Angry at the library

Toronto's public library system recently was in the middle of a conflict surrounding trans rights and freedom of speech.

People who read my stuff regularly can probably already imagine what I will be yelling, considering that freedom of speech came up, but I can't resist doing it all over again.

The basic situation is this:  Meghan Murphy is a feminist activist who has a lot of anti-trans opinions.  She has testified in front of multiple governments in this way, pushing to prevent trans rights.  She takes the view that trans women aren't real women, so they don't deserve any rights that women get, and they ought to be kept out of women's washrooms and other places that are reserved for women.

Murphy is a classic anti trans bigot.

Murphy was giving a speech about gender at a Toronto library, and a lot of people got pissed about this and demonstrated, demanding that the library refuse to host her.  The library said no, citing the fact that they have a policy to prevent people using the library who are going to promote hate speech, but saying that Murphy doesn't count as having done that.

Murphy did get to give her speech, and there was a lot of blowback and controversy about it.  But freedom of speech! was a commonly used rallying cry, as it so often is in these cases.

My take on it is simple:  Freedom of speech requires that you be able to speak without the government threatening or imprisoning you.  You have to be able to say a broad variety of things without fear of retribution.  Murphy has that.  In fact, she has had a drastically greater platform, at the government's expense, than the great majority of the population.  Telling her she can't spew her anti trans bigotry at the library isn't crushing her freedom of speech.  She can speak outside the library, she can write blog posts, or she can rent a hall.  Her freedom of speech wouldn't be threatened by being banned from the library.

The crux of the issue is the hate speech policy.  If Murphy was going to give a presentation on how Jews shouldn't be allowed in bathrooms, there is no doubt whatsoever that it would run afoul of hate speech laws and she would be banned.  But many people still don't see trans people as being fully entitled to rights, and they still think that debating their existence is a reasonable thing to do.  It is clear to me that her statements are hate speech, and her opinions on policy are reprehensible.  But much of society isn't on board with that yet, which is why so many people still think this is a debate we can have.

Those same people generally think that 'Do black people deserve to be enslaved?' is a question that cannot be debated publicly.  They haven't yet got around to seeing trans people's issues as so clearly decided.  I think over the next few decades we will make that transition, and I eagerly await it.  But until we do get there, we need to push back against Murphy and her ilk, and keep pushing their bigotry down until the masses of humanity start to do it reflexively.