Jordan Peterson

[Evie]

It may be the same definition under the Canadian Human Right Comission. The Canadian Human Right Comission *is still not a criminal court*. It can't sentence you to jail. The system does not create "new human rights". It extend existing human rights legislation to prohibit gender identity/expression based discrimination. In exactly the same way as racial discrimination, gender discrimination, sexual orientation discrimination, etc, are all already prohibited. If people aren't getting jailed for using the n-word (and they aren't), then they won't be jailed for misgendering people, and it takes delusional or deliberate fearmongering to claim otherwise.

The *only* bit of criminal legislation in C-16 is concerned specifically with two specific crimes: advocating genocide and public incitement of hatred. And again, all it does is extend the definition of "identifiable group" used for both these crimes. So it's the same hate speech laws that already exist being applied to a new group.

That's really the key to C-16. It doesn't create NEW laws. It merely extend existing laws (whose application we already know, because they're long-established laws) to cover an additional group. That's literally all it does. It merely adds "Gender identity and expression" to two separate (and already existing) list of groups you can'T discriminate against and can't make hate speech against.

It's a whooping four sections in total. It fits on two pages in MS word - probably could trim it down to one without removing any text or changing font if you really wanted to. We're not talking an obscure undecipherable text here.

Edit: Heck, you know what? Here's the actual text of C-16.

An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code

SUMMARY
This enactment amends the Canadian Human Rights Act to add gender identity and gender expression to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination.

The enactment also amends the Criminal Code to extend the protection against hate propaganda set out in that Act to any section of the public that is distinguished by gender identity or expression and to clearly set out that evidence that an offence was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on gender identity or expression constitutes an aggravating circumstance that a court must take into consideration when it imposes a sentence.

Her Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate and House of Commons of Canada, enacts as follows:

1.Section 2 of the Canadian Human Rights Act is replaced by the following:

• Purpose
  2 The purpose of this Act is to extend the laws in Canada to give effect, within the purview of matters coming within the legislative authority of Parliament, to the principle that all individuals should have an opportunity equal with other individuals to make for themselves the lives that they are able and wish to have and to have their needs accommodated, consistent with their duties and obligations as members of society, without being hindered in or prevented from doing so by discriminatory practices based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, family status, disability or conviction for an offence for which a pardon has been granted or in respect of which a record suspension has been ordered.

2 Subsection 3(1) of the Act is replaced by the following:

• Prohibited grounds of discrimination
  3 (1) For all purposes of this Act, the prohibited grounds of discrimination are race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, family status, disability and conviction for an offence for which a pardon has been granted or in respect of which a record suspension has been ordered.

3. Subsection 318(4) of the Criminal Code is replaced by the following:

• Definition of identifiable group
  (4) In this section, identifiable group means any section of the public distinguished by colour, race, religion, national or ethnic origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or mental or physical disability.

4 Subparagraph 718.2(a)(i) of the Act is replaced by the following:

• (i) evidence that the offence was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression, or on any other similar factor,

That's all it says.

 

[Chose]

It may be the same definition under the Canadian Human Right Comission. The Canadian Human Right Comission *is still not a criminal court*. It can't sentence you to jail. The system does not create "new human rights". It extend existing human rights legislation to prohibit gender identity/expression based discrimination. In exactly the same way as racial discrimination, gender discrimination, sexual orientation discrimination, etc, are all already prohibited. If people aren't getting jailed for using the n-word (and they aren't), then they won't be jailed for misgendering people, and it takes delusional or deliberate fearmongering to claim otherwise.

The *only* bit of criminal legislation in C-16 is concerned specifically with two specific crimes: advocating genocide and public incitement of hatred. And again, all it does is extend the definition of "identifiable group" used for both these crimes. So it's the same hate speech laws that already exist being applied to a new group.

That's really the key to C-16. It doesn't create NEW laws. It merely extend existing laws (whose application we already know, because they're long-established laws) to cover an additional group.

Sorry I responded while you were apparently editing your other post. I understand misgendering is likely not that type of extreme hate speech, and thus not part of the criminal code (although, in certain cases it would be, but it would have to be more than merely misgendering).

However, discrimination is still illegal and as you mentioned punishable by a fine of up to 50k. This is the part I'm asking about, because although you cannot be sentenced to jail for misgendering, what if you refuse to pay this fine? Could you end up going to jail for that? I think this is the line of argument used by those saying you could go to jail for misgendering. I'm just wondering if it is true.

 

[Synobun]

If that's the course you need to take, we might as well start asking Big Questions(tm) like "Can you go to jail for parking in a no-parking zone?"

 

[Chose]

If that's the course you need to take, we might as well start asking Big Questions(tm) like "Can you go to jail for parking in a no-parking zone?"

Yeah, fair enough. I would still be tempted to answer the question, yes, if you don't pay your fines. But that is a good context to put this in if someone is going on about how you can go to jail for misgendering.

