SIO47: Conversation with a Critic on Bill C-16

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:28 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode number 47 and I'm your host Thomas Smith. All right, today's interview is actually a more of a debate With someone who disagreed with me on Canadian Bill C-16, the one I've talked about a number of times, that Jordan B. Peterson is an activist over and is making $30,000 on Patreon a month, just in case anyone was wondering, because of complaining about how his rights will be infringed by a very nonsense minor thing. But anyway, you'll hear me discuss that a little bit, but this was a discussion that I, it's important to me to engage with people who disagree. Agree. It's very important to me. It's I do not want to ever create an echo chamber. It's not always easy. It's not always practical. And, you know, lots of times I'm I want to be doing interviews with whoever I think is interesting, regardless of their views.

0:01:18 Thomas: And I want to be talking about politics and news and all that. So it's not 100 percent of my show, but it is something that I do think is integral to to the show, which is actually engaged with people who disagree and try to reach the other side, or or, and by the way, or I'll change my mind. You know, I've said it a number of times, I feel like lately, but I I just am not afraid of having conversations because either I'm right, which that's cool, it's fun being right, or or I'm wrong, and then I can just evaluate and think, oh well, I guess I'm wrong about this, and then I get to be right immediately. I know, I I don't know if that's corny or if that's too optimistic, but that really is how I feel about it. Like, it's not that hard. I mean, it surprises me how little people want to actually have these discussions.

0:02:04 Thomas: It's kind of depressing, but I'm going to do my best. And with that said, here's my conversation with at Pithy Joe on Twitter, who had a different view, who is kind of a Jordan B. Peterson fan, and we'll see how that goes. This took place on May 4th. I referenced it, and it has been patron-only. But a lot of people called for it. They wanted it. And upon listening to it and editing it, I do think this is a really valuable discussion to learn from as an example. And And if you know anyone who is a Jordan B Peterson fan, you might point them to this interview and well, you'll listen first. I'll talk to you after. Here's the debate with at Pithy Joe.

0:02:52 Thomas: Joining me right now is Joe. Joe is on Twitter. Joe, give out your handle if you don't mind.

0:02:58 Pithyjoe: Yeah, I am at PithyJoe on Twitter, known as CavemanSynthesizer, but that changes from time to time.

0:03:06 Thomas: Yeah, so let me let me do a little explanation here for people. So I'm, thanks, first off. Thanks for coming on. It seems as though we we have a disagreement on, I don't know, Canadian Bill C-16 and surrounding issues, maybe somewhat on Jordan Peterson, but we'll characterize that later. But let's suffice to say we have a bit of a disagreement on that. I want to thank you for being willing to come and talk that out, because not everybody is. It's incredibly frustrating to me that most people who rail about free speech and not being heard and censorship and all that never show up when you ask them to come talk about it, but you have. So thanks for showing up. I appreciate that.

0:03:46 Pithyjoe: Yeah, no problem. I have to say I sympathize. It's a little nerve-wracking, you know, but I figure I put myself on the spot, so I might as well follow through.

0:03:54 Thomas: Yeah. Well, let me say this, which might help you out. Here's what I'm thinking, because I don't know if you listen to the show or just are or on Twitter or what, but I recently had a bit of a debate with, uh, Nenar from Syria about the Syrian missile strike. And what I thought worked really well about that was we weren't interested in trying to score debate points. Uh, we were interested in the truth. I think, I think the same can go here. So what I'm thinking is when we talk this out, if at any point you or I need to look something up, get a, get a specific wording of something, let's feel free to do that. I will edit out for time, make it sound, uh, you know, so that people aren't listening to silence, but at the same time that allows us to have the facts that we need and also to have substantive conversation rather than, well, I think this does this.

0:03:56 Pithyjoe: Yeah,

0:04:42 Thomas: No, I think this does this. Then we get nowhere. What do you think about that? I liked it as a format last time. And that's what I suggest.

0:04:50 Pithyjoe: I think that works.

0:04:51 Thomas: Great.

0:04:51 Pithyjoe: I tried to do some due diligence on mustering some resources, but

0:04:57 Thomas: Me as well. So let's, uh, in first thing I want to get through quickly, you mentioned, so this originally came up because of my episode on Jordan Peterson, right? So, you mentioned in an email to me that you didn't necessarily want to, you know, live and die by every word Jordan Peterson has said, and I respect that, but I want to, if we can, I guess, take that head on. I want to at least say that even if there's, you think he has some valid concerns and stuff like that, I think it, it is important to out how transphobic the things he's saying are. Like, even if you think there might be some validity, well, it depends on what you think. But when he says stuff like, the quote that got me was, "I can be charged," he literally said this on Sam Harris to millions of listeners, "I can be charged with a hate crime for criticizing someone's choice of fashion." That's an incredibly inflammatory thing to say. We can go on and debate the law and all that. But that's an absurd thing to say.

0:05:08 Pithyjoe: Well,

0:05:54 Thomas: It's incorrect, but it's factually incorrect. And it's transphobic. And it's stuff like that where that's why I can't help but drag him into the conversation a little bit, because he is on this crusade. He says bullshit like that and people support him. And trans people are sitting there thinking, "What in the earth is happening?" Like, is factually just inaccurate and it's, you know, and it's offensive. And it's, you know, so that's why I can't help but bring him up. Go ahead and respond to that.

0:06:19 Pithyjoe: Is a simplification, and that's one of the issues I actually took with the original podcast. I think he deliberately simplified the argument, again, for simplicity's sake. And I think the argument is that there is a degree to which personal self-expression, personal self identification is – becomes the law. It becomes what guides the law, and of my issue with the whole thing, and I think Peterson's issue as well, is that that encompassed in the law, you know. So saying it's just about fashion choice, it's reductive, but I think that there is some validity to that, because it personal expression is so bound up in what the law says, what is being protected.

