Since 2012 in Tasmania, a number of examples of bullying, threats and intimidation by trans activists against people with different points of view have been brought to light in the media. Until now, several other cases have not been reported.
This article will outline those cases and also provide a broad introduction to media reports on no-platforming and censorship at universities, proposed changes to anti discrimination laws, and acts of silencing and intimidation against critics of trans rights tactics and campaigns.
Australian feminist activist and scholar Germaine Greer, while stating that transgenderism is not her issue, has been repeatedly targeted by the trans rights movement with attempts to have her no-platformed and banned from speaking at universities because of her views on transgenderism. As Claire Lehman said in relation to no-platforming on The Drum –
‘While the stated aim of this approach is to reduce harm, the end result is enforced ignorance. No-platforming does not change people’s hearts and minds, it intimidates people into silence. It is an anti-Enlightenment movement’.
Please take care to notice a few things:
• Most of the people censored are women, particularly radical feminists and lesbians
• In some of these cases, people were censored for alleged transphobia, but other kinds of bigotry in the same context (particularly misogyny) were not censored
• Sometimes there is no evidence of transphobia at all, but an accusation of transphobia alone is worthy of punishment
• Transgender people represent an estimated 0.3 % of the US population
• The transgender interest lobby is worth millions of dollars, mostly spent on advertising
• It’s not difficult to see that the amount of rights, sociopolitical power and social recognition that the very small transgender lobby has accrued in a very short time span is vastly disproportionate to the amount of power other marginalized groups (women, people of color, LGB people) have accrued after rallying for much, much longer periods of time.
For instance….there are some protections that trans people have that women and other minorities don’t have (such as, 6-figure fines for “misgendering” while no such fine exists for using racial and misogynistic slurs).
It’s highly unusual, and perhaps even suspect, that a special interest group representing a minuscule portion of the population has become this powerful, this fast, and yet claims that they are “silenced” and “invisible” to society.
And it’s also highly unusual/suspect that 0.3% of the population has been this effective in censoring entire political organizations (such as Deep Green Resistance) and political ideologies (radical feminism).
http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/weblog/article/silencing-and-censorship-in-the-trans-rights-debate/show_comments
http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/weblog/article/Silencing-and-Censorship-in-the-trans-rights-debate1/show_comments
Skip to content