The Massachusetts Institute of Technology provided “event response ambassadors” for students hurt or experiencing trauma due to a recent campus event featuring a detransitioner.
The MIT Open Discourse Society, with support from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, helped host “Born in the Right Body: Desister and Detransitioner Awareness” on Nov. 24 after it was canceled by the nearby Berklee College of Music.
It featured Berklee student Simon Amaya Price, whose presentation — part of a class project — was shut down after he was harassed, bullied and threatened by peers.
Amaya Price, who describes himself as a desister as well as a “LGB and neurodivergent individual,” has previously said he understands it is a controversial subject but he feels strongly it needs to be discussed.
“I welcome and encourage open debate and dissenting opinions,” he has said.
But apparently there were MIT students upset it was allowed to take place on their campus.
An email obtained by The College Fix written by Lauryn McNair, assistant dean of LBGTQ+, Women and Gender Services for MIT who uses she/they pronouns, addressed those concerns by providing emotional support.
The Nov. 22 email stated in part:
We’re sending this email to all of our list servs, so apologies if you get this more than once. LBGTQ+ Services is aware that the Open Discourse Society is sponsoring an event this Sunday that may be difficult and painful for you, particularly so soon after Trans Week of Awareness and Trans Day of Remembrance. For those of you who were at TDoR, either in person or virtually, we talked about strength in community, and that you are not alone. There is community at MIT and we are here for you.
On Sunday, there will be event response ambassadors on site from 2-4pm who will be there to support you and talk with folks. They will be wearing MIT name tags. LBGTQ+ Services will have a debrief, discussion, and community event on Monday, and our doors are open for students who would like to drop into our offices to chat either before/after the event.
The email prompted some mocking by the humorous website the Babbling Beaver, which often mocks MIT’s diversity, equity and inclusion endeavors. “MIT ‘Event Response Ambassadors’ save trans students from apostate,” read the headline of the Beaver’s post.
The event was a success despite is bumpy path, the Daily Signal reported:
The event logged about 40 in-person attendees and 60 virtual listeners. Many in the audience were parents whose children suffer from gender dysphoria, looking for answers of how to save their children from the transgender cult, Amaya Price said.
“This is a really hard situation, seeing your kid basically completely change all of a sudden,” Amaya Price said, “and want to do these treatments with the hormones and the surgeries, which are really harmful.”
…Amaya Price’s presentation highlighted the hate he says he has received on social media since announcing his event and his journey from identifying as trans to accepting his biological sex. He ended with the reminder: “No child is born in the wrong body.”
…Amaya Price calls himself a “desister,” someone who identified as transgender but decided to live in accord with his biological gender instead of undergoing medical interventions.
After Amaya Price spoke at the Sunday event, senior researcher Ian Kingsbury of the medical watchdog Do No Harm gave a presentation on understanding the faulty “science” behind pediatric gender medicine. Do No Harm is responsible for a database of 225 hospitals that perform child gender transitions.
Videos of the Nov. 24 event have been posted by Amaya Price on his YouTube channel.
MORE: Detransitioner’s canceled ‘Born in Right Body’ event rescheduled after pressure: ‘We’re so back’
IMAGE: YouTube screenshot
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