7
He was supposed to give a talk on freedom of expression and the way academia has become politicized, chilling both thought and dialogue. LGBTQ activists really proved his point for him. No doubt he has views we disagree with here (anti-abortion), but he was still prevented from speaking on the basis of his not bowing to the TQ.
Link to article: https://blog.washcoll.edu/wordpress/theelm/2023/09/college-community-protest-ensues-announcement-of-talk-by-dr-robert-george/
Excerpts:
As he continued his speech, Dr. George was cut off by the College community protesters climbing the Hynson steps and entering the event at 4:57 p.m., roughly 25 minutes after the it began.
Entering with posters, flags, and other objects from the protest, community members approached listeners of the Hynson talk.
With the two events now intertwined, protesters and forum members spoke to one another in a heightened scene.
As protesters conversed with attendees of Dr. George’s talk, other, unnamed protesters talked directly to the staff of the College.
“You know how many … death threats I get for being trans,” one protester said to Dean of Students and Title IX Coordinator Greg Krikorian during an inaudible conversation between the two.
Another interaction between a student, a part of the protest who is unnamed, and Dr. George ensued with the student.
“You answer the question, what do you think about trans people,” the protester said. “If you tell me you ‘love trans people’ I will leave right now, I will walk out that door now.” There was no auditory response from Dr. George.
After roughly 15 minutes of meeting between the two groups, Dr. Prud’homme took to the front of the room to address the audience. “Our speaker has asked to leave,” he said.
Following this decision, protesters and event members left the venue, and Dr. George was escorted out.
Apparently there were also whistles, shouting, etc. Supposedly these students will face disciplinary action.
The land of cartoon child pornography wants to say something about harm?
"Uh, ACTUALLY, Miyumi is a 500 year old vampire! She just LOOKS like a 5 year old!!"
"Since we can't refute the author's findings and conclusions without resorting to circular reasoning and logical fallacies, we'll just silence her. Problem solved." Rinse and repeat. Ugh.
I saw some of the Twitter usual suspects starting a fuss about this earlier this week - extremely disappointed to hear that they capitulated to pressure that largely seemed non-Japanese and extremely online in origin.
I shouldn't feel so disappointed in Japan, but since Japan is still patriarchal, it doesn't surprise me.
I do wonder what the impact of the plummeting birthrate timebomb is going to be. The same with South Korea. Both countries are also extremely resistant to migration.
Well, misogyny is still quite rampant in Japan, so they probably just needed any excuse to limit the spreading of the knowledge about women's oppression.
The first person murdered by those pushing the 1989 fatwa against Salman Rushdie was a man named Hitoshi Igarashi.
He had been hired to translate Rushdie's Satanic Verses into Japanese.
But Japan keeps Tick Tacky under a tight leash. Are they expecting head pats from WEY or gaslighting western countries.
This is surprising to me. Japan is pretty “behind” on LGBTQ issues, being the only G7 country to not have legalized gay marriage, among other things.
Although, come to think of it, when it comes to porn, feminization, and things like pedophilia Japan has always had a looser grip on things like that… so I imagine that trans porn and the like can get a grip there in a way that TRAs can’t, at least not publicly. I mean it’s the birthplace of the “futanari” porn. Still Japan is kind of well known for not “catering” to western tastes and ideals, so I’m still surprised.
The insane power of the crazies on Twitter continues.
ETA: Japan also seems to have more of an emphasis on company reputation from what I understand, so I guess it’s not that surprisingly a publisher wouldn’t want to associate with a controversial book, regardless of the topic. Still infuriating
Considering what happened to the Japanese translator of The Satanic Verses, this isn't surprising. They have genuine reason to fear that a TIM might harm any Japanese people who work on localizing that book
If they caved due to pressure, we need to put the pressure back on to publish. They think they’re doing what the public wants, but when they’re actually capitulating to an extremist minority. Anyone here speak Japanese that can email them? Or know people who speak Japanese?
You can write an email in English and then run it through DeepL, it’s probably sufficient.
Edit: if you actually do this, be very careful with your wording, and very gentle
Such a good book too. It was my introduction into the mad world of transgenderism and it really opened my eyes to the harm it was doing.