0:07:09 Thomas: The problem with that is that there's no sense in which that sentence he said was true. Like there's zero sense in which criticizing a fashion choice, even if you substitute, even if you take it to mean that a fashion choice somehow equals gender identity, which I mean, it, it's not gender identity is not not a fashion choice. It's something that people feel.

0:07:28 Pithyjoe: Well, yeah, the law also protects gender expression, and that is a broad category.

0:07:33 Thomas: Tell me how you believe the law protects gender expression. And I do have to point out, are you Canadian? Yeah, we're two Americans arguing about a Canadian bill, which I think is funny. But also there's one that he brings up in New York. We can also talk about that if that's anything you've looked into. But go ahead. How How do you, how do you, how do you make that argument?

0:07:33 Pithyjoe: Okay, let me, actually, I am not Canadian. Well, It's actually, think, part of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, that they state that they protect gender identity and expression, which I think that is, maybe Peterson conflates the two slightly, but think it Well.

0:08:11 Thomas: But okay, but sorry, let me, let me be more specific. It does, Bill 16, C-16 adds the words gender identity or expression to the list of protected classes. That's what it does. But how does it make it so that if he criticizes someone's clothing choice, then he's charged with a hate crime. That's not how it works. I mean, it's just, it's not at all how it works.

0:08:27 Pithyjoe: So. What is gender expression, though? That's the clothes you wear, it's how you grow your hair, etc, etc. So if you make a critique of that, you're critiquing somebody's gender expression, and if somebody takes offense of that, that's gonna be hate speech. Well.

0:08:46 Thomas: How is he critiquing that? That.

0:08:48 Pithyjoe: He doesn't make a specific critique of anybody, I don't think, that's, um. I.

0:08:53 Thomas: How would he hypothetically what in what? Let me ask you this. This is about and we can just so we have all our facts. Bill C-16 and all these things always apply to either government employees or landlords or employers. Oftentimes it's not you and me on the street. It's not if I walk by and see you on the street and I say, oh, look at that dude. And you identify as a girl or something like that. That has nothing to do with anything. So it's not that it's only because because he's in a position of power. He's a, he's a, he's a teacher at at a university that's covered by this. So tell me in what context in the classroom it would ever be appropriate or something that he would need to do that, that would be a serious threat to his freedom of expression to criticize someone's gender identity, to say, to tell a student in whatever the hell bullshit class he's teaching to say, Hey, let me stop class here. What are you wearing and why? Why? Like, tell me how that would ever be appropriate.

0:09:47 Pithyjoe: Mean. I, I don't think that that's necessarily the context that that would happen in, like the single, a student haven't say, oh, like, you have a stupid haircut or whatever, but I think it's probably more in the context of discussing gender in a classroom setting and then somebody says, well, I identify this way, I don't think you're characterizing gender fairly. Maybe he makes a statement on non-binary gender in the classroom and somebody considers that a critique of their own gender expression. I don't think there's going to be, like, a strictly you insult directed at an individual. It would be more likely to be, yeah, like a classroom discussion or something in which somebody takes, know, a class topic as an insult to themselves.

0:10:35 Pithyjoe: And that's, that's kind of the way I see that playing out, and I suspect Peterson probably does as well. Well.

0:10:41 Thomas: There's no class discussion where he's going to be forced to. So what this protects from specifically. So we're talking about his statement and how it relates to the actual law. His statement is criticizing fashion choice, which is absurd. The actual law is you can't just purposefully misgender someone if they tell you, hey, please use they please use he please use she whatever whatever, please. And in rare circumstances, by the way, please use Z or please use something else. You either have to use that, which as a teacher seems like a perfectly reasonable request to me, or you just can avoid using their gender pronouns at all. Like if you want, you could just avoid the question. It's not that hard. I don't, go ahead.

0:11:20 Pithyjoe: I. Think I. Think, like, philosophically speaking, like, it's kind of an intrusion on people's freedom of conscience, and let me explain that. In, okay, so I'm not sure I'm gonna get the terms exactly correctly, because this, this has been a while since I've studied this. But in sociology, you have the assumed identity and you have the ascribed identity, right? So ascribed identify would be how the world sees you, whereas, right, assumed identity, and I'm not sure that's the correct term, is the way that you perceive yourself. And essentially what I see is that people are saying, well, well, my assumed identity is something that you need to subscribe to, that should be my attributed identity. So it, in a sense, yeah, to me, it's an attack on the freedom of conscience. Let me take an example for you, say, like, a male to female trans person. Right. I have no problem myself.

0:11:28 Thomas: Sure.

0:12:14 Pithyjoe: And I think Peterson has said this on a couple of occasions, that you can look up YouTube a video where he discusses this with a trans person, a trans woman. And

0:12:22 Thomas: Yeah. And that's something that I mistakenly got from his conversation with Sam Harris based based on what he was saying. And I apologize for misrepresenting that. But he did say later on, or some other context, he said he would call a trans woman she. So, yeah.

0:12:23 Pithyjoe: Yeah, so the idea is even in that context of a trans woman, like suppose that trans woman had both primary and secondary male sex characteristics, wore a full beard, dressed in such a way as to present themselves as male, but yet they insisted that they be called she, her, herself. Like that, to me, it's that would seem kind of antisocial. And I think that, yeah, maybe there are only a tiny number of people who would that kind of identity politics to control other people's expressions. But I think it's a distinct possibility. And I think that creating a law such or, you know, adding on to existing law, and I do think there's problems with the existing laws, doesn't so much represent a slippery slope towards that, but a paradigm shift.

0:12:59 Thomas: Okay.

