Well, you know, a week later I get called into to to see the chair of the department and told that I'm a transphobe obviously getting an education is the main point of university that isn't that type of conversation and debate and critical thinking. The whole point of getting out. We can have debates like that, but it needs to be they need to have trigger warnings essentially. I just thought, my God, this is a clown house. This is the University of Toronto. But probably, you know, being offended is doesn't mean you're right. but I would say nine out of ten academics are deranged in this in this particular area. Hello and welcome to Awake at the Wheel. So a few episodes ago or and I discussed the feminization of the field of psychology. So before we get offended by that term, go back and watch our episode and see what it is that I'm referring to here. But interestingly, it doesn't appear to be isolated only to the social sciences and the field of psychology. It seems that this shift in demographics in universities at large and even in the physical sciences has also been taking place. There's a professor at the University of Toronto that's caught a lot of flak lately. However, with regard to these thoughts and with these opinions, one of which I came across in a video that I'm going to share before we get talking about this, this very topic. So let's check out this video that illustrates some of the concerns surrounding this professor's views. Okay. So it's it's a Well, so the very obvious bias aside in that video, what I what I love about commentary such as this is that people tend to then forget how skilled and revered and good in their actual profession such individuals are. He cited Dr. Jordan Peterson, and everyone always forgets what an accomplished clinician he is. But anyways, Dr. Leigh Revers has an extensive background in biotechnology, entrepreneurship and has more than 15 years of experience working in both the life sciences sector, in academia, as well as in the industry itself. Dr. Rivers has trained as a chemist as well as a molecular molecular biologist and holds a bachelor's degree and master's degree, as well as doctoral degrees in physical sciences from the University of Oxford. As this individual mentioned in his little video there, but rather than RNA just talking about this ourselves, instead we decided, Hey, why not have Dr. Evers on? So hi, Dr. Evers, welcome. Thank you for being with us today. Hello. Good morning. It's a pleasure to be here. So I'm assuming this is only one of many pieces of commentary that you've viewed or received regarding that article in the national posts. And I'll add to that. In reading it myself, it was really interesting to see again, I mentioned that Oren and I had just recently did have a discussion about this In our own field of psychology. And the realities of this shift really seem to be offending people. What do you think it is about this shift that people don't want to accept? Well, yes, I'm just still digesting that that piece because I haven't seen it. You know, just to make a remark about purple prose, I certainly I do use a lot of words and yes, I do use to source. So that was quite funny. But that's because I enjoy words. You know, it's a perhaps it's an English trope, but, you know, I was educated, I think. But I was very lucky to get an excellent education in the UK and so I enjoy writing and I do enjoy using words that kind of encourage people to reach for the dictionary, actually, because that way you kind of broaden their vocabulary. So it's funny that you picked up on that. You're in the right with Oren and I because we're both wordsmiths more and more so than I When I first met him, I'm like, Wow, I've met my match. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's it's funny, isn't it, that when you start pulling out those more complex words, you know, grammar and words and so on, that people sort of get uptight and and start to ridicule you. And I think look, I'm, I'm an immigrant in Canada. And so I've come to this country primarily because I wasn't very good at other languages. In fact, I mean, I had the opportunity to travel around the world to become, you know, to do my post talking period of my career. And I decided to come to Canada. And so, of course, embraced the Canadian culture to a degree. And I very much enjoyed this country. But I think one of the things I noticed is the linguistic differences. And so, for instance, even though what's sort of fairly obvious, I would say, is the inability to just spot humor and sarcasm and so forth in the writing. You know, when I say, for example, he makes the remark about fresh women, I'm not going to call them fresh women or fresh people, because, I mean, that's just me joking on how, of course, there's been this linguistic sort of trope that we see from the left, actually, which is to change the meaning of words and and also political correctness. So, you know, it used to have actors and actresses, and then if suddenly actresses became impossible, you couldn't talk about them. They were all actors now, but you said that was fine. Okay. It was perfectly serviceable word. But you know, so gender distinction in language started to shift. And and then you get this idea of, I don't know, spokesperson writers. You used to be a spokesman of a spokeswoman and. And Spokesperson So you started to neutralize gender in language and say, of course, fashion. I mean, you know, you could do the same, can you? So I was sort of riffing on that. And I just think it's funny because it's I think we need to think about this linguistic business that's going on and going back to the gender piece, you know, university. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. He went back and he looked at that. I mean, when I was at uni, it's absolutely true that it felt it was about equal. We did have still, you know, what was interesting and of course you wouldn't have mentioned this, is that an Oxford at that time we had to exclusively women's colleges. Right. So we had single sex colleges actually, you know, none of the others were because all of the all male colleges had admitted women at that point. But there were still two completely female colleges. So this is kind of amusing. But overall, I mean, no doubt is it is correct. It was around 5050. It was a little bit more men. And certainly it was it was pretty balanced in my experience. It depends on the college you went to, I would say. But certainly in my experience, it was a so like a very balanced environment. And what I'm sort of alluding to in in my article in National Post, however, is really what stuck out to me just really quite recently. Right? Really quite recently. I think it was the graduation photographs that I kind of linked to in the article. And if you do go and look, I mean, I think it would be hard not to notice, but actually it's not a graduation photograph. It's it's a returning students photograph for my department. And you look at this and it's just a sea of female faces. There's a handful of men in there. And that does strike me. It struck me that this doesn't quite seem right somehow. So I mean, the feminization of university as it has happened in the last several years, and it's well documented. So it's true there are more women in higher education. I don't not really have a problem with that, actually, you know, as long as it's not an