 

[Evie]

If you go to jail for refusing to pay a court-ordered fine (or really, for any form of contempt of court), you're not going to jail for whatever it is the fine originally was about.You're going to jail for (essentially) giving the judiciary the middle finger.

 

[Lexicus]

Yeah, fair enough. I would still be tempted to answer the question, yes, if you don't pay your fines. But that is a good context to put this in if someone is going on about how you can go to jail for misgendering.

I mean, what it means is that the idea that you can go to jail for misgendering someone is essentially a dishonest fabrication, or, not to put too fine a point on it, a lie.

If that's the course you need to take, we might as well start asking Big Questions(tm) like "Can you go to jail for parking in a no-parking zone?"

In my municipality, I could in theory go to jail for failing to fix the sidewalk in front of my house (if I were a property owner, anyway) or putting out my trash on the wrong day of the week! DC is such a POLICE STATE where INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY has been DESTROYED

 

[Farm Boy]

If you go to jail for refusing to pay a court-ordered fine (or really, for any form of contempt of court), you're not going to jail for whatever it is the fine originally was about.You're going to jail for (essentially) giving the judiciary the middle finger.

Heh, right! It's a lot like resisting arrest. Nearly identical, in that fashion, actually.

City of Chicago will definitely put out warrants for unpaid fines. Plenty of knock on criminal convictions stemming from those arrests and fines, I'd put money on it, and I am not a gambling man.

 

[Chose]

If you go to jail for refusing to pay a court-ordered fine, you're going to jail for refusing to pay a court-ordered fine. Not for whatever reason the court ordered you to pay the fine to begin.

I mean, what it means is that the idea that you can go to jail for misgendering someone is essentially a dishonest fabrication, or, not to put too fine a point on it, a lie.

It's semantics. If you think the fine was unjustified to begin with, I would put more weight on that as the cause of you going to jail than your refusal to pay it. Or at least put weight on both, "He got a bunch of parking tickets for parking in a no-parking zone and didn't pay them, now he is in jail." Framing the idea that he went to jail for parking in a no-parking zone as a straight up lie is pretty dishonest IMO.

 

[Lexicus]

If you think the fine was unjustified to begin with, I would put more weight on that as the cause of you going to jail than your refusal to pay it.

Well, this is quite a revealing comment and I believe you have put your finger squarely on the real issue. The real issue here (it is obvious to most of us I think but I will state it anyway) is that the people opposing this law fundamentally do not see why misgendering someone should lead to any kind of punishment. They either don't think misgendering someone is wrong, or don't think it is a big enough deal to get the law involved.

For example, we have these two posts from you in this thread:

I don't know what it means to be both a man and a women. I also don't understand how gender can be a spectrum but that you can also choose to be not on the spectrum at all.

So like, the way I see it, we group people based on their genitals, and tell them they have to act a certain way. I don't like that and it can be very harmful. We also have inter sex people who have a hard go at life because they don't fit in our two categories, I don't like that either. I just don't think it means anything to be a 'man' other than that you have the xy chromosome.

To me the solution is that we should stop telling people that it means something more to have a penis other than that you have a penis. That is all it means. If you are 6 foot 4, it doesn't mean anything other than that you are 6 foot 4. You don't have to play basketball if you don't want to, you don't even have to be good at it. It doesn't mean anything to have blue eyes other than that you have blue eyes. If you have blue eyes, and you say you feel like you have brown eyes, I don't know what you are talking about. It doesn't feel like anything to have blue eyes. The main reason someone should think that it does mean something else, as far as I can tell, is if society told them that people with blue eyes should be a certain way, or like certain things. The point is, you should be able to act any way you want, you can like whatever you want.

I simply can't get behind definitions that don't compute in my brain. If I don't know what you are talking about I can't agree with you.

My opposition is only with regard to this definition of gender identity, which is trying to accommodate and endorse all these contradictory view of gender sententiously. You can be a man, or a woman, or both, or neither, or on or off the spectrum. All these different ideas of gender are contracting themselves.

Regarding trans-gender people, you obviously have a large and diverse group all with different ideas about gender. Caitlyn Jenner, for example, says she has the soul of a women. That is assumes not only that souls exist, but that they have a gender. When she says she is a women, what she seems to mean is that she likes wearing dressing and doing women things. To me, she is endorsing harmful stereotypes about what it means to be a women. From what I have seen many trans-gender people who are biologically one sex, say they feel like they were given the wrong gender, or they were born the wrong gender, right? Most often it is switching to the other gender. My old friend from high-school who is trans-gender and now calls herself a women, she grew long hair and started wearing dresses and talking in a higher pitched voice and shopping with her girlfriends. I believe this is the common case, and it seems to be endorsing a lot of stereotypes about women.

where, in essence, you basically say that you don't get what the big deal about all this "gender" stuff is. Do you think that's an accurate summary of your position? Do you think I'm being unfair in my characterization of people who disagree with C-16?

Framing the idea that he went to jail for parking in a no-parking zone as a straight up lie is pretty dishonest IMO.

