A Letter to the Editor From Pauline Estelle

Our Contributor Pauline Estelle was moved to write a letter to the editor over a situation that upset her. She learned about an incident in which a college professor, Professor Jordan B. Peterson, a conservative social media voice with strong opinions about transgender issues, was yelled at by his audience for his anti-trans positions. This happened in 2017 at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. In the following letter Ms.Estelle makes statements that do not agree with our editorial positions at TGForum. While it is Ms. Estelle’s prerogative to comment on gender related news as she sees fit we can’t let misapprehensions linger. We will point out her errors after the letter.

Pronouns and Plenty of Them

Recently pronouns have become an issue in the LGBT…community. Someone, somewhere, developed 31 different pronouns to describe the variety of the membership within the LGBT community. I have read the list of these pronouns published in a daily newspaper. Whatever your proclivity, there is probably a name for it within these items on the list. However, they are not pronouns. Pronouns apply to gender, ie., he or she, him or her, you or yours, his or hers and others, probably clearly marked as such in a dictionary. With the possible exception of people classed as a hermaphrodite. (There are no true human hermaphrodites) there are only two genders-male and female. Everything else is to do with sexuality. Tense is the controlling factor.

The reason I am writing this is because I was very angry. Professor Peterson was having a discussion or giving a lecture to a number of U of T undergraduates. These pronouns had obviously been a matter of discussion. And also obviously Professor Peterson had pointed out that they were a lot of nonsense as pronouns. ( I don’t think this comment is far from the truth).It became a free speech issue.The students had become enraged at the professor and as a group, in unison, they were calling him a” transphobic pig”. It may have been “transphobic shit”. The suffix is not important. What is important is the gross ignorance demonstrated by these so-called educated people. These days it seems that the only way people think they can win an argument is by shouting down those who they disagree with. What is frightening is that these so-called intelligent people will someday be the pillars of society. It must be noted that Professor Peterson did not react which, under the circumstances, was commendable.

I suppose the reason for the list in the first place was because the disparit groups within the LGBT. . .community want to be identified, probably a human desire.
I am a crossdresser and when dressed en-femme in public I try to appear as much like a woman as I can. It is known as passing. One also tries to adopt female characteristics. Obviously, there are limits to this transformation. No matter what one does, one will never become a woman.

On the other hand, as an example, the followers of RuPaul have different objectives. They can be classified as female impersonators. To them it’s theater. Their makeup and clothing are usually very artistic in presentation and skillfully applied. A pure crossdresser would never dress in such an in-your-face manner, because it is unlikely that a woman would dress so outlandishly. This is not to say that women don’t like to be noticed, but it is a matter of degree.
In conclusion the professor I was talking about is an internationally recognized psychoanalyst and author, so for these undergraduate hooligans to be carrying on in that manner, should give us a great deal of concern.

Response

Ms. Estelle is right to speak out about the rudeness exhibited by those who opposed Prof. Peterson’s appearance at the school. They have every right to protest his appearance on campus but their actions only helped to make him a media celebrity. His strong conservative beliefs on not just transgender issues but other areas such as “me too”, non-binary pronouns, and white privilege are what provoked the protests in the first place. Refute his views but don’t descend into rude behavior.

Ms. Estelle, like many crossdressers, is firmly attached to the gender binary. Women. Men. For crossdressers having a definite difference between men and women gives us something on the female side to emulate. What fun would it be if there was no discernible difference? But what she is missing is the fact that there are more than two genders. Gender does not come from your sex organs. It comes from your mind. And not everyone fits into the two gender model. Therefore we need words, pronouns, that people anywhere on the gender spectrum can use to describe themselves. We agree though that there are a lot of the new pronouns and it’s hard to keep track of them.

As for the word “hermaphrodite” and the statement that there are no “true human hermaphrodites”; many intersex people would beg to differ. Here is an informative article on intersex from Wikipedia.

To sum up, the professor who got shouted down is a provocative individual who goes out of his way to stir the pot. Recently he made statements on Twitter about Elliott Page, referring to Page as a female and accusing him of having his breasts removed by a “criminal” doctor. When confronted with Page’s male gender identity Peterson doubled down and said he would die before he would remove his objectionable tweet. Peterson will soon be peddling his take on all controversial subjects on a podcast he does in association with the conservative website The Daily Wire. While an eminent professor of psychology should be treated with respect Professor Peterson is a troublemaker interested only in making money off of bashing progressive ideas. He’s not showing the transgender community any respect.

PS: Peterson is making media waves with his latest provocation, deadnaming Elliott Page on Twitter.

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Category: Letters To The Editor