Quote:You can’t make this up: The New York Public Library has canceled an event, scheduled for Friday at the main branch, that was to feature women who have been canceled.

Organized by the Women’s Liberation Front, a feminist organization that supports a biological definition of gender, the “Evening with Canceled Women” was to feature “five fearless feminists” speaking out about “women’s rights to a life free of pervasive harassment, silencing, coercion, violence, forced lying and endless punishment.”

That message is now apparently unwelcome in one of the Big Apple’s premier cultural institutions. (Full disclosure: One of the women is my ex-wife, Libby Emmons.)

In a blog post, the WLF’s Natasha Chart recounted how she was informed last week, just a day before the deposit for the room rental was due, that the library wouldn’t be hosting the event. The library gave no reason for the cancellation — which came even though earlier it had assured the women that “the contract was in process.” The NYPL didn’t respond to my request for comment.

The only plausible explanation is that the NYPL fears backlash from trans activists. That is, the women are being denied a platform over their objections to trans ideology.

At a time when our society is radically reengineering our conception of sex and gender — with policy decisions that will have profound ramifications on women’s sports, prisons and homeless shelters, among other issues — the ­decision to silence these women is flat-out shameful.

A similar event to be hosted by the WLF on Feb. 1 at the Seattle Public Library will be going forward, ­despite complaints from trans ­activists. In a statement, the Seattle library said that it “must maintain its role as a stalwart protector of intellectual freedom for all, ­ensuring that all voices — even unpopular or offensive voices — are able to be heard.”

Unfortunately, the decision-makers at NYPL seem to lack the courage of their counterparts in hyper-progressive Seattle.

All of the women slated to appear have been victims in one way or ­another of cancel culture, including social-media bans, protests and hecklers — all for asserting the not-long-ago common view that gender is based in biological facts, not subjective feelings.

Now the trans movement is telling them to shut up and let biological men decide what it means to be a woman. But in the tradition of powerful feminist voices in the past, these women won’t shut up or be nice.

Even if you disagree with the WLF, the NYPL’s decision is a shocking violation of a library’s core purpose, which is to promote dialogue and learning and to ­advance the intellectual vitality of New York City.

The good news is that despite the cowardice of the NYPL, the organizers are going forward with the event, albeit in a secret location that will be announced to ticket-holders the day of — to avoid protesters shutting it down. This is what progressivism has come to: Feminists have to hide to speak freely.

In very short order, the academy, the media and the government have simply decided to overturn thousands of years of the understanding of gender, without so much as a discussion about it. Many on the left hold the view that speech critical of gender ideology is literally an act of violence. A free society can’t survive such absurd nonsense.

It is vital that gender-critical feminists be a part of our debates over gender. To shame and shun speakers who insist that men can’t become women, or vice versa, is to deprive important conversations about gender of a powerful, traditional feminist voice. But the tide might be turning: Author JK Rowling’s recent refusal to bend the knee on the transgender issue has shown how toothless cancel culture can be when people of courage and conscience stand up to the bullies.

Same goes for the canceled women of New York. Banned by NYPL, these feminists will have to create their own spaces. But that, after all, is what women have ­always had to do.

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The cancelled women got cancelled by the Institution attempting to show how they were cancelled by other institutions.

I really do try to avoid comment on subjects like abortion, sex, etc.

But events like this are not a collision between differing opinions or viewpoints or “values”. They are a collision between Reality and Make-Believe. What a sick, f-cked-up society we have become.

(01-16-2020 06:49 PM)Native Georgian Wrote:  I really do try to avoid comment on subjects like abortion, sex, etc.

But events like this are not a collision between differing opinions or viewpoints or “values”. They are a collision between Reality and Make-Believe. What a sick, f-cked-up society we have become.

In less than a decade. In one of the very few episodes of South Park I've ever watched there was a man who decided to identify as a woman to compete in a worlds strongest woman event. He looked and sounded like Randy Savage and rolled through the field of female athletes, the front runner until he came along turned out to be his ex-girlfriend upon whom he was exacting revenge. I didn't get to the end of the episode but the message until I stopped watching was decidedly anti-trans, at least as it related to sporting competitions.

Meanwhile all the kids were freaking out when a group of girls forced themselves into the school gaming club and waxed their asses at every game they entered into which I thought was funny.