The danger of safe space ideology: a response to Wapad

This is the email I sent to my university's student newspaper, the Wapad, in response to an article on the burgeoning LGBTQI+ community and initiatives on its main campus, and their call for "safe spaces" and "training on LGBTQI+ issues and gender identity/expression".  The original article is available in English here on page 5.

I've cut out the instructions I gave the Wapas team in case they decide to print it, but it basically is just "you can print only bits and pieces if you want, just make sure my original intent and meaning isn't distorted or lost in any way".

Engjoy.

Preamble:

Given my experience and exposure to issues related and similar instances in America (UCLA Berkeley, Evergreen College, and the University of Missouri, specifically), England, and elsewhere - most notably at the University of Toronto in Canada - I find it necessary to make a few things absolutely clear to pre-empt any misunderstanding or false presumptions and assumptions of my either character or the intent behind this response.

1.  I have no problem or issue with any individual, group, committee, or some-such within the LGBTQI+ or any similar labeling/identity.

2.  I am using this article purely as a springboard to say what I believe needs to be said, and to give the warnings I believe need be given.

Body:

In the 8 March, 2018, issue of Wapad appears an article titled 'LGBTQI+ community - safe on campus?'. Whilst, as explained in the preamble, I have no issue with any individual or group that falls under this nomenclature, the article does mention a few things that require a response. Specifically, it mentions "For a person who doesn't identify with their sex assigned at birth, safe spaces are very important," and "it is important for staff and faculty members to receive training on LGBTQI+ issues and gender identity/expression." Allow me to focus in on the specific issues and deal with them individually.

Section 1: Sex assigned at birth

First, 'sex assigned at birth'. Sex assignment is a tenet of the postmodern ideology which posits, in it's more moderate forms, that gender is not something that, fundamentally, exists on a binary, but in a continuum of categories where male and female are just the two extremes, and, in its more extreme variants, that biological sex does not exist (see the late 2016 debate on Canada's TVO, 'Gender, rights and freedom of speech'). Whilst I can abide by the idea that sex and gender are two different things - the former being a biological reality in physiology and genetics, and the latter a normative, performative cultural construction (though I would argue rooted in the former biological reality), I cannot abide by the idea that sex is 'assigned at birth'.

This position makes the fundamental mistake of assuming that sex - again, distinct from gender - is something that is not naturally part of the human condition, but is, instead, assigned to the individual - imposed on them by the presiding physician specifically and society generally. An assumption that science simply just does not support, and, in fact, extensively contradicts.

Section 2: Safe spaces are important

Second, 'safe spaces are very important'. This is one of the two main issues I have with the suggestions made in the article. Safe spaces - at least as they have been realised in university and the business world in America, Canada, England, and most of western Europe, are not something conducive to healthy psychological development and growth, much less healing from traumatic experiences such as rape or abuse. There are two aspects to this that underpin my problem with this matter, the first is psychological, and the second both societal and institutional.

The first aspect is that psychological study and research into personal, psychological growth and the treatment of psychological and mental trauma, has conclusively proven that one of the essential parts of both positive psychological growth, and healing, is controlled exposure to the thing in question. In Psychology Today, Liz Swan, Ph.D., writes on the matters of safe space:

'Safe' spaces let us hide in our comfortable little existence, which is dangerous because they prevent us from growing and changing when faced with adversity - creating new neural networks and adapting. And the ability to do just those things is what's kept us alive as a species.

Exposure to that which is uncomfortable is absolutely necessary for personal growth and for the development of a well-rounded, balanced, resilient psyche that can weather the uncomfortable realities of life. In that sense, 'safe spaces' and the ideology behind them are harmful, in the true sense of the word, to those it purports to protect.

Which leads me to the second aspect of my issue with safe spaces: this is not what the university is about. I mentioned in the paragraph above that exposure to that which is uncomfortable is absolutely necessary for the development of a psyche that can weather the uncomfortable realities of life, and this is absolutely true. The real world beyond your parents' house, and beyond the university, is dangerous. It doesn't care for your feelings, your failings, your weaknesses, or your tender spots. It will chew you up and spit you out without a second thought. You will be confronted with people who hold ideas you find abhorrent, and with situations in which you would rather die than be in a second time, and you will have no choice but to face them. You will have no choice but to work with the person whose worldview you so despise every day for years on end, and go through the situation you would rather never face again a million times.