That just seems ridiculous to me. If someone told you that they went to jail for parking in a handicap spot and it turned out they went to jail for refusing to pay 13 tickets they were issued for parking in a handicap spot, you would feel lied to and you know it.

 

[Synobun]

Without getting into a debate on classism, a state's laws aren't exactly optional.

You can feel that punitive action on being a bell-end to trans people is excessive but your feelings on that don't extend to whether or not you're beholden to the law (or the guidelines used for determining punitive action in human rights cases). Pay the fine and do your assumed civic duty. That is, take to the streets and argue that trans people don't deserve respect in formal settings, and hope that enough people feel the way you do in all the right places of human governance.

 

[Farm Boy]

It's semantics. If you think the fine was unjustified to begin with, I would put more weight on that as the cause of you going to jail than your refusal to pay it. Or at least put weight on both, "He got a bunch of parking tickets for parking in a no-parking zone and didn't pay them, now he is in jail." Framing the idea that he went to jail for parking in a no-parking zone as a straight up lie is pretty dishonest IMO.

Yupadup. Property violation compounded by disobedience to state in the form of another property violation. It really won't be tolerated. I mean, it can't be, right? It's the foundation of everything, that obedience.

 

[Synobun]

I never took you for a sovereign citizen, Farm Boy.

 

[Lexicus]

Yupadup. Property violation compounded by disobedience to state in the form of another property violation. It really won't be tolerated. I mean, it can't be, right? It's the foundation of everything, that obedience.

I mean you say this as if it's sarcastic but then you support deporting undocumented immigrants so I really don't know what the take-away is

 

[Berzerker]

when someone says they went to jail for parking tickets, dont they typically mean unpaid tickets?

thats not a lie, it assumes the audience's common sense

 

[Farm Boy]

I never took you for a sovereign citizen, Farm Boy.

Have you mistaken me for kidding in my agreement with your basic premise? I just said literally everything rests on it. That you might perhaps not want to apply your principle to many of its most commonplace applications does not render me being sarcastic, nor necessarily, you and I both being wrong about it. Obedience is absolutely crucial to societies. Taxes are important, policing them is hard. You need enough people to just pay because they're supposed to. That's just one example. They go on and on.

 

[Synobun]

Definitely seemed like you were being sarcastically dismissive of the premise. My apologies.

 

[Farm Boy]

Nah, I'm just calling the presmise what it is. It's a stick. Parking tickets enforce property rights. Failure to pay those tickets is another property offense, but a more disobedient one. The force escalates. Resisting arrest is almost identical. Trivialities escalate without the obedience required. If people want to put naked politeness and manners into the same sanctity regarding escalation of force in the face of disobedience as parking improperty at the courthouse, or running a red light, I don't find that a particularly shocking revelation. Should I?

 

[Chose]

Well, this is quite a revealing comment and I believe you have put your finger squarely on the real issue. The real issue here (it is obvious to most of us I think but I will state it anyway) is that the people opposing this law fundamentally do not see why misgendering someone should lead to any kind of punishment. They either don't think misgendering someone is wrong, or don't think it is a big enough deal to get the law involved.

where, in essence, you basically say that you don't get what the big deal about all this "gender" stuff is. Do you think that's an accurate summary of your position? Do you think I'm being unfair in my characterization of people who disagree with C-16?

I think that is a fair characterization of many people who disagree with C-16. As far as my position, that isn't really the essence of what I said, or what I meant to say at least. I understand why gender is a big deal to people, that is no mystery. Society tells people that their genitals mean all these other things about what they should like and who they should be... I totally get that. I have tried to use more trivial examples to explain the logic of my position, but I completely understand that gender is much bigger deal than the examples I've gave.

That just seems ridiculous to me. If someone told you that they went to jail for parking in a handicap spot and it turned out they went to jail for refusing to pay 13 tickets they were issued for parking in a handicap spot, you would feel lied to and you know it.

I would feel lied to because they didn't tell me it happened 13 times, yeah. This is an important point actually, I'm surprised you are trying to take this angle with. When something is put into law, it has the force of the state behind it. You don't actually think that is ridiculous, it's how the world works. You can see this clearly on certain issues, as @Farm Boy is pointing out, but seem to want to turn a blind eye in this case.

 

[warpus]

I don't really understand why Peterson continues being talked about. He's just some random prof. Those who did not like what he said threw him into the spotlight, and they continue talking about him all while saying "he shouldn't be in the spotlight"

huh

 

[Lexicus]

I would feel lied to because they didn't tell me it happened 13 times, yeah. This is an important point actually, I'm surprised you are trying to take this angle with. When something is put into law, it has the force of the state behind it. You don't actually think that is ridiculous, it's how the world works. You can see this clearly on certain issues, as @Farm Boy is pointing out, but seem to want to turn a blind eye in this case.

I don't understand what you mean by this. Of course when something is put into law, it has the force of the state behind it. I'm not sure how that relates to the fact that "I went to jail for misgendering someone" and "I went to jail for refusing to pay a fine for misgendering someone" are two totally different statements.