Geographies of intransigence: freedom of speech and heteroactivist resistances in Canada, Great Britain and Australia

Abstract

Freedom of speech is a key way in which sexual and gender politics are contested. Heteroactivism names the ways that these discourses seek to open up space to push back against sexual and gender equalities,We focus on three different countries where distinctive framings about freedom of speech are deployed in diverse ways . Taking a transnational approach that explores interlinkages in discourses that touch down differently in each context, this paper looks at how freedom of speech claims are operative on university campuses in Canada, Australia and Great Britain. In Canada, Professor Jordan Peterson’s freedom of speech claims arguably enable transphobic, anti-feminist and anti-LGBT speech. In Australia, university academic Roz Ward’s ability to express controversial opinions was attacked because she runs an innovative Safe Schools programme seeking to protect LGBT students. In Great Britain, contesting ‘No Platforming’ through freedom of speech saw arguments that crossed left/right, progressive/conservative, eventually seeing Peter Tatchell defend discrimination against ideas, but not people. Heteroactivism offers an important frame to understand the pushbacks against sexual and gender rights which are integral to liberal democracies such as those in the UK, Canada and Australia.

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