Lesbians, the Far Right, and Neo-Nazis

Vancouver Lesbian Collective's Feminists Speak Out event attracts protesters and email campaign.

I went to my first feminist event, the panel discussion Feminists Speak out, organized by Vancouver Lesbian Collective and Vancouver Rape Relief, on International Women’s Day in Burnaby, BC. Living outside of the big city has prevented me from attending an event before now. I knew that at meetings any larger than a kitchen get together protesters eagerly campaign and protest, force venue cancellations, malign organizers, and harass attendees. Perhaps in my bubble I felt that the tide was turning and cancel culture was losing steam. Surely this small event would go under the radar. I was wrong. There was protest both in the form of an email campaign as well as an in-person protest.

I began to hear the protesters from inside the auditorium before the event as they shouted and hooted. Unfortunately for them, it wasn’t loud through the multiple sets of doors to disrupt the event. However, for event attendees arriving just before the start, I understand they had some trouble getting through the protesters. Julie Bindel had the nerve of course to head out to address them, getting about as far as David Menzies of Rebel News when he attempts to interview at protests. Bindel recounts more of her interactions with the crowd in her recent Substack post.

All protestors wore masks, including some fetish dog masks (perhaps this accounted for the barking that can be heard in the video). We shouldn’t be surprised, as anonymity is exactly what is prescribed by such progressive organizations such as Egale Canada. And we wonder why the quality of dialogue has gone down so much in Canada.

Protesting is fine. I don’t begrudge them that. What I don’t understand is the lack of willingness to converse and the demonization of discussions of women’s rights. Is it owed in part to their social isolation? It’s common for trans community members to distance themselves from family and avoid people with contrary opinions, relying on their glitter/rainbow club for validation and security. The best way for them to continue to hold onto their sense of self is to establish an enemy and participate in a communal display of angst.

This incident has made me curious about the protesters and what they actually thought about the event and its organizers. It was a BCIT student with the handle Prestigious_Goal_699 who led the charge on the TransVancouver Reddit group and tried to get the event cancelled.

To this BCIT student, that these topics might be discussed on campus is cause for being “upset” and “disgusted in Trans erasure”. The individual believes that the event is a form of harassment or discrimination. No consideration is given to the fact that no one is required to attend. In fact, VLC and VRR would prefer that their events attract more sympathetic attendees. Based on the BCIT policy on Harassment and Discrimination, a private event held at the institute does not qualify as either harassment or discrimination, as it does not exclude or cause offense to students or staff in their working or learning environment. This event was in no way thrust upon anyone who was not interested in attending.

In fact, the only harassment at the event came from the protesters who attempted to intimidate and insult attendees, calling out such things as “you’re killing trans kids”, held signs stating we were bigots, and called Julie Bindel an “old white woman”. As we left the auditorium the group filmed us on their phones, as if any one of the civilized attendees would physically antagonize them. The BCIT policy clearly states harassment is constituted by “unwelcome remarks, behaviours, or communications” attacking any protected characteristic, including political belief, and attempting to humiliate or create an intimidating atmosphere. While the policy is concerned more with the educational and labour environment, the protesters’ belief that the Feminists Speak Out event constituted harassment or discrimination when their behaviour did not is absurd.

Prestigious_Goal_699 attempted to even establish that the event posed a safety risk, by conflating the Vancouver Lesbian Collective with neo-Nazi groups and the nebulous but ever present “far right”. An email sent to BCIT by the original poster included the following text:

I’m not even sure what to think about their accusation that this was an “anti-Indigenous” event. You probably couldn’t find a more lefty group of women at a union meeting.

From the outset the minds of these protesters were made up. Their attempt to shut down the event was based on their impression of the organizers and one guest. There was no room to have a discussion, even to argue their own points with the organizers. The masks worn are an attempt to isolate themselves from their protestees, lest they betray a shared look of understanding or happen to smile. They don’t want to converse, only to push out VLC and VRR.

Shutting down the opponent through insult and character assassination is a classic cancel culture technique. In The Cancelling of the American Mind, Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott plot the various tools which are used ostensibly by the side of “good” to shut down opponents. The easiest strategy is simply to label the person or the group as “conservative”, “far-right”, or “far-right adjacent”. This empty slur means only that you are the opposition and therefore must be tarred and feathered and driven out of town. This is the mob’s way of not having to engage with the content of an argument. If you’re “right wing”, you don’t need to be engaged with. For good measure additional ad hominem attacks can be used in combination, such as being “anti-Indigenous” or having secret malicious intentions, such as wanting to kill trans kids.

Incredibly, there was a more nuanced and interesting view in the Reddit thread which pointed out that the event was not a “major safety issue” and that rarely is one owed “emotional safety”. It’s uncommon to see this perspective from someone in the trans community and, perhaps unsurprisingly, their opinion was not popular.

How did we get to this place, where women’s rights and sincere questions about the validity of gender affirming care have become anathema to large numbers of people? The disdain for these topics is similar to how society as a whole considered pedophilia perhaps 10 years ago; a topic not up for debate. Suddenly the protection of women and children has become trapped on one side of the Overton window with masked protesters attempting to keep it closed.

I don’t know the answer for engaging with protesters and don’t know how to change the mind of someone extremely ensconced in the trans-rights world. I do know that when society is allowed to freely discuss and debate issues, the good ideas win and the bad ideas slowly disappear. We need to stay present and keep discussing and debating wherever we have a chance to and gradually the open market of ideas will win.