An Opinion Piece by Jordan Peterson, Clinical Psychologist, About Gender Ideology in Schools

OPINION

by Justine Deterling

Jordan Peterson is a clinical psychologist who is controversial because he does not believe the state should enforce pronoun use and for some of his views on the sexes and their role in society (which could be characterized as center right).

He has written an opinion piece in the the National Post called “Gender politics has no place in the classroom.”

He discusses the confusion he fears, as a clinical psychologist, will arise from telling children there is “no such thing as a boy or a girl.” This is something that happened in a classroom of six year olds and is now the subject of a complaint by the parents, as their child was upset. These ideas arose from postmodern influenced queer theory in academia, by people such as Judith Butler.

The bill he refers to is a human rights bill in Canada, Bill C16:

Worse is the insistence characteristic of the bill, the policies associated with it, and the tenth-rate academic dogmas driving the entire charade, that “identity” is something solely determined by the individual in question (whatever that identity might be). Even sociologists (neither the older, classical, occasionally useful type, nor the modern, appalling, and positively counterproductive type) don’t believe this. They understand that identity is a social role, which means that it is by necessity socially negotiated.

While some may see this as a conservative opinion in this day and age, it is actually shared by some leftists, LGB people, and trans people. The LGB community used to play with identity and use cross-sex pronouns at times. There wasn’t the obsession with pronouns and identity that there is today. Nor the desire (except some etiquette rules around drag shows) to invest in having the general public validate them. Some GenX LGB people, in particular, feel this is a step backwards. And some trans people do as well. They tend to be more conservative, or “transmedicalists,” who don’t deny the relevance of biological definitions of sex or believe society needs to embrace the concept of multiple genders. Some of the opinions of LGBT supportive liberals and LGBT people, which aren’t that different from Peterson’s, can be found here. While Peterson is speaking about confusion around gender ideology and children, examples of how gender ideology is causing some confusion and strife within the LGBT population can be found here.

I have a complaint with this article, as well as other articles that express worry that gender ideology will confuse and over-medicalize children. I agree we should be worried it will. However, these critical articles often fail to address any solution for the child who’s behaviors and interests are highly aligned with cross-sex stereotypes. These youths my be trans-identified or not. But either way, extremely effeminate boys and masculine tomboys are outliers that aren’t really incorporated very well into our society. They don’t see themselves represented anywhere. These children are often treated poorly, including verbal and physical abuse. And if people who do not like current gender ideology and trans activism want to create change, it would be best to address how these youth’s can be supported as well. Instead, they are forgotten about in these articles about maintaining concepts of “societal structure.”

Jordan Peterson is not a far-right person. But this point relates to why I am personally very skeptical about addressing this issue with any far-right conservatives that only frame this in terms of social order, with no regard for those children/teens who are harmed by the way that order currently exists.