would also love to listen to a debate on race -IQ. There is so much to unpick. Who invented IQ tests and on what cultural and educational foundations are they built on which mean some groups of people are better at doing well at them? Does it matter if you have a high IQ? Are you more likely to do better, be better if you have other traits that we haven't invested in measuring in a similar way. I would expect to go to a debate and hear ideas or arguments that I had never considered.

No, I know, I completely agree.

Universities are places that have actually been structured specifically so that controversial topics can be discussed. And researched. They are the best place to talk about this stuff. In part because in the past they have been largely uninterested in pandering to people's feelings and sensibilities.

Look at how damaging it has been that gender ideology could not be openly researched and discussed, even the scientific elements. This was on the basis of the kind of argument you are making. That disputing trans identities is not something an institution with standing should be supporting in any way.

What makes an idea too niche to be discussed in a university is really just that it creates no interest or controversy among academics. It's too silly, too obviously not serious. As soon as anyone does raise an issue seriously in academia, it's an issue worthy of discussion, whether you think it's correct or totally wrongheaded and so needs to be opposed.

You should have a look at the Glen Loury podcast above, and remember that under the thinking you are suggesting, Murray would be barred from university speaking events too. They go into a fair bit of detail in the discussion about how tools used by economists and social scientists quite recently, like looking at employment stats in relation to IQ, are no longer considered ok because of this new idea that some things are just out of bounds because somehow we all know they are wrong.

Thinking further on Humanities/Arts and STEM, it's not even that simple to 'solve'; I'm thinking of people with science training like Alice Roberts blapping on about clownfish to try to justify why TWAW. And I recently read that book Bitch, about female animals that behave more like the stereotypes of male ones and not at all like stereotypes of femininity. It's fascinating and (I think; I'm no scientist) robust – until the end, when even it goes a bit clownfish and talks about sex as a spectrum, again with reference to obscure species and behaviours. So it's not only Arts types who are susceptible to the kind of mental gymnastics we're talking about; ANYONE who's an intellectual/academic, in any field, can and in some cases do make a case for pretty much anything. It's possible as long as you don't mind how obscure and granular you go.

But free speech has not been physically suppressed, there have just been too many people unprepared to challenge it because it has been promoted by the establishment.

I'm not clear what you're saying here, Joody. But there's no doubt that speech has been and is being suppressed at universities and in other places up and down the land.

We have to remember that the price we pay for our own free speech is everyone else's free speech. If we want to be able to speak, we have to accept that people we disagree with have that same right, too. Since we can't stop them from speaking, we go one better and we debate them, and we win (if and when we have the better case).

It is of course the usual nonsensical load of claptrap dressed up in an incomprehensible diatribe but the fact is that these people do not want to debate on a sensible level. They are running scared of facts and just want to hide in a corner. This is the opposite of what a university should be. A university should be a place where people exchange ideas and vigourously debate them in a civilised way. The people who do not wish to debate ideas in this fashion or who are too mentally disturbed to do so should not be at university. These people who claim that people are going to commit suicide if Helen Joyce comes and speaks are just indulging in emotional blackmail and should be ignored. Universities are the place for free speech and should always remain the same. People who do not like that should leave and form their own conclave and cult

@beastlyslumber sorry I'm not making myself clear. I accept all of the points you are making and in theory I am also an advocate of entirely free speech on principal. What I'm saying though is that free speech on the subject on genderism has been suppressed because not enough of those who have been free to speak up in theory have. In particular I am thinking of all of the parents of school kids who say such things as "it's ridiculous, but I'm not rocking the boat for my little Johnnie at school". Hence bad ideas are able to take political hold because not enough ordinary people will stand against them. And so the free speech of those who do is curtailed because the brave people who say what they want to are then punished socially. I am certainly not arguing against free speech. I guess I'm trying to highlight some of the difficulties I see in people not using it enough. I am trying to highlight that many people can be and are obviously coerced into bad ideas.

@beastlyslumber because of this issue, I am wondering aloud if there are some ideas that are so obviously worth protecting, that they cannot be challenged. Such as the examples I gave above. You may well be arguing that there are not. I would not say you are wrong necessarily. I am gobsmacked by the anti-scientific incline that society has taken recently though because not enough people are brave enough to stand against it.

I think you are misunderstanding me. I’m not saying anyone should be banned from speaking on anything. I’m saying I don’t think some topics should be chosen to be debated - this is not the same thing at all, as far as I can see. Inviting someone to speak formally at a university on a particular topic implies, as you say in your post, institutionally granting that topic (and that speaker) a seriousness - the idea that it is relevant, legitimate, not “too niche”, etc.

I don’t think we would want to do that in the case of racial IQ differences, though clearly there is room for disagreement here about what is too niche, too silly, not serious, not legitimately an issue of concern, etc.

I think that’s completely different from the gender ideology case, NOT because we should institutionally facilitate formal debate on every topic regardless of how extreme, how daft, etc - but because the topic of gender ideology is a different kind of issue. ”Trans identities” are (in my opinion) an unscientific load of nonsense since one can’t change sex.

I’m getting the sense that I’m coming at this from a different angle from several others here. I guess I’d be very interested to know if the extent of others’ commitment to freedom of speech has been created/increased by the experience of the gender ideology/TRA debates, or whether you’ve always held this position. In real life I haven’t come across many with such an extreme commitment to freedom of speech, and speaking personally I know that my position on - for example - the uselessness of “hate speech” as a concept has been hardened greatly by watching the misuse of it by TRAs.

I have become a much more of an advocate of free speech the older I get. As a student I probably would have been in favour of no platforming Nick Griffin. But now I think that we absolutely should give to those ideas sunlight. And a university which is a venue for the very best minds (in theory) in the country is surely the ideal venue to expose them for their intellectual paucity.

I see what you mean @JoodyBlue . I think that people not speaking up is because they know there will be terrible consequences, i.e. their speech has already been curtailed. They fear losing their jobs, friends, livelihoods and reputations. It's absolutely vicious what happens to people who put their heads above the parapet. I don't blame anyone for not speaking up in this climate, although I agree that things would go better if more people were able to.

I am wondering aloud if there are some ideas that are so obviously worth protecting, that they cannot be challenged

We only know that some ideas are worth protecting because they have withstood many, many challenges. Good ideas emerge from challenge and interrogation. Racial equality is a great idea, and has already been put through the mill over hundreds of years. It can totally withstand any number of debates. What it can't withstand is being given a 'protected' category, and never flexing its muscles. We are already seeing how it is under attack from those who want a return to racial segregation and hierarchy, and I think it's in part because we've acted as though it's an idea that we can just state as a fact rather than argue for and defend as a dynamic principle.

Incidentally traditional IQ tests are terrible for testing intelligence in anyone who doesn't come from a standard white western middle class background