Students watched from outside the overflowing debate hall. Photo by Jake Kivanc
This article originally appeared on VICE Canada
Jordan Peterson, the Toronto professor who became infamous earlier this fall for his fiery remarks on political correctness and gender identity, found himself at the center of a long-anticipated debate Saturday morning around Bill C-16—legislation which, in his eyes, criminalizes free speech.
The debate, which took place at the University of Toronto, featured Peterson in discussion with U of T law professor Brenda Cossman and University of British Columbia professor of education Mary Bryson.
The two professors mainly clashed with Peterson over the ethics of his refusal to address people by a preferred pronoun, as opposed to what he visually identifies as the person's sex.
"I am not going to be a mouthpiece for language I detest," Peterson told the audience, in response to a comparison made by the professors between racial hate speech and failing to respect someone's gender identity.
"This is not an issue of what we can't say, it's about what we must say," he said.
Bryson argued that Peterson was being "unethical" in his claims that he had properly researched gender science—further adding that Peterson's YouTube videos reinforced hate speech against transgender people, who are a minority at large.
In the past, Peterson told VICE that he had not actually encountered a situation in which a student or staff member had asked him to address by a different pronoun than the one he identified them by. When asked whether he would comply with someone who requested that he do so, Peterson declined to give a straight answer.
"It would depend on how they asked me," he told VICE in September. "If I could detect that there was a chip on their shoulder, or that they were who might have him as a teacher," she told VICE. "I could not imagine having someone show such blatant disrespect to someone who is paying their salary."
During the debate, Peterson argued that pronouns were "not a mark of respect," but deflected the idea that someone who referred to him by an improper pronoun or declined to use his title was a fair comparison.
VICE also asked Peterson in September how he would deal with somebody who used a female pronoun on him, or refused to refer to him by his title, but would not comment on "a theoretical scenario."
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