Discussion

Genders, Rights, and Freedom of Speech

Student’s Name

Institution

Genders, Rights, and Freedom of Speech

The genders, rights and freedom of speech are some of the contentious issues being discussed in various quarters. It is argued that the legislation to recognize gender of individuals especially transgender persons is a violation of speech and therefore, peoples should be forced to use the reference preferred by a specific gender. As illustrated in the video and there is a strong view among the some people that the legislation is overreach and therefore, it should not be implemented. However, the legislation is a matter of human rights meant to protect the rights of transgender and other minorities in the society.

Transgender should have the right to make a choice whether one should be referred as he or she without any victimization. Failure to entrench the right of individuals and especially the transgender could result to a serious abuse of their rights, which could lead to intimidation. The right of transgender is human right and therefore, enacted of the proposed Bill C-16 would step towards achievement of the equal human rights to all genders. The enacted of various laws have recognized the transgender and therefore, the transgender persons are part of our society. However, ignoring their existence and assuming that such a person does not exist by using word of your choice to refer such a person would be a violation of an individual right. It would be prudent to ensure that transgender person is referred using the name of an individual choice. It is therefore, evident that the Jordan Peterson misinterprets the legislation and the intention of the legislation is not to limit freedom of speech but to ensure that no group of people in the society can discriminated due to their gender. There is an issue of sex when it comes to pronouns in general cases where the transgender is not involved and therefore, there would be unwise not to consider the issue of sex in the case of transgender. Again, the issue of pronouns of gender cannot be left an unchecked when it comes to transgender. It would be wise to leave a person affected to decide how to be called and which gender to be used without feeling of discriminated.

In addition, institutions like the universities and other places of learning can ensure that there is proper balance of freedom of speech ad rights of persons or group through establishment of policies and regulations. There should be strict rules regarded how transgender are treated to ensure that preferred gender by individual transgender is observed by students. The institutions should also be measured to ensure that individuals violating such rules and regulations are punished. However, the institutions should also conduct sensitization and educate all students of the third gender and promote their recognition. It is important to point out that the freedom of speech cannot include an offensive language against any person in the society and therefore, an institution needs to conduct sanitization on the bill to create understanding and this would ensure that there is freedom of speech and rights of certain groups would be anchored as well.

It is evident that the stance taken by Peterson means that there is some of kind of misunderstand of the proposed bill. The proposed bill does not intend to limit freedom of speech. However, by insisting that he would use words of his choice to refer a transgender persons Peterson does not truly advocate for the freedom of speech. It could not be proper to ignore or assume the right of others and decide for others even if an individual’s rights are being violated.

References

https://www.tvo.org/video/genders-rights-and-freedom-of-speech