Comrades.
This decision to strangle off free speech at Massey University will bite us in the arse.
You repress free speech at your own risk.
A University is EXACTLY the place to hold a feminism conference. A University is legally mandated to be the critic of society, they uphold that obligation with academic free speech. To conflate health and safety obligations to staff and students to protect them from ideas they don’t like is intellectually bankrupt.
Suppressing free speech in this woke censorship manner only empowers ACT.
Mark my words, this is going to bite us in the arse.
Have you ever gone onto SUFW website? There is no idea of who the people running it are. I would like to know that an organization claiming to speak for women actually is run by women! The guest speaker they have, was removed from twitter for refusing to address a person as “she” and repeatedly referring to the persons birth name. Sort of gives an idea of the level of debate. They claim they want NZ to have a debate about people re gendering and whether people should be able to reclassify themselves.
There are claims that safe spaces will be endangered by men who reclassify themselves with the intention to sexually assault women – maybe women would like to open our spaces to the other members who are at risk of assault. We did allow transvestites in until radical feminists got antsy and kicked them and women with children out! There are claims that when trans women claim to be lesbian that means that women who want to be in vagina only spaces are harmed. I would have thought that a chat would make a good start if you wanted no surprises in the bedroom. There are claims that making bathrooms safer for trans girls makes it unsafe for girls because boys who want to assault girls will assign themselves as girls. The concept that a person born a boy would assign themselves as a girl for the ability to sexually assault a girl does appear ludicrous. Our society does not behave well towards members who are different so I do not think a boy would willingly hold himself up for bullying and isolation for the chance to watch girls do makeup and be able to pee in a stall.
To not have the discussion is maybe silly but it is a discussion that doesn’t resolve as you have old time lesbians and right wing women on one side and an angry population that wants acknowledgement and is prepared to use the same tactics that were used in the 70’s by the then unacknowledged lesbians. In the middle you have the women like me who were scorned by the original radical feminists for having heterosexual relationships and who dislike the strident right wing women who wish to bully trans people out of existence. They are not me and I don’t want them to defend rights for me and not for the trans community and to be honest I am tired of being called Woke by 40 something guys, who assume that because I am prepared to fight for trans rights in the same way as I fought for womens rights, and I fought for black rights in South Africa by halting the tour, and I fought for free tertiary education in NZ (didn’t win that), and I fought for the right to an abortion, that I have gone from an advocate to a denier. The new generation of protestors are different, but I don’t recall debates with Rugby fans and HART during the Springboks tour either. I remember yelling outside a National Party conference so Muldoon had trouble being heard inside – so maybe we weren’t so different, maybe you guys have just forgotten how we closed down debate too!
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