0:13:30 Thomas: So, you, let me get this straight. You're saying that if someone who is outwardly looks male, for example, dressing is male, looks male, whatever, realizes one day or has realized over the course of their lives. Many people I know actually have done this very thing. Realize girl. Inside, I feel like I'm a female. I have felt like that all my life. I'm finally at a university where I can maybe express this and survive. So please start using my pronouns that I want, which is she, for example. Phrased that, I want to make sure I have this right, right, you phrased that as using identity politics to police someone's consciousness. Do you, do you really see it as that way? I mean, I know these people, like I've talked to these people. They are, people who like, like I can literally put you into contact with some of these people that I've talked to.

0:14:19 Thomas: Trans people who still outwardly appear male. For example, I've talked to somebody named Fiona, I believe a year ago or two years ago on my show doing that very thing, finally felt confident enough to come out with her gender that she has felt she is her whole life. But she still, it doesn't mean that day she's going to look all of a sudden outwardly female, like it takes time to transition. And some people don't have the resources or don't, are too scared to actually physically transition. There's many reasons why you might appear male and use a female pronoun.

0:14:51 Pithyjoe: Yeah, and I have thought about this to a degree where, you know, you wouldn't want to say, well, because you are a trans woman, therefore you have to wear a dress every day. And I, I guess what I'm saying is that there's, there's a certain, like, social contract of, not, feel, maybe that is one example that doesn't entirely fit. It, but, uh, yeah, I feel like I'm saying I feel a bunch, um, but yeah, it just seems to me that there is a certain, certain to to present yourself that you, you're not gaslighting people, you know, like making themselves feel crazy because you present a certain way but you have a different set of pronouns. And it's, example that I gave might not be the most extreme example. There are other people there, you know, like the unicorn can, etc. Etc. Well,

0:15:40 Thomas: Yeah, that, that Doesn't, I mean, that's, that's not a gender, that's not anything that's protected by this law. That's another, you know, Going Back to What I found so transphobic about this, for example, when Sam Harris, disappointingly in my mind, chimed in with, "Yeah, you could identify as a 15-digit number and make someone memorize that." That's bullshit, nobody does that, that doesn't, so this is taking a lot, this is what gets so frustrating about it, and what gets so, it's, it's, I mean, really, why people take this personally, if you're trans or if you're an ally, it takes something that is protecting, because you have to talk about the offsetting benefit of this, because even if you want to argue, and even if I conceded, like, this is not a perfect law, for example, it might not be an absolutely perfect law, I don't know, here's what it does, though.

It makes it so that if a trans person gets fired for being trans, if they get refused housing for being trans, simply for being trans, if someone just says, "I'm firing you, I don't disagree with this life choice, you can't do this," it gives them recourse and it gives them protection.

0:15:48 Pithyjoe: I Mean, but, but Absolutely

0:16:46 Thomas: Without this law, there is no protection for that. So that's a great good, and if you want to argue with that, let me know, but I would assume you would support anti-discrimination on the basis of... Go ahead.

0:16:56 Pithyjoe: Not Yeah No, absolutely not, I would not endorse, um, how, how should I, I want to make sure that it doesn't Sound like I'm in favor against discriminating against trans people. But I think that Peterson, in particular, is talking about is academic freedom, the ability to critique these ideas. And say, you know, unicorn kin is not a gender, but what is preventing that from being a gender? It seems to me that the concept is based on, you now, sincerity, and how do you legislate sincerity? How do you, how do you quantify whether a person is being sincere or not? You know, I'm, you've I

0:17:03 Thomas: Sure.

0:17:38 Thomas: Sorry, what do you mean? What does that factor in? Maybe I don't follow.

0:17:41 Pithyjoe: Mean, like if somebody said my my gender is unicorn kin. Right. And then you responded to them the way you responded. Responded to me, uh, unicorn kin is not a gender. Like how, what, what gives you the right to say that?

0:17:55 Thomas: Because it's a unicorn isn't a gender. I mean, your gender can't be boat.

0:17:58 Pithyjoe: But who's to say that it

0:18:00 Thomas: Your gender can't. What do you mean? I mean, who's to say?

0:18:00 Pithyjoe: Isn't if it's, if it's all, if IT'S all a matter of, you personal identification, why, why not?

0:18:08 Thomas: I mean, because it's not a gender, I can't identify. My gender can't be airplane. That's not a gender.

0:18:15 Pithyjoe: There, the, you Know, people claim to, to not be a gender to be, I think it's a gender, yeah.

0:18:21 Thomas: Yeah, people can be. Yeah, I know people who are. What's the technical term? Now I'm forgetting a gender or whatever. Whatever. Yeah. And, and you, you, you have to use they, and the thing about this is it, it is, I get it. Like it, it's a, it's a, it's like an inconvenience, you know, like it's a, it's, you have to remember to say they, or, and it sounds a little awkward. It feels a little awkward. It's not the easiest, most natural thing to say. I fully accept that. And here's another thing. I would also say that if there is a student for some reason who, who, who decides every day, hey, I'm a different gender and I want a different pronoun and I'm going to demand you say that, I would say, yeah, that person's being a pain in the ass. If I were that person, if I were that person's friend, I would say, hey, are you okay with they? It sounds like your gender is very fluid and every day it's a different thing.

0:19:14 Thomas: It's very difficult to keep up with, no offense or anything. Is they okay? Can I just use they since it's kind of a neutral thing? And if they didn't allow you to do that, then yes, they would be being unreasonable. But you could just avoid the, like, what are the odds of that? Like, I asked my transgender friends in preparation for this. I know this is anecdotal. I totally admit it. But we don't have, there's no better data that I know of unless somebody has any. And nobody I know, none of the trans people I know, knows anyone who changes their gender pronoun every day. Like, it just doesn't, there may be someone out there, but there's a lot of people out there. I mean, to disregard disregard the vital protections that this law grants, because you can think of a hypothetical example of someone changing their gender every day and demanding you use it.

