CEGEPs: freedom of expression under close surveillance?
Last year, the Legault government passed a law to protect freedom of expression in our universities,
attacked by activists set up as censors.
This is a first step in the right direction. But what about in our CEGEPs?
Before that, allow me a little detour.
Fear
On July 3, Michèle Sirois, an anthropologist by training and a feminist activist, published a wonderful article in La Presse.
She returns to this ongoing offensive – in school curricula, in the media, in laws – to replace, under the pretext of inclusion, the word "woman" by the word "person" and the notion of sex by that of gender.
This ideological offensive, without scientific basis, is everything, she says, except stupid or innocuous.
First, she explains, being a woman is a sexual category, and official recognition of that sex entails specific rights.
Secondly, the confusion between sex and gender leads to all sorts of perverse effects.
Basically, sex is binary and has a biological basis. Gender – how we perceive ourselves, how we are perceived, how we choose to live – is a social construct that varies according to time and society.
Removing biology from sexuality education increases confusion in the minds of young people –
especially young girls – at a crucial time in their lives.
They have less understanding of their body transformations and are therefore quickly led to conclude that they were born "in the wrong body".
Two results among others: in the United States, between 2016 and 2017, surgeries to change sex increased fourfold, and in Great Britain, requests for sex changes increased by 4400% in the last 15 years.
I cannot do justice to the whole text of Mme Sir, but what does it have to do with freedom of expression in our CEGEPs?
It is that Mme Sirois had co-written his text with three CEGEP teachers who did not want to sign it for fear of suffering the wrath of their administration.
Certainly, they are in the best position to assess risks. Draw your conclusions.
Another CEGEP teacher presents this new gender theory in class and, for the sake of objectivity, also presents the arguments of those who oppose it in the name of the biological reality of the sexes.
Students complained. The teacher dared not to endorse this new ideology 100%!
The management summons the teacher and serves him a disciplinary opinion.
As I write this, management seems to want to calm down, but that gives you an idea.
Another teacher had problems for daring to question this notion of "rape culture" in class.
Police
And I could go on.
A CEGEP is smaller than a university. It is therefore easier for a thought police to crack down there.
That is where we are.
attacked by activists set up as censors.
This is a first step in the right direction. But what about in our CEGEPs?
Before that, allow me a little detour.
Fear
On July 3, Michèle Sirois, an anthropologist by training and a feminist activist, published a wonderful article in La Presse.
She returns to this ongoing offensive – in school curricula, in the media, in laws – to replace, under the pretext of inclusion, the word "woman" by the word "person" and the notion of sex by that of gender.
This ideological offensive, without scientific basis, is everything, she says, except stupid or innocuous.
First, she explains, being a woman is a sexual category, and official recognition of that sex entails specific rights.
Secondly, the confusion between sex and gender leads to all sorts of perverse effects.
Basically, sex is binary and has a biological basis. Gender – how we perceive ourselves, how we are perceived, how we choose to live – is a social construct that varies according to time and society.
Removing biology from sexuality education increases confusion in the minds of young people –
especially young girls – at a crucial time in their lives.
They have less understanding of their body transformations and are therefore quickly led to conclude that they were born "in the wrong body".
Two results among others: in the United States, between 2016 and 2017, surgeries to change sex increased fourfold, and in Great Britain, requests for sex changes increased by 4400% in the last 15 years.
I cannot do justice to the whole text of Mme Sir, but what does it have to do with freedom of expression in our CEGEPs?
It is that Mme Sirois had co-written his text with three CEGEP teachers who did not want to sign it for fear of suffering the wrath of their administration.
Certainly, they are in the best position to assess risks. Draw your conclusions.
Another CEGEP teacher presents this new gender theory in class and, for the sake of objectivity, also presents the arguments of those who oppose it in the name of the biological reality of the sexes.
Students complained. The teacher dared not to endorse this new ideology 100%!
The management summons the teacher and serves him a disciplinary opinion.
As I write this, management seems to want to calm down, but that gives you an idea.
Another teacher had problems for daring to question this notion of "rape culture" in class.
Police
And I could go on.
A CEGEP is smaller than a university. It is therefore easier for a thought police to crack down there.
That is where we are.