But more than any of that, you will be personally and intellectually challenged. Your ideas, your worldview, your pre-conceived notions of the world, of how things are and should be, will be challenged, challenged by people no less informed or passionate or certain of their positions and views than you. You may come to realise that something you held dear, a central part of your identity, or a core tenet of your worldview, is wrong or incomplete. This is nothing easy to experience or go through, but it is absolutely necessary. And, as I explained earlier, life won't give it to you carefully or gently. It will hit you with it at the speed of light, repeatedly. The university is the place where we can prepare ourselves for this reality. Besides teaching us the tools of the trade, besides forcing us to cram in textbook after textbook of information so we can do our jobs after we get our degree, the university is also responsible for equipping us with the mental tools, the life skills, necessary to handle adult life.

By life skills, I mean specifically to teach us how to handle being challenged and how to hold our own in debates and arguments. It is responsible for not just teaching us facts and theories, but for equipping us with the intellectual skills to carefully consider an argument, pick it apart to get at its roots, and the verbal skills to effectively and clearly articulate our own views, opinion, and ideas. Safe spaces threaten to undermine this.

Fundamentally, safe space ideology is the idea that people are too fragile to handle contrary opinions or ideas, and that they need spaces in which they can articulate their ideas and thoughts without challenge or criticism. This is anathema to the university, which is supposed to challenge everything you think and believe, which is, in that sense, supposed to be the unsafest space in the entire world. Further, safe space ideology creates spaces where claims cannot be challenged or criticised, even if they're wrong. This, too, is anathema to the university. Every thought and idea should be open to criticism; the fundamental idea, the first principle, on which the entire idea of the university operates, is that we come closer to the truth by pitting our ideas and hypotheses against one another, that by picking apart both our own and our opponent's arguments we come to a better understanding of ourselves, society, and the natural world together.

Section 3: Staff and faculty should receive training on LGBTQI+ issues and gender identity/expression

My third and final issue is with the idea that university staff and faculty should receive training on LGBTQI+ issues and gender identity/expression. My issues with this idea are legion, but I'll stick to the two main ones. The first is that, if this training is anything like the training we saw at universities such as UCLA Berkeley, University of Missouri (Mizzou), University of Toronto, and in the form of diversity training in many companies and businesses such as Google Inc., we are enshrining not just a worldview, but an ideological doctrine which is nowhere near being conclusively proven in science.

As I explained in my bit about sex assignment at birth, this idea of biological sex non-existence, or the idea that biology plays little to no part in determining gender, is a claim that the science simply does not support. It is, at best, a controversial and yet-to-be-proven claim, and, at worst, one of the wrong paths - such as geocentrism - that just has yet to be completely discarded. The kind of training this risks becoming, enshrines this view as the 'true and right' view of the world, without concern for the fact that it is nowhere from being proven either true or right, similar to what Bill C16 did in early 2017 in Canada.

The second is that this training runs the risk of worsening the position of LGBTQI+ individuals, rather than improving it. As the article itself mentions, the NWU, and the Potchefstroom campus specifically, is very welcoming and acceptive of these students at the moment. But forcing this diversity training down people's throats, forcing them to attend such matters - and this is without even considering the case where it has the kind of disparaging and indoctrinary content the courses at the institutions and companies mentioned have - may inculcate a bitterness towards, and an aversion of, the LGBTQI+ people and issues, as it has done everywhere it has been implemented thus far. People tend to be more willing to accept changes and awarenesses that come into being naturally and organically from the bottom up, spontaneously growing from the grass roots of society. They don't, however, take well to changes and awarenesses forced on them from the top down, by management, government, legislation... by force or fiat.

Conclusion:

Having these discussions in the public sphere, such as workshops, debates, and conversations in the amphitheatre, organically is absolutely fine. As long as it is controlled and maintained so it doesn't break down into name-calling, the throwing of insults and slurs, and even physical violence - as it has on occasion at the institutions mentioned several times already - this can be a welcome addition to student culture and the broader environment of the university. But this is not something that should be given administrative and legislative force via formal training and legislatively required safe spaces and other initiatives. It runs the very real risk of destroying the, quite clearly rare and noteworthy, welcoming environment towards these people that this university, and this campus specifically, has at the moment. And beyond that, of bringing with it into the university an ideology that is not just harmful to individuals, but anathema to the very idea of the university as an educational space where people can gain both knowledge and skills in preparation for entering the 'real world'.