0:20:01 Thomas: I mean, that's extreme. I mean, especially look at the practicality of that. Like you're in a classroom. How often, a lot of people posted this to me. They're like, I'm a professor. I've almost never had to use someone's gender pronoun in a class, like just at all. How often do you even need to do that? Like, a random student in your college class, how often do you need to say, he over there? Like, it just doesn't really come up.

0:20:23 Pithyjoe: Yeah. I mean, well, sometimes you might need to use like a descriptor and you say, oh, the the man, the gentleman in the back row, and then

0:20:28 Thomas: Yeah, I'm not saying never. Yeah, the student. There you go. The student in the back row. Or how about their name?

0:20:33 Pithyjoe: Yeah, the student, okay, yeah, but which student? Which student?

0:20:37 Thomas: Do you not know there's, you raising your hand right there.

0:20:37 Pithyjoe: Well, what, if you don't know, well, yeah,

0:20:41 Thomas: What is your name, student? My name is this. Okay, so Sally over there, it's such a, like, when you look at the actual practical harm, yeah, I can think of some contexts where there could be a potential, like, weird injustice if there's some student out to get somebody. Like, yeah, I mean, I can see that happening, but it's, yeah.

0:20:58 Pithyjoe: Well, as they say, you know, good cases make bad law. Like, I, I know you're, you're kind of a legal student, like, you formulate these, these laws out of great intentions, and you have plenty of good cases, but then, the, the athlete, when you actually apply the law, it allows for these bad outcomes. Okay,

0:21:13 Thomas: And, no, that's actually, it's almost the opposite. Like, what happens is there's, I shouldn't say the opposite, but there's, what I've learned in studying law. I mean, the judge can fully say, hey, you know what? I know the letter of the law might say that technically you need to use this proper gender pronoun every day, but I'm seeing what this student is doing. They're demanding you use a 15-digit number. That's not reasonable to expect someone to do. Therefore, I'm not going to charge you with anything. That happens all the the time. There's, there's a reasonable, uh, Andrew has said this on, on Opening Arguments. There's all kinds of, he's, he's litigated cases where the letter of the law is 100% in his favor and he still has to make his case because the judge can say, you know what, this is not reasonable in this case.

0:22:11 Thomas: Let me add one more thing. I mean, if, unless you want to, I'm happy to let you talk, but so, there's another point where I have another quote of him where he says, I fear they will not even be able to discuss public policy issues such as this one on which they may disagree with the government agenda. Any law that limits legitimate discussion and debate of closely held beliefs presents a danger of freedom of expression, a fundamental value held dear by people across the political spectrum. The right to disagree must be viewed as sacred in our society, society, but you've got a court case in 2013 saying people are free to debate or speak out against the rights or characteristics of vulnerable groups, but not in a manner which is objectively seen to expose them to hatred and its harmful effects. There's a specific definition of hate speech. He thinks merely misgendering someone is hate speech. It's not. If he directed hatred, if he directed attack and said, you know, let's like go after these people, let's harm, you know, that's hate speech.

0:22:07 Pithyjoe: Yeah, point, um, Yeah, No, No, go ahead, please.

0:23:07 Pithyjoe: Well, I mean, how do you categorize harmful effects as well? I mean, like, what is that? Like, the public takes a negative view of a certain ideology? Like, that could be a harmful effect. It seems to me somewhat vague, vague. And I've looked at a couple of cases in Human Rights Commission history and they seem a couple conservatives in Canada who they were prosecuted, they won their cases, but they were still prosecuted by the Canadian Human's Rights Commission. Commission. Mark Steyn was one of them. He had written a book and let me see if I can

0:23:29 Thomas: All right. Yeah. Let me, let me look that up.

0:23:51 Pithyjoe: Look that up.

0:23:52 Thomas: You know, I think I looked at some of these as well.

0:23:54 Pithyjoe: I guess the point is that, you even though they won their cases, like that still puts a burden on their speech. And maybe you do think that they said something terrible and maybe Maybe it's true that their views are at best, but is that the place for law to be involved in people's speech? And I think if you can project from that, those cases, how, you know, other cases might be interpreted as well along these lines of you know, these,

0:24:28 Thomas: Let me look at, let me take a minute, just look at the specifics of this case to see, to see what I think about it. Because I will certainly grant you that I, again, I don't think laws are perfect. I don't think courts are perfect. I don't, you know, but but it's a question of balancing the mitigation of harm in protecting these trans people from being fired from their jobs and evicted from their homes. It's a question of balancing that with what could be, you know, potentially a bad case here and there. And so let me take a look at this here.

0:25:01 Pithyjoe: Yeah, that's a fair point. Well, the first thing that came up for me is a CBC News report. It's about America Alone, alone, uh, Mark Steyn's 2006 polemic about the Muslim diaspora in the West, um, and I believe it says, yeah, that he, he did, I'm not sure if it was this article, but heard a complaint, uh, from Mohamed Elmasry of the Canadian Islamic Congress. Yeah.

0:25:30 Thomas: As you said, it looks like he was ultimately found not guilty, right? Yeah.

0:25:35 Pithyjoe: But I mean, my kind of, my feeling on that is, well, yeah, they came to the correct result. I mean, presumably they came to their correct result, but at the same time, you're placing a burden on somebody for exercising their free speech. And I worry that that extends to something, that you know, if that's extended to something as subjective as gender identity and expression, like, that that could be very dangerous. I know you're very concerned about about people's rights, and that's admirable. I worry about even those rare cases. You know, you could do a great injustice to somebody by prosecuting them.

