Thread by @ALLIANCELGB

Here is our submission to the three-day OHCHR seminar on academic freedom we attended earlier this year. It highlights the key role of social media companies, rather than governments, in controlling online discourse, which impacts on academic freedom. ohchr.org/Documents/Issu…

“To a very large extent, our freedom of expression is controlled by corporate enterprises such as Google, Twitter, Facebook, Medium, and WordPress. These companies decide which information and ideas are permissible and which must be banished.”

Although the RationalWiki page on #LGBAlliance is no longer, as the submission states, the first item to appear when googling LGB Alliance, this page is still prominent and it is not possible to edit the page to correct the disinformation on it.

“Twitter, Medium and WordPress regularly remove texts and accounts from their site on the basis of their rules. It can easily be demonstrated that these rules have been devised to suppress views highlighting women’s concerns about the loss of their sex-based rights.”

“By suppressing views that highlight the reality of biological sex, ... along with views that are widely regarded as obnoxious, these companies create the suggestion that emphasizing the reality of biological sex belongs in the same category as these objectionable ideas.”

“A discussion can be made impossible by changing the terms in which it is discussed. If every reference to the rights of Jews were called ‘Islamophobic’, it would suddenly become impossible, even in academic publications, to discuss antisemitism.”

“This is what has happened to the issue of women’s rights, and it has profoundly undermined the freedom of expression in academia and in society at large.”

“Activists have labelled all references to the rights of women & girls, who experience discrimination and abuse worldwide on the basis of biological factors, as ‘transphobic’. They use hate laws.. intended to prevent violence & abuse of minorities, to silence these discussions.”

“In addition,activists have sown linguistic confusion by coining new words & redefining existing ones. Because the subject of sex and gender is complex,and [to many] awkward & even embarrassing, many people prefer to assume that organisations active in this area are the experts.”

“Most bodies, organisations, companies, even governments defer to these organisations. They do so from the best of intentions, assuming that the aim is to protect the human rights of a vulnerable group.”

“[Many] now oblige by using words and phrases like “cis”, “pregnant people”, “gender assigned at birth”... and the like, and solemnly adhere to demands to use specific pronouns, while being quite unaware of the harm being done to women’s rights.”

“If ... regulatory bodies fail to appreciate the different meanings of ‘sex’ and ‘gender’, and fail to note] that the word ‘transgender’ is used in relation to a huge number of different kinds of individuals”

“with extremely diverse problems and situations, this makes it virtually impossible to conduct serious discussions on these issues.”

“The ... confusion that has been introduced by activists and unfortunately – quite often in well-meaning but misguided attempts to be ‘inclusive’ – adopted by national and supranational regulatory bodies has caused immense harm to the rights of women and LGB people.”

“The only people to benefit from this confusion are the activists who introduced it.”

“The words and phrases are adopted without proper consideration. Likewise the documents enshrining them. The most striking and alarming example of the resulting harm relates to the document known as ... the Yogyakarta Principles plus 10 (2017).”

“.. few people, even in human rights circles, have actually read the text of the Yogyakarta Principles plus 10. Yet activists have successfully [persuaded] the international human rights world, and .. many governments, [that it represents] ‘Best Practice’ on sex and gender.”

“Most people referring to it as ‘best practice’ would be astonished to learn that Article 31 of this document calls for an end to the registration of the sex of babies in birth certificates.”

“Our final point is therefore: national and supranational regulatory bodies are impeding freedom of expression by unthinkingly adopting confused and confusing terminology, and in some cases endorsing documents without proper scrutiny,”

“thus making it virtually impossible to engage in fruitful exchanges of ideas and opinions on sex and gender.”