When organizers at the National Gallery of Canada invited Jordan Peterson, a psychology professor from the University of Toronto, to speak about creativity on March 9, they were met with backlash.
Petitions and protests quickly popped up in response to the event on social media, and during his appearance at the gallery around 100 protesters expressed their disagreement outside with signs and a megaphone.
Kate Forman, a Carleton University student who identifies as gender-non-conforming, helped organize the protest against Peterson’s talk.
“Peterson’s said a lot of negative, discriminatory things about trans people,” Forman said. “I think having the National Gallery, which is a federally-funded institution, use funds to have him present on their grounds is . . . I think it’s inappropriate, frankly.”
Forman said they are especially bothered by Peterson’s stance on Bill C-16, which proposes including gender identity and orientation in the Canadian Human Rights Act.
If passed, it would become illegal to discriminate against someone based on the gender they identify as.
But Peterson has expressed concerns in a series of videos that the bill will infringe on free speech by forcing people to use certain pronouns.
Ottawa resident Spencer Thompson felt differently about the protest and expressed his diagreement over Facebook. He told The Charlatan over the phone that the backlash against Peterson was misguided at best, and mean-spirited at worst.
“They’re protesting on the basis that he is a transphobe, which is just factually incorrect,” Thompson said.
“He just disagrees with what he calls made up pronouns, which are quite rightly made-up, and he disagreed with the potential for these pronouns to be legislated,” Thompson added.
Peterson also spoke at the Ottawa Public Library on March 11, but was met with a much smaller protest after a lack of clarity on social media over whether the event had been cancelled.
– Photo is provided.
