A socialist student organization at the University of Texas, San Antonio is doing all it can to prevent a lecture by clinical psychologist and professor Jordan Peterson.
Members of the Young Democratic Socialists of America chapter at UTSA recently tweeted out a link to a petition started by a local transgender activist, calling on the Tobin Center for the Preforming Arts to prevent Peterson from delivering a planned lecture in October.
“No platform for transphobes,” the tweet reads, while linking to a Change.org petition to protest Peterson’s lecture.
No platform for transphobes. https://t.co/fATBCqFanl
— UTSA Socialists? (@UTSA_Socialists) June 30, 2018
According to the petition, Peterson is one of the most “vocal and divisive anti LGBTQ individuals in North America,” who “makes a living promoting conversion therapy and spreading lies about transgender people.”
“Considering the damage that San Antonio and our trans community would suffer if state lawmakers pass a bathroom bill next Spring, why in the world would we give this man a stage in our most celebrated performance hall,” the petition reads.
Peterson rose to fame in 2016 after speaking out against a proposed law in Canada which he felt would legally compel individuals to use certain types of speech when referring to individuals based on gender self-identification. Since then, he has become a popular defender of free speech on college campuses, often appearing alongside other speech advocates such as Ben Shapiro, Dave Rubin, and Sam Harris.
Despite efforts by the YDSA to promote the petition to have Jordan Peterson barred from speaking, less than a thousand people appear to have signed the petition. Meanwhile, Peterson has become so popular that he has embarked on an extensive speaking tour across the U.S. and Europe, where he regularly appears before sold-out audiences eager to hear him speak.
Correction: An earlier headline implied that the Tobin Center is a part of University of Texas, San Antonio; it is not. The body of the story has also been edited to reflect this distinction.