0:26:16 Thomas: Yeah. Okay. So let me say this. We, we've tried to look at, I've tried to see if I can find some actual wording of these Mark Steyn articles. I I'm not able to find it apparently, but he ultimately was found not guilty. And I agree like it, the problem though, if we're going to talk talk about the U.S. as well, you don't, there's no such thing as being protected from being sued. If people want to drag you through a court, you experience, if they want to drag you through the courts, they can. Like, unfortunately, that's for anything. I mean, you can be sued for a lot of things. And if you don't have a legal team who can just immediately file a motion to Which, by the way, even filing a motion to dismiss costs you money. Mired in a court case. And honestly, that's just a shitty thing about the law.

0:27:03 Thomas: There's nothing about this that's any worse. And I would say this also. I think that it is problematic specifically when it comes to this Islamophobia claim. I would say that I'm probably more on your side on that. Like, if people are writing that they are worried about the influence of Islam in this country and they're worried about even writing about, you know, like migrants, like they're worried about taking in too many migrants who are Muslim. Like, I absolutely want people to be free to express that opinion. And I think that I would likely come down on your side when it comes to that. And if, you know, I'm glad this guy was found not guilty because it sounds like, I mean, I don't know the details, but it sounds like he was just writing critical stuff of Islam. Agree with you like that.

0:27:46 Pithyjoe: Very harshly critical from what I understand. I

0:27:49 Thomas: Yeah. But, but I still think that it's appropriate to have this law in place because if someone is writing thing, essays about we need to kill Muslims in our country now, they're causing, you know, this is how you would stop that. I mean, inciting violence on the basis of religion is what this protects. And I think that if it became a problem of, you know, this like people being charged with Islamophobia for being critical of Islam, I would say we have a major societal and like cultural problem with how people are interpreting the word Islam, like how people are interpreting that. And it's not necessarily that we can't have a law that protects people from legitimate hate speech. I think we can have a law that protects people from legitimate hate speech.

0:28:36 Thomas: It's more a problem of if some rogue, like, judges decide to define that horribly, I don't know. They could decide to define anything horribly. Like, that's not, you know what I mean? I don't think it's the law as it's written, to me, doesn't seem to be a particular threat to that as regards gender expression more so than any other their law.

0:28:56 Pithyjoe: I have to disagree with you generally on the concept of hate speech. Like, I, I find I mean, like, I, well,

0:29:02 Thomas: Well, okay. Why? Because I don't, I think you'll find that I, we actually will agree. That's my prediction, but go ahead.

0:29:10 Pithyjoe: No, I, I just think that that hate, like the only type of speech that I'm, obviously there's forms of speech that I disagree with, but the only kind of speech I would agree with limiting is incitement to violence, and that's a very particular and specific standard, as I understand. You have to say, we should do violence to this group, and Even that is somewhat restricted to my understanding that you can say call for the overthrow of of the U.S. and correct me if with I violently even, and correct me if I'm wrong, but unless you're some kind of specificity to that, you're still protected in the United States not

0:29:26 Thomas: Yep. Absolutely. Yeah. Not, okay. Not my area of expertise for sure, but I actually, what did mean when I said hate speech, when I use that term, I actually did mean it in that sense, like actual in America for anyway, I don't know how it's to find in Canada. Exactly. No. Yeah. I meant literally because that's why I said we need a lot of protect hate speech, as in if someone is writing columns on how we ought to kill Muslims in our communities or something, that's hate speech. Like, that's actual hate speech, like inciting to violence. So I think you'll actually find we we agree on that.

0:30:06 Pithyjoe: Not just like sorry mm-hmm I guess that, yeah, the the just the use of the term hate speech is kind of give

0:30:26 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. I think I think it can be overused sometimes. I think I think that I think that certainly people call a lot of things hate speech that definitely aren't technically hate speech. I think that's certainly true, but I would, go ahead.

0:30:37 Pithyjoe: I would just call it incitement to violence. I'm sorry. Yes.

0:30:40 Thomas: That's fine. But that, but in, but from what I've learned from Andrew and he can correct me later on, I'll, I'll let you know what he says. What I've learned from Andrew is like, that is hate speech. I mean, like legally speaking, when you say hate speech, like in a legal sense, you mean in this country, you mean pretty much incitement to violence. And that's, that's the sense I was using it in. So I think, I think we actually, I think we would would agree on that. If someone, so for example, let me paint this scenario and we can see if we agree or disagree on it. So I'm struggling to pull it up now, but I believe I said it in my original episode. There was an email to Jordan Peterson from the University of Toronto that I cited. I think I, oh, I could probably find it from my show notes. But anyway, let me know if we need specific wording. If not, I'll just summarize what I remember from it.

0:31:26 Thomas: Where the The guy actually said, the person emailing Jordan Peterson said, hey, you can absolutely make your videos where you're saying you actually believe gender is biological for all we care. Like, you can actually say, you can make all the academic, you know, videos or whatever you want. You can express yourself in that way. You can say that you think trans people are, you know, are lying. You can say all that stuff.

You just can't threaten to consistently misgender people because that's what the law is protecting. And I would say there are a lot of people who, let's say Jordan Peterson does a video about how, or just say anybody, because I don't want to accidentally smear what he's doing. Let's say Professor X, isn't that an X-Men character? And let's say Professor X does or an online video saying, I think gender is biological. I think these trans people are, I think they're emotionally sick. I think they're, you know, they're just, they're lying to us. They're manipulating us. I believe that professor is free to do that, actually. And also, I wouldn't, there are a lot of people who would call that hate speech. Now, I would say that is a hateful thing to say, but legally speaking, that's not hate speech, and I would not characterize it as such.

