ON SILENCING AND CENSORSHIP

A Note from Terf Island

The blog I’m posting here was written as my latest contribution to a site run by an American Catholic university, to which I’ve been a regular contributor for several years. It was rejected on the grounds that “it would violate [the University’s] institutional commitment to Inclusive Excellence”, particularly with regard to its statement that:

We are home to all races, ages, sizes, abilities, ethnicities, religions, languages, gender identities, sexual orientations, political affiliations, countries of origin and economic backgrounds.

I’m publishing the piece here, and I have asked the university in question to remove me from their list of contributors. I am not naming the university, because this is by no means a singular or unique example of the ideological captivity of the Humanities in English-speaking academia.

This is I believe a betrayal of the fundamental responsibility and raison d’être of any university, which is to educate its students in the skills of reasoned and informed debate in the quest for knowledge. The willingness to silence legitimate questions in order to protect students from exposure to ideas that might challenge their beliefs or upset their feelings is a form of anti-intellectualism as bigoted and dangerous as any on the Far Right.

I cannot collude in this widening suppression of legitimate debate around one of the most important and conflicted issues in modern culture, ethics and politics. I fear a generation of graduates who have been taught to believe that they are entitled to silence any idea that asks them to question their identities and beliefs, for this makes extremists of them all, whatever their political or religious affiliation.

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NOTES FROM TERF ISLAND
My (rejected) contribution to an academic blog:

I have repeatedly argued that modern church teaching on sexuality and gender is ideological rather than theological. It is not a quest to discern how to live faithfully, with dignity and generosity, amidst the complex entanglements of human sexuality and identity, but masks a thinly-veiled hostility to feminism and same-sex desire. This hostility provides ripe pickings for far-right politicians whose dogmas are well-served by Catholic teachings on sexuality and reproduction, including the denial of women’s reproductive rights, even if their social and economic policies are in contradiction with Catholic social teaching.

But in the complexities surrounding issues of gender and sexuality, I find myself increasingly alienated by the ways in which the language of gender is being appropriated in the service of hostile and combative gender politics on both sides. I have never supported a cause without being able to argue my reasons for doing so, and I cannot commit to advocacy for a vaguely defined cluster of sexual rights and gendered identities simply on the basis of tribal loyalty.

While I remain deeply committed to the struggle for lesbian and gay rights, including same-sex marriage, I am less certain of what kind of rights are being defended and what kind of freedoms are being demanded under the ever-widening umbrella of LGBTQIA+ activism. One person recently withdrew an invitation for me to give a workshop, explaining that

my parish has been on the front lines of 2SLGBTQIA+ issues for a number of years. … I realized that if people checked you out online, this would raise issues for my activists and for parishioners with trans family members, and that it could derail the workshop.

I had to look up that string of letters to know what it meant, and it left me profoundly sceptical.

These activists may share little common ground with the sexual ideologues in the Vatican, but many use the same methods of control and exclusion: silencing and condemning everyone who fails to conform to their doctrinal absolutes, with no attempt at engagement or dialogue.

Progressive Americans have labelled Britain “Terf island” (Terf stands for Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist), because we have well-organised groups of feminist and lesbian activists, and some gay men, who defend sex-based rights and advocate for child protection. Many of these are on the left politically. While we are a less polarised society than the US, we still experience culture wars around these issues, with gender critical feminists and trans activists often taking up opposing positions.

My concerns are primarily focused on the treatment of gender dysphoric youngsters, many of whom have complex mental health needs, and on situations in which trans inclusivity compromises women’s sex-based rights, for example, in the protection of female-only spaces and activities, and in the desire by lesbians to exclude anatomically male trans women from their venues and sexual relationships. Being honest about these concerns does not make me a Terf. I want as much inclusivity and diversity as is humanly possible in our suffering and violent world, and as few segregated spaces as we can negotiate. But as rights multiply they become more complex and contested, and we have to navigate difficult conflicts of rights-based claims. From the holistic perspective of Catholic theological ethics, priority should always be given to the most vulnerable and excluded, not to those with the loudest voices and most powerful lobbies. In listening to the concerns of my lesbian friends, in following the stories of trans widows (women whose husbands have transitioned), and in seeking to understand those for whom the gender reassignment process has gone catastrophically wrong, or detransitioners who must live with the irreversible consequences of their treatment, I become increasingly aware that the slogan “be kind” can sometimes mask quite vicious attitudes of bullying, abuse and denial.

To give one example, an employment tribunal concerning the dismissal of Roz Adams, an employee of the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre in Scotland, was excoriating in its criticisms. Here is how it was reported in The Guardian newspaper:

Roz Adams was subjected to a “Kafkaesque” internal disciplinary process by managers at Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre (ERCC) after she questioned rules about trans female counsellors working with female survivors.

The tribunal said there was “ample evidence” Adams had been unfairly treated by her employers because they believed she was a transphobe.

The investigations into Adams amounted to a “heresy hunt” because “she did not fully subscribe to the gender ideology which they did and which they wished to promote in the organisation. This was an act of harassment on the basis of her belief.”

Britain’s Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, has announced an indefinite ban on puberty blockers for under-18s. This follows publication of The Cass Review, which investigated the care of young people (under-18s) with gender dysphoria in England. Dr Cass raises serious questions about the treatment and support offered to these youngsters. In the United States, detransitioner Clementine Breen is suing America’s best-known practitioner of youth gender medicine, Dr Johanna Olson-Kennedy, for negligence. Breen’s treatment involved puberty blockers at age 12, hormones at 13 and a double mastectomy at 14.

The Far Right is laying claim to people’s anxieties and fears around these issues, because the progressive/liberal left has failed to attend to their legitimate questions and concerns. Accusing those of us who express such concerns of bigotry and fascism, and demonizing people like J.K. Rowling for standing up for women’s rights, drives people towards populist politicians who cynically appropriate their concerns.

If we are to safeguard the fragile and threatened rights of gay people, of women, of those whose gendered identities make them vulnerable to marginalisation and prejudice, we must find better ways of exploring the complex questions confronting us around the rights, freedoms and responsibilities associated with sexuality and gender, without name-calling, silencing and censorship.