Mc Gill University, Canada
Protesters storm McGill University talk on sex vs. gender, shutting it down
ERICA MORRIS – 10 January 2023 – CBC
Trans rights advocates stormed into a talk Tuesday afternoon at McGill University led by a speaker associated with a group they say is “notoriously transphobic and trans-exclusionary.”
The talk was ultimately cancelled shortly after it started.
McGill University’s Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism (CHRLP) hosted the event, titled Sex vs. Gender (Identity) Debate In the United Kingdom and the Divorce of LGB from T. It was led by McGill alumnus Robert Wintemute.
The CHRLP’s website describes the event as a conversation around whether the law should make it easier for a transgender person to change their legal sex, “and about exceptional situations, such as women-only spaces and sports, in which the individual’s birth sex should take priority over their gender identity, regardless of their legal sex.”
“The T (trans) is so much more vulnerable than the rest of LGB. I think there’s tons of scientific evidence speaking to that,” said Celeste Trianon, a trans activist who led the protest against the event.
Trianon said Wintemute’s talk excludes transgender people’s rights and is transphobic, further discriminating against the community.
But Wintemute, the man at the centre of the controversy, maintains he does not promote transphobic views and describes the reaction to his talk as “hysterical.”
He says he has a 37 years’ experience defending LGB human rights and he would never associate with any group that “promotes hate.” He said he came to McGill to promote the message that women have human rights too, but they feel intimidated by the trans rights movement.
“So I have to thank the protesters for giving me first-hand experience of that intimidation,” said Wintemute after the event. “Probably the majority of women in this country disagree with some of transgender demands but they refuse to say so because they will be seen as intolerant.”
Any discussion or criticism is seen as “hate speech,” he said. The protesters held signs saying “no debate,” he noted, “and many women around the world disagree.” The idea that his seminar would lead to genocide of trans people is “absolutely absurd,” he said.
LGB Alliance denies being transphobic
Wintemute’s work inspired the foundation of the LGB Alliance, a British group that advocates against transgender rights in the United Kingdom. Several British officials and LGBTQ+ groups have publicly called the LGB Alliance a hate group.
The group has opposed progressive gender affirmation bills in the U.K., like the Scottish Gender Recognition Act, which improves the system by which transgender people can apply for legal recognition.
A Canadian chapter of the LGB Alliance lobbied against Bill C-4, which put an end to conversion therapy, demanding it remove the term “gender identity” from the offence.
The LGB Alliance website includes statements like “Fact: Sex is binary,” “Fact: Sex is observed at birth,” “Fact: Gender transition can be the result of homophobia” and “Fact: LGB Alliance is non-political.”
The LGB Alliance denies being transphobic or hateful.
An open letter signed by McGill students, professors, alumni and others from the Montreal LGBTQ+ community says trans rights are not at odds with the rights of others.
“Undermining the human rights of trans people does not benefit any member of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, nor the feminist movement,” it says.
Trianon said she was “surprised, shocked and disgusted” when she learned of the event.
“I feel like there’s such a tragic irony where someone who is actively working toward dismantling human rights toward one of the most marginalized groups … how such an event can be hosted at the McGill Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism,” she said.
Mona Greenbaum, the head of the LGBT+ Family Coalition in Montreal, worked with Wintemute on the World Outgames event in 2006. She said she was surprised to see the title of his talk and signed the open letter.
“It’s just so sad to me that someone who should, in theory, be open to this, is so closed-minded about trans women and has the idea that if you give rights to trans women you’re subtracting from the rights of cisgender women,” she said.
“There’s no ceiling on rights.”
‘Critical conversations’
The CHRLP says the event was not meant to be an endorsement of Wintemute’s views but to be a platform for “critical conversations.”
“Professor Wintemute is a trustee of the LGB Alliance since 2021 but he is not invited in that capacity,” said Prof. Frédéric Mégret from the CHRLP.
“We understand that these are not consensual topics. However, we believe they can be productively and robustly discussed in an academic setting and could, in fact, be an opportunity to push back against certain views.”
He said Prof. Shauna Van Praagh would chair the talk and Prof. Darren Rosenblum would act as commentator.
