Matt Walsh appearance prompts need for safe space
This Thursday, members of the UC Santa Barbara Young Americans for Liberty are slated to host popular conservative writer Matt Walsh for a talk titled “An Encroachment on Liberty: How the Left Exploits Transgender Laws.”
Students offended by the topic, instead of simply not attending the speech, have gone a step further — and organized a “safe place” for the same time as the talk.
“Recently, the transgender community in Isla Vista [where UCSB is located] has been the target of hateful, abusive, and belittling statements and gatherings,” organizers state in announcing their counter event on Facebook.
“In response and as a sign of solidarity, there will be a free meal at St. Michael’s [Episcopal] University Church. This Cinco de Mayo-themed meal will be a safe place for all who identify with or support the transgender community,” the announcement states.
This solidarity dinner is certainly within their rights. Some might argue it’s better than attending the talk and shouting down its speaker.
However, it might be nice if progressive college students would (could?) actually sit down and listen to an opposing viewpoint for once. Conservative students do it all the time, as nearly all their professors are openly liberal and allow their biases to infect their lectures and pedagogy.
Organizers of the upcoming talk have indicated it promises to be something of an academic discussion not on the choice of transgenderism per se, but rather on how it is affecting our entire nation — an interesting legal and societal topic worthy of consideration by all stripes.
Said organizers: “[I]n the last couple years we have seen *the state* force businesses and citizens to, e.g., create “gender neutral” restrooms, or to pay for sex reassignment surgery, or to not ‘misgender’ someone on pain of a fee of $250,000, etc. Insofar as libertarianism is a thesis about the proper role of the state and insofar as such things are contrary to Liberty (understood, as it is by political philosophers, as a right of non-interference, particularly against interference by the state), the transgenderism movement presents obvious threats to Liberty.”
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