0:32:11 Pithyjoe: Yes yeah I would agree with you on that. So um

0:32:42 Thomas: Right. Yeah, I thought I thought you might. And I think that like that's the distinction, though. Like, I think this law protects against actual hate speech, which is, hey, these trans people are sick. We need to eliminate them. Like, here's the address of a trans. But like, that's actual hate speech. And it protects against that. And we need that protection. It also protects against me finding out I give someone housing and then I find I see them crossdressing one day or something. And I say, screw this. You're out. You know, you're I'm evicting you. It protects you from that. And these are valuable things. These are especially with trans people who are like some of the most persecuted people in our communities. They are at-risk people. They are people who face hate for what they're doing all the time.

Giving them protection for their jobs and for their housing is a very valuable thing. It's a very necessary thing in my view. And these these minor corner case thought experiments involving 15 digit numbers. That's why it sounds, it's so transphobic to me because it's taking a valuable thing that people need, a protection that these poor people need in their lives and, strawmanning and it to the extreme. And it's, it's sickening to me.

0:32:44 Pithyjoe: Yeah um So I think you mostly put it fairly strongly how you feel about that, but, um, is your opinion on that kind of idea that this is like a paradigmatic shift that, um, they're, I guess, I guess you said that, you know, since they're small cases, they can be ruled on by judges, and and a reasonable judge will find for the defendant in those cases. So that's your basic position probably

0:34:14 Thomas: Would you mind if you're worried about a case, would you mind giving a hypothetical? Because I actually think it's very difficult to even think of what a potential problem would even be. So would you mind giving a hypothetical case that you're talking about?

0:34:26 Pithyjoe: Have to think for a moment to, uh, to, to figure out, out of, uh, a hypothetical, and and discuss that thing, yeah so

0:34:29 Thomas: Take your time, man. I got all day because I don't actually think they exist. That's the issue. You would have to purposefully misgender someone knowingly multiple times and refuse to use their actual gender. It's not a question of, oh, hey, can you hand him? I'm a she. Oh, sorry. Apologies. She. You're not getting prosecuted for that. It's even in the guidelines of like, if you misgender somebody, simply apologize. That's all you have to do. It has to be a consistent refusal after multiple requests to use someone's proper gender.

0:35:08 Pithyjoe: So yeah, take, take for example, some of those other more, um, obscure genders, and I won't say unicorn kin because I know you have an issue with that, but uh, but yeah, like the, the z zero self type genders. And if feels that using those pronouns and they might find it objectionable, they might find that to be like imposing an absurdity upon them, would your argument to that be?

0:35:14 Thomas: Okay.

0:35:41 Thomas: Okay. So let's say I'll try it. So we're painting like the most, I suppose, sympathetic case for your side, and I'm happy to do that. Let's say there's a professor, there's a student that says, I want some obscure one, a specific spelling, like H-I-R, X-U-R, whatever it is. They some say, I insist you use this. In that case, you have some options. For one, employee of the state, that's why you're subject to these laws, so you could just do your best to use it, so that's that's one option, or you can just avoid it. You can say, okay, and and just avoid using their gender ever. I mean, it's it's not that hard, and and combine the fact that this is such a corner case and it's such an easy thing to avoid, and and again, you always have to stack that against the greater protections that this law is offering, so that would be my response to that. What do you think?

0:36:33 Pithyjoe: I guess I feel like there's a certain principle at stake, the freedom of conscience idea. And even if you are avoiding that particular misgendering, using the wrong pronoun, what have you, there's still an imposition of the law upon you that, I don't know if mandate is the word, but that to some extent mandates that you take that into consideration. And, I mean, I'm not a – really, Thomas, I am not a cruel person. I am a very – and

0:37:11 Thomas: Don't think so at all. Yeah. I find, honestly, I'm finding you to be very agreeable, very open-minded and, and, and, and doing your best to express your beliefs, which I really respect. But suppose, why do you see the, like, keep in mind, once again, the reason Jordan Peterson would be subject to this is that he's an employee of the the state. That's the reason why. Or it's true that if you're a landlord, you're not an employee of the state, but you are in a position of offering some sort of public housing, then you also are subject to this. But it's such a limited group of people. Again, you and me see each other on the street. You're dressed in a way that I perceive to be weird. I'm fully free to think whatever I want to say, like, well, what are you doing to yourself? I get fully free to say whatever I want. We're absolutely free. I'm not not an employee of the state, so I'm absolutely free to do so.

0:38:04 Pithyjoe: I'm Sure, you're much too polite to actually do that. But – and as am I, losing my kind of commitment to this to an extent. But I got to say, listening to Peterson, he, what was to my mind a pretty convincing argument at the time. But, I mean, when you say, you know, stacking that up against protections that people need, it's a difficult case to make. But I guess there's a little part of myself that, like, there is a principled position to be found in there somewhere, on the idea of somebody imposing their – again, I'm going to say assumed identity because I don't remember the technical term.

0:38:59 Thomas: That's OK. I don't.

0:39:00 Pithyjoe: But, Yeah, their assumed identity onto broader society and saying you have to see this as not just my assumed identity, but my my ascribed identity.

0:39:00 Thomas: Yeah, I don't.

0:39:12 Thomas: I can understand that. First of all, I want to say I respect you immensely for saying that. I mean, I don't know how many people in the history of my show have ever said, you know, I'm, I'm not so sure I'm like reconsidering now. Like it's, it's going to be a handful. So I respect you immensely for even, for even saying that, for even admitting that I really do. And, uh, for listening as well. And, um, I do think there is a sense where it's like, yeah, it, I'm sort of being forced to keep track of something that I'm not used to keeping track of. I'm being in a way socially kind of mandated to use the most strong terms, like to try to be the most sympathetic case towards your side. I'm being mandated in a way socially to remember like, oh, even though my brain is telling me this person is one gender because I'm so used to that, they're actually another.