“It was always our intention that this would be a contradictory debate,” said Mégret.
But activists like Trianon and Greenbaum remained skeptical…
This is what ‘no debate’ looks like
ELIZA MONDEGREEN – 12 January 2023 – gender:hacked
So there was supposed to be a talk on campus about sex vs. gender identity on Tuesday. I was naïve: I thought it would happen. Activists shut it down.
I arrived early, before most of the protesters. At 12:30, the counterprotest seemed to me a rather sad little event. A few activists scattered flyers and slung slogans, their voices tight and nervous. “Like it or not, McGill University is actively contributing to the genocide of trans people across the world…” one flyer read, not at all portentously.
Another sneered:
“Dear cis ‘feminists’ at the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism and Law Faculty… when the LGB Alliance is done ‘carefully debating’ trans rights, abortion is next. TRANS LEGAL PROTECTIONS ARE NOT UP FOR DEBATE. TERFS are NOT welcome at McGill.”
I read that there’s “no conflict” between “trans rights” and the rights of any other group. In other words, you know you’ve got a TERF on your hands if they claim there’s a conflict:
“As anti-trans violence becomes increasingly prevalent across the world, and legal gender recognition is threatened in the UK, in the US, and here in Quebec itself, every extra minute of airtime given to an anti-trans activist may result in further rollback. Every such minute will contribute to the premature deaths of trans people worldwide. Now is the time to say ‘no’ to this continued, systemic elimination of trans voices and lives.”
But just as I was stuffing the flyers into my backpack, feeling a little pity for the poor turnout, a surge of protesters arrived and the energy turned menacing all at once. The mob blocked access to the lecture hall. A friend and I tried to get to the doors and were pushed around as though lives depended on turning us back. We just wanted to hear a human-rights lawyer talk about a conflict in human-rights law.
It’s surreal, honestly, to be pushed and shoved and grabbed by people who are screaming about “nonviolence.” We were TERFs, transphobes, and (curiously) ‘scabs.’ A wild-eyed young man screamed: “I’M NOT GOING TO BE ERASED BY YOU PEOPLE.” We had no place at McGill. We were pinned in the middle of a raging crowd and screamed at to “GET OUT,” while prevented from going anywhere at all. I kept looking around for anyone not participating, anyone who looked uncomfortable with the way this peaceful protest had gone. But all the activists were chanting or shouting or screaming. The jumpy activists I’d observed a few minutes ago had transformed themselves into a mob, with the license of mobs. There’s no reaching people in that state, which is why it felt like anything could happen, especially after they’d already manhandled us.
The activists particularly harassed two women, pushing one to the ground, and blasting them with bullhorns. At one point, the activists jeered: “Why are you even staying?” One of the women responded, very bravely, I could just hear her over the noise: “We don’t want to surrender to that kind of bullying.” And the activist shouted back: “What bullying? This isn’t bullying!” (I think I know what comes next: “I’ll show you bullying!” I’m just freestyling, but I think I’ve heard that one before…)
These activists don’t see themselves and so they’re capable of anything. They identify so completely as victims that they believe their blows can never land.
When the four of us went outside to get away from the crush, a man (who identifies as a trans lesbian, naturally) followed. He said he knew all about people like us because he used to be a neo-Nazi himself. This comment didn’t strike me quite the way he intended. I thought: Yes, I totally believe one kind of extremist can become another kind of extremist.
“This is what it’s going to be like in this country for people like you,” he warned. But people like whom? All he knew about us was that we wanted to attend a talk that he didn’t want us to attend.
Meanwhile, back inside, the activists pushed through the doors, interrupting the talk, unplugging the projector, and throwing flour on the speaker, Professor Robert Wintemute.
A reporter from the Montreal Gazette interviewed one of the women who’d come to hear the talk. But the activists didn’t like that either. One girl—nonbinary, no doubt—came out and squawked “BOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRIIIINNNNNNNGGGGG! BOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRIIIINNNNNNNGGGGG!” to drown out the woman’s words.
I admit I find that fascinating. Trans activists never can decide: are we hateful bigots or just uncool? Are we witches or just hags? Genocidaires or just bores?
