Vol. CXXXVII, No. 5 October 3, 2016 thevarsity.ca —— The University of Toronto’s Student Newspaper Since 1880
Editorial — page 11
Arts & Culture — page 14
Environmental justice The university and government continue to fail Indigenous peoples across Canada; we all have a responsibility to make amends
Creative collisions Cross-genre creations bear artistic fruit
“I exist” U of T community responds to Jordan Peterson on gender identities Tom Yun News Editor
U of T professor Jordan Peterson is facing criticism regarding his comments about non-binary gender identities and political correctness after his YouTube video “Fear and the Law” went viral last week. The tenured psychology professor at U of T became the subject of national media attention after The Varsity reported on the first part of his YouTube lecture series called Professor against political correctness. In an hour-long video, Peterson criticizes Bill C-16 — which would amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code to criminalize harassment and discrimination based on gender identity — and the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s policies on gender identity-based harassment and discrimination. The Ontario Human Rights Commission defines gender identity as “each person’s internal and individual experience of gender. It is their sense of being a woman, a man, both, neither, or anywhere along the gender spectrum.” “I don’t know what ‘neither’ means because I don’t know what the options are if you’re not a man or a woman,” Peterson states in his YouTube lecture. “It’s not obvious to me how you can be both because those are by definition binary categories.”
In an interview with The Varsity, Peterson insisted that he “wasn’t denying the existence of people who do not fit neatly into binary gender categories.” Peterson asserts that the aforementioned government policies go too far in terms of accommodation for non-binary people and transgender people. “What should you ask of the collective if you deviate in some manner? And you might say, ‘You should ask the collective to welcome you with open arms,’” he said. “And I would say, ‘That’s probably asking too much.’ I think what you should ask the collective is [that] they tolerate your deviance without too much aggression.” A number of U of T professors have contested the claims Peterson makes in the video. A. W. Peet, a physics professor who identifies as non-binary and uses the pronoun ‘they,’ expressed disappointment with Peterson’s comments. “It doesn’t really matter whether he thinks we exist or not because we do. I just wanted to say, ‘Excuse me, I exist. I’m non-binary and I’m also a full professor with the University of Toronto with tenure,” said Peet. “So this is me standing up saying I don’t think this is good enough.” Nicholas Matte, who teaches at the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity studies, disputed Peterson’s interpretations on gender. “Unfortunately, there still are many branches of academia where new research has not been done in a way that would allow trans-positive information to be known,” said Matte. “Our academic field... can be used to justify the arguments that he is making, but that research is extremely questionable and also is not good research.” He continued: “However, there is an extremely large body of excellent research that has been underway for many years — depending on how you measure it, up 60 years — to create more transpositive research.” Peterson, page 3
Love and medicine Drs. Andrew and Cornelia Barnes are passionate about medicine and each other page 19
U of T student detained in Dhaka granted bail Tahmid Hasib Khan has been detained in Bangladesh since early July following café siege Kaitlyn Simpson Associate News Editor
After 3 months in Bangladeshi police custody, U of T student Tahmid Hasib Khan has been granted bail. He was initially detained without charges by police so that he could be questioned regarding a Dhaka terrorist attack on July 1. Bangladeshi police from the Counterterrorism and Transnational Crime Unit released a report on September 28 saying that Khan was not involved in perpetrating the attack. Khan was with his friends at the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka when five extremists attacked the
bakery in a hostage situation, killing 20 people. After a standoff with police officers, the siege ended with 13 survivors. Khan and British national Hasnat Karim were immediately taken in for questioning following the attack. Khan had limited communication with his family at first but quickly lost contact. Following the incident, Khan’s whereabouts were unclear, but Dhaka Metropolitan Police officially arrested Khan on August 4, without laying charges. With the efforts of Khan’s family and friends, a ‘Free Tahmid’ Facebook group has received significant support in its attempts to advocate
for Khan’s release since he was initially detained. Joshua Grondin, U of T student and organizer of the Facebook group, told The Varsity that he is deeply relieved to hear that Khan has been released from custody. “It’s been a very long waiting game, and it definitely feels tough to have to sit back and watch your friend go through something like this,” he said. “I guess most of all I’m just overwhelmingly happy. I miss him so much, and it’s been really tough to not be able to hear from him or know how he’s doing.” Khan was reportedly released Sunday.