0:40:01 Thomas: I need to remember that. And I get it. It's like it feels like an imposition. But I think it's a question of looking at what's really happening there. This is somebody who, unless you want to reject the possibility outright, which I don't think you are. I mean, you're trying to make a corner case, which I understand, but I don't think you've ever rejected the idea that someone can absolutely feel a different gender than they were born representing. Like, it sounds like you've agreed with that. And it sounds like Jordan Peterson, even, you know, he'll call a trans woman, a woman. So that's what's happening. Like if that's what's happening and they have had to face all this like persecution in their lives, I like don't know. I, for one, I'm willing to, by the way, I'm willing to, at the very least, just do my best to avoid the question.

0:40:51 Thomas: Like at the very least, all Jordan Peterson has to do the minute he has someone who comes in his class and says they identify as a unicorn, he can just avoid the question. Like, he can just say, oh, great, cool. I'm a professor. Here's what I'm going to do as a professor to maintain professionality, professionalism, I'm going to just say, great, good for you. Never reference their gender again. It's not that hard, you know?

0:41:16 Thomas: And if I accidentally do, I'm going to to say sorry go ahead, uh as a as a person in power, as a, as a federal employee or as a landlord. Yes, I do, actually, because with it goes the the all the stuff about being fired and being, you know, yeah because, like, picture this. If you don't do that, then an employer can decide. If here's what it's protecting, and I get that the wording has to be a little, it has to be a little broad to cover these, these things. I don't think it's a perfect law, but I think it's, it's overall very close to being pretty much just good. So what it protects is, uh, if I, uh, am a, let's say I've always identified, again, I've always identified as a woman.

I'm finally coming out with it. Uh, I'm, I may, I, maybe I dress as a woman, maybe not, but, but it's, people still kind of perceive me as a man. It protects against my boss saying, no, show me the gender that's on your, uh, uh, that's on your driver's license. I show me the gender. I'm not going to call you a gender that's which people do. People do that because they don't, they don't like trans people and they don't like what they're doing.

0:41:16 Pithyjoe: Well, but do you want to but no, I'm sorry. Do you, do you want a legal mandate for that? Is the, is the question, you know? Okay. I mean, yeah. So

0:42:25 Thomas: So they, this is a common thing. They say, show me, show me your ID. What's on your ID? Show me your you know, I'm going to call you that. And insisting and misgender like consistently misgendering them in, I don't know, meetings and gatherings at work and stuff like like that. Humiliating stuff for a trans person. This protects against that. And, and I don't know if you have, let me ask you this. If you have a suggestion for a way to word the law better, that still protects against what I see is in that as a very valuable thing. I'm open to that. I would be open to hearing that.

0:42:59 Pithyjoe: As I understand it, sex discrimination is protected. And under the category of sex discrimination, if you do things that are either conforming to your biological sex or conforming to your biological sex, you can't be discriminated against. And I, I'm not sure why gender expression and, um, identity are separate from that, um, because, oh, yeah no, because I you know, I, that's like a form of either diverging from or, um, adhering to your natural biological. And I think opening the door to gender expression, I feel like there are certain extreme cases when where that could be abused. And, you know, philosophically, maybe as a legal matter, it's, it's unimportant, but it bothers me a little bit. Okay.

0:43:30 Thomas: Sure. You got, oh, sorry. I'll let you finish. I just was. I see your point. Yeah.

0:44:02 Thomas: Okay. So I'm going to have to talk about US law. I can't speak about criminal, uh, Canadian law, criminal law, I can't speak about Canadian law in this. In the U.S., that is very much not agreed upon. So we just did an opening arguments recently where Andrew talked about this. We're up to about like half the district courts or sorry, half the circuit courts in the U.S. see gender expression as being part of like sex discrimination, but half of them don't. And that is only a very recent thing that they even are. And laws like the C-16, for example, this C-16 says something that a Canadian law did in 2002. So it reinforces something in 2002 at a time when, who knows, for all we know in Canada, no courts were interpreting sex discrimination to include discrimination on the basis of gender identity.

0:44:53 Thomas: But for the U.S., I can say for sure that there are many courts that don't do this. They don't interpret it that way. They say, nope, you're not, if you fire someone for being trans, there are many courts about, again, according to Andrew, about half the circuit courts that will say that is not sex discrimination. And so what legislative bodies are doing is they're saying, well, shoot, if that's going to be interpreted this way, we need to protect these people. Let's write into this law, just in case, gender identity or expression, to make totally sure that that's covered, because we don't want these people to be fired or evicted from their their homes on the basis of being trans. So, that's my answer for that one.

0:45:34 Pithyjoe: Yeah, I feel like I had seen somewhere in one of these documents I was looking at where it kind of did conflate the two. It might have been the Ontario Human Rights Commission. But yeah, let me see if I can look that up quickly.

0:45:50 Thomas: Well, there are certainly, and again, like I said, half the district courts do, or sorry, I keep saying district, half the circuit courts in America do do that. They've said, no, it is sex discrimination because of this. And, you know, I think they're actually right. In an ideal world, I would say discrimination would cover all this. I would say that in a perfect world, it would cover all this. And indeed, if courts had been interpreting sex discrimination to protect this very thing, if a trans person got fired and they said, nope, that's on the basis of sex discrimination, you can't do it, I don't think we would need this law. Actually, I think we would all just be like, okay, fine, that covers it pretty much. But it's just not the reality, I don't think. And it's so, so it, uh, again, the legislative bodies have needed to add this protection just because it's not being protected everywhere.