What’s going on inside the mind of someone who cries “STOP TRANS GENOCIDE!” one moment and “BOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRIIIINNNNNNNGGGGG!” the next?
I have no idea what went wrong with campus security. They were outside. The police were outside, too. Inside, it was completely chaotic and it would have only taken one person slightly more unhinged than the rest to send it to a very bad place. And now the activists will be emboldened. They won because they stopped anyone from saying anything they didn’t want anybody else to hear. And they won because Canadian media won’t cover the way it went down. The CBC attached the subhead “Advocates say debating trans women’s rights is harmful to all women” to its piece about activists shutting down free inquiry on campus. “It’s very much a debunkable thing,” one activist said. But who cares about debunking when you can just shut it all down? Who needs to formulate an argument when you can mobilize a mob?
In an interview with the CBC, Professor Wintemute said:
… he has a 37 years’ experience defending LGB human rights and he would never associate with any group that “promotes hate.” He said he came to McGill to promote the message that women have human rights too, but they feel intimidated by the trans rights movement.
“So I have to thank the protesters for giving me first-hand experience of that intimidation… Probably the majority of women in this country disagree with some of transgender demands but they refuse to say so because they will be seen as intolerant.”
Apparently, just pointing this out makes me a TERF (it turns out I didn’t need to put in all those hours of hard work!) but there’s a conflict here. We need to talk about it. We don’t have any better way of resolving conflicts than talking.
I’m writing this a few hours after the protest, and I have to admit I’m tired. My head is throbbing. I said it all better in the piece I wrote for The Freethinker back in October:…
The Sex vs. Gender (Identity) Debate In the United Kingdom and the Divorce of LGB from T
McGill Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism Event – McGill University
10 Jan 2023 13:00 to 14:30
Room 16, New Chancellor Day Hall, 3644 Peel St.
Price: Free
About
By Professor Wintemute: Since 2018, there has been a debate in the United Kingdom about whether or not the law should be changed to make it easier for a transgender individual to change their legal sex from their birth sex, and about exceptional situations, such as women-only spaces and sports, in which the individual’s birth sex should take priority over their gender identity, regardless of their legal sex. This debate inspired the foundation in 2019 of an organisation, LGB Alliance, which rejects the political coalition of LGB and T and challenges some transgender demands, on the basis that they conflict with the rights of lesbian and bisexual women or the rights of children who might grow up to be LGB adults.
CHRLP note: the CHRLP invited Professor Wintemute to give this talk based on his record as a human rights and LGB scholar. We note that Professor Wintemute is also a trustee of the LGB Alliance. The CHRLP does not endorse the views of the Alliance or of any speaker. The CHRLP is committed to a respectful and inclusive space for debate.
Speaker
Robert Wintemute (McGill LLB and BCL 1982) is a Professor of Human Rights Law at King’s College London, UK. Since 2003, he has participated as a lawyer for the applicants or third-party interveners, or as an expert witness, in 15 successful cases challenging discrimination against LGB individuals or same-sex couples in the European Court of Human Rights, the Court of Justice of the European Union, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the United Kingdom Supreme Court. On 23 March 2022, he argued the case of Macate v. Lithuania before the 17-judge Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (restrictions on a book of children’s stories because it included a princess who fell in love with a woman and a prince who fell in love with a man). The Court’s judgment will be published on 23 January 2023.
Commentator
Darren Rosenblum. Professor Darren Rosenblum’s scholarship focuses on corporate diversity, with emphasis on remedies for sex inequality. They joined the Faculty of Law of McGill University as a Full Professor in August 2021, from the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University. Among many other publications, they wrote the first law review article of queer legal theory “Queer Intersectionality” (1994) and the first law review article on transgender prisoners “Trapped in Sing Sing” (2000). They have taught Sexuality, Gender and the Law since 2003 at Fordham, McGill, NYU, Pace and U.Penn. They were appointed Associate Dean (Graduate Studies) in 2022.
Capacity is limited. Please RSVP to chrlp.law [at] mcgill.ca (closed as the room capacity has been reached)