Free speech on campus, and argue the issues!

Submitted by Matthew on 15 November, 2017 - 12:17 Author: Reuben Mathews

This article appears as an opinion piece in Solidarity 454

When we “no platform” and un-invite radical feminists from our universities — in the guise of safer spaces — who are we protecting, and who are we serving?

The more time and energy we spend attacking these women, the less we spend fighting the Tories and the straight identified men currently posing a life-threatening threat to trans people on these campuses. We should be focussing our energy on the material conditions and accompanying attitudes that pose a threat to the lives of trans people, and on convincing other people to recognise, challenge, and respond to them.

The 2017 Stonewall School Report showed that 80% of trans young people in the UK have self-harmed, and almost half have attempted suicide. These figures are replicated in the 2012 Trans Mental Health Study, in which 66% have accessed mental health services for reasons other than access to medical assistance in gender reassignment, and 48% had attempted suicide. Furthermore 58% of trans people are disabled, and 18% are carers. Of those trans people who have attended gender identity clinics, 32% faced a 1-3 year wait, and 8% wait over 3 years for an appointment.

58% of participants felt that the wait to access a Gender Identity Clinic led to their mental health or emotional wellbeing worsening during this time. The three primary threats to the wellbeing of trans people in the UK are: the delays in accessing Gender Identity Clinics due to long waiting lists and underfunded services; the cuts to mental health services that have increased waiting lists and decreased available support; and the cuts to the disability benefits and welfare systems on which many trans people rely.

All of these are the fault and responsibility of the Conservative government, and hence within their purview to fix if they wish. These dangers to the lives and wellbeing of trans people, including university students, have not been responded to with a wholesale banning of the Conservative society on campus, an attempt to shut down all their meetings through protest, no-platform motions for all Conservative speakers, and a refusal to allow them to be a registered student society. To the contrary, they organise openly on campus, with protests only for occasional, very high profile speakers. Why do we not ban them from meeting, when they are far more of a threat to our survival than “TERFs” (“Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists”)?

A quick google for “transgender suicide uk” gave, on the first page of results, 3 suicides since April 2017 — and there will be far more I missed. In order to mitigate the risk of suicide, trans people need access to proper mental health care, benefits, and short waiting lists — and it is a deeply ideological decision the Tory party have made in not providing these.

Why are we making radical feminists, who have the odd newspaper column but no institutional power, our primary enemy, rather than the government whose policies are contributing to the death of countless trans people? World-wide, the biggest cause of the murders of trans people is straight identified men — yet there is no movement towards banning them from our unions. Similarly, reasonably prominent members of many organised religions (including Christianity, Judaism and Islam) are known for preaching against trans people in a manner that could be seen to justify our murders, and yet we don’t ban all religious societies from campus.

Banning radical feminists is easy, and the protests organised against them promote community cohesion among left wing groups, giving “allies” a chance to prove their “ally credentials” by shouting at the “TERFs”. However, this does little to protect trans students, because it ignores the far more serious threats to our lives.

Conservatives, straight men, and religious groups are welcome to meet on our campuses, in our communities, and in our Students’ Unions, and there is minimal or no effort to ban or no-platform them to protect trans students. Advocating institutionally banning all religious societies, all Conservative societies, and all straight men would be impractical, impossible, and inappropriate; whilst all of these groups contribute to the deaths of trans people on a national or international scale, banning them from meeting would be a chilling threat to the culture of free thought and debate that Universities were designed to foster.

No space with Conservatives in is a safe space for trans people — but the only way of making spaces safe for us is by changing minds and through that, policy. For as long as we refuse to argue with “TERFs” on our platforms, the more they will complain from their big media platforms, without us debating them, exposing the flaws in their positions, and changing the minds of their audiences.

If we want to win the student body round to supporting the rights of trans people, we need to convince them our arguments are better than those of TERFs, Tories, and anyone else’s. Therefore, publicly taking apart the arguments our opponents make about trans people is critically important — not to change their minds, but to change the minds of people who might agree with them. This is the only way of actively improving the lives of trans people in the future — convincing everyone that our rights must be supported, protected, and extended.

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