0:46:44 Pithyjoe: Okay. So, I don't want to say like I've taken up your point of view entirely. I do think we have a lot of overlap in how we think about the issue. You, um, I, I, I don't want to say I've changed my mind entirely. I think, maybe, as you said, I'm, I'm using, a how'd you put it, a corner argument, um, so I Yeah.

0:46:49 Thomas: Sure.

0:47:07 Thomas: Sure. Like a corner case kind of thing.

0:47:09 Pithyjoe: Corner case, uh, you know, I haven't listened to your show that much, so I'm not as familiar with the legalese, but I did did listen to a couple of them.

0:47:09 Thomas: Yeah. That's okay. I don't even know if that's a technical term. I just used it as it.

0:47:19 Pithyjoe: Yeah. I, I listened, uh, to a couple of of them, so, you know, you gotta, you got a new listener out of it. Well,

0:47:23 Thomas: Sure. Tell you what, let's do this. If you're, if you're cool and if there's anything else you want to say, I'm, I want, I'm happy to hear it and get it, get it out there. But let's do this. Let's, you know, we can take a break from this. Let me know if you see, I mean, if you happen to see an argument or, you know, you remember the Jordan B. Peterson video where you thought he said a thing here that, you send it to me. Like, I'm happy to look at it. But I'm really, really grateful to you for coming on and listening. Thing. And I appreciate that. And I actually do respect the fact that I think there could be corner case annoyances in this. I don't, I'm not closed to that possibility. I just, the overall good for me is overwhelming. And the focus on these corner cases and the misrepresentation that Peterson has done and the oversimplification, if you want to be really, you know, kind of of overly sympathetic to his case.

0:48:17 Thomas: The oversimplification is really inflaming a lot of people against something that is a protection for trans people, largely. So what do you think? I mean, we can feel free to keep in contact if you see an argument or if you want to run something, you know, by me and I'm open to it as well.

0:48:35 Pithyjoe: Do you mind if I, uh just give like a final statement like, Um, So as I said, I'm, you know, I, I have no problem respecting, uh, people's pronouns generally. I do think that there are some kind of natural absurdities that will arise from that. And I, I, at the risk of reopening the argument, I, I think that we should be concerned about that, that you law off these questions of whether a person is sincere in their expression or whether they're trying to be manipulative, that's somewhat frightening. And I've seen other cases where the law has been abused in order to prosecute people for their speech. So, I just think we should be very careful about what categories we classify as protected and how, in terms of what can be said and what cannot be said.

0:48:38 Thomas: No problem. Go ahead.

0:49:36 Pithyjoe: Obviously, I don't think people should be discriminated against for being trans or for, you know, believing that they're in the wrong body. Or even if there's no legitimacy to their gender expression, legitimacy might not be the word, but if there is no biological basis for their gender expressions, they should still be free to express themselves and not be discriminated against.

0:50:04 Thomas: OK, yeah, thanks for that. I think that not open the argument up again by saying I'm open to, again, if there's something you think that words this better, that still gives protections that we both seem to agree on that are needed and doesn't have the risk that you're doing. I mean, I'm open to that. So I'm curious if you come up with anything or if you see anything. All right. I mean, thanks a lot, Joe, for coming on. I really appreciate it. I mean it. Coming on, being open, even if you weren't open, being willing to discuss differences is something that I really appreciate and I really respect. And thanks for giving me your time.

0:50:41 Pithyjoe: Well, I appreciate you having me on. It was a good discussion and thanks for having me.

0:51:11 Thomas: Alright, and once again thanks so much to Joe for coming, I really did mean what I said, I appreciate dialogue more than anything else, even if I'm dialoguing with someone who doesn't change their mind, I still appreciate the willingness to come on and talk, and again, maybe my mind will be changed. I like to think I'm open to it. So that was an interesting experience. I think it was somewhat of a success, honestly. And I mean, for me, my accounting for that fact is that this argument is just so easy. I mean on one hand, you have some of the most persecuted people in the world, in our societies, wanting to not get fired and evicted. And on the other hand, you have a whiny little professor who Who doesn't wanna have to not say a certain thing or say, I mean, it's just, it's really nothing.

0:52:00 Thomas: You're a professional, you're a federal employee or you're a landlord or something, like you can manage it. You know, you always have the option to not be a federal employee. As Andrew would say about cake making, you always have the option to not be a baker and you always have the option to not offer housing and you always have the option to not be a federal employee. Look, the day, by the way, the day there's a law that says, in, you know, on the street, you or I will be arrested if we use the wrong pronoun, I mean, I will be right there with you opposing that. And I don't think anyone would, that I know, would support that. I think that that's far too harsh of a thing, but this is a different story. Anyway, so my interpretation of this is that this is a really easy argument to get right. Even I can do it. It's not too hard, but I think, I hope that maybe if this is a recording that if you know somebody, if you, for the Jordan B.

0:52:50 Thomas: Peterson fan in your life this Christmas, no, someone you see online or whoever, and you want to refer them to this episode, maybe it'll be a good idea, maybe there'll be way to bridge that gap. I don't know. But thanks for listening. There's a lot of news going on. I know. I had to, I've been trying to release this episode for a while because I think it was interesting and, but it just kept being preempted by Trump and by some really amazing guests, and then the whole gender studies thing happened, so things kept exploding that I wanted to respond to, and this was more of a timeless issue, but Thursday I want to talk about the terrorism attack, and I want to talk a lot of the responses because I think there's some interesting things to parse there, and I'm looking forward to going through it with you guys.

0:53:35 Thomas: So look forward to that, great interview for next Monday too, but I'll tease that more on Thursday. So with that said, thanks for listening and I'll see you guys on Thursday. Have a great few days here.