enormous bias, but it's starting to look quite like it's it's starting to. I mean, in my substack, I put an image of a painting of a nunnery, but, you know, we don't want that, surely. So we just need to make sure, I think, that we're not discouraging men from going to university. And of course, that's what Peterson has become famous for, is that really that he's sort of championing young men and how they've been disparaged in society? Yeah. And also to dismiss him as a disgraced professor, I don't see he's not at all disgraced. I mean, that that is rather again, it it it adheres to the view, doesn't it, that that universities have got it right and that if you get if you departure university or which he's he's simply left he's an emeritus professor still so he's still recognized by the University of Toronto that somehow you're disgraced. I mean you know just some people don't like his views. I don't think that counts as being disgraced. So, I mean, there's a number of things that I mean, it's funny. I mean, the whole thing's funny, so we'll get back to the point. But as I say, just digesting it personally, what did I get his reaction to that piece? Not terribly much. The pieces I've written this past year, which all in the National Post are all my substack now they're really reaction to some of the things that happened to me in the last couple of years and they are critical of the university in a number of ways, intentionally so, of course, because I think there are insufficient voices to have, you know, certainly from the political point of view, a more conservative outlook that are that are speaking out, that I mean, again, what we do know about higher education is 90% or more of all professors are, you know, politically more to the left. And, you know, that's not balanced either. I mean, and again, I'm sure this commentator would say it would assume that the left is the correct position. And that's why, you know, it's like in the in the establishment, you know, in education and in the hallways of the of the the great universities. And of course, people think, you know, in a more sort of Marxist way and anyone who's on the right is clearly mad and should be thrown out and say that's that's kind of their view, I suspect. But it's not the case. There are people like me. I'm a scientist. I fundamentally believe in the Enlightenment values that science relies on, which really sort of emerged from, you know, sort of was it 17th century, 16th, 17th century England and Scotland, and have developed into what is Western science. And I have a hard time with a lot of this stuff that is now sort of infiltrated the university, which you've heard a great deal about. Yeah, and perhaps for saying the same thing here, and I'll preface my statement with I'm not being sexist here, but I am actually somewhat surprised to see this shift happening in the physical sciences as well. I imagine that it in part comes from the push from a young age of girls going into STEM, which I think is a great thing. But I wonder if it has created a disproportionate amount of women feeling that they have to or should go into those sciences. You know, I it's it's an interesting one, isn't it? So, I mean, I don't see any reason why women should go into science. Of course. Of course. You know, my my experience has been, you know, again, I mean, the commentator in question, I mean, we know a great deal about my background, presumably. But if if you looked into that, the supervisor for my doctoral degree was was a woman, one of the most influential people during my graduate years was a woman and taught me Professor Rosalind Bill, who is in the UK as a professor, I believe, at Aston University, a very lauded individual, incredibly capable. So, you know, I don't I've never had a, you know, any concerns about women in science. It's just it wasn't as frequent. And you could put this down to, well, barriers right there. There's always this argument in the academy that there are barriers to entry. There must be because otherwise it would be parity and it isn't parity in science. But of course, speeches and points out, I mean, there are, you know, different traits between the two two sexes. And women probably aren't as excited about science as some, you know, some sciences as men are. I don't know. I mean, some women clearly are very excited about it, but I don't think we can kind of prejudge that. Right. So so, yes, I don't know. I mean, I see a lot of women in my classes. I'm very happy to see that don't have a problem. But more generally, I would say it's the administration of the universities, which is really where the shift has taken place. So we've got twice as many females now in positions of authority in the administration pulling the levers of power in the university than men. And it's interesting, actually, the reaction I get from that, because when I've had female chairs of departments, actually I'm in two departments and both chairs until very recently were female. And when I raise certain concerns in this direction, I mean, the comments were usually, well, the reason why women are, you know, dominant in in these what they would describe as pen pushing jobs is is because the men are all lucky and don't want to do this sort of drudgery and they're all off just doing research and writing grants. So it's like, you know, we're stuck doing the hard work. This is like domestic labor kind of thing, which I do find amusing because administrators make more money. Yeah, Yeah, they make. Yeah, well, it's a tough job. Yeah. And actually, if I can join then, because I know in my classes when I've talked, you know, in the various classes and talk about, you know, the disparities and I say, you know, like, look, women now comprise the majority of, you know, students who who enter university, who finish university. I'm not sure I don't think at the doctoral level or the masters level, they've reached that yet. But when I say this and then my students will chime in and say, okay, yes, but they only occupy the lowest levels of, you know, of any field. And I say I say, look around you. Look at your professors. They look at you and they see there's more and more female professors. And again, they still go to that trope of it's all on the lowest levels. And so as you're talking about the shift toward, you know, these higher positions, instead of recognizing, okay, well, what we thought either was dip wrong or it's changed now, they just basically malign those positions. They well, you know, like again, when the men are in those positions, it's power. When women are in those positions, we're unlucky, it's drudgery. So it just. Tells you totally asymmetric rate the way that that is perceived. So you just adapt to whatever whatever your your view is that you say, well, yeah, we didn't want these jobs at all. These are not the jobs that we wanted. We're we're stuck with these jobs. But if they if they didn't have those jobs, it'd be like, well, the men are running everything and it's a patriarchy. So. So I'm familiar with that. And it just doesn't make sense. I mean, that's that's the point of this. I, I object to most of what's been going on simply because it doesn't make sense at all. I mean, there's this sort of push rate to to achieve equality or equity, I should say, which is of course, just sort of a crazy outcome. And there's no reason for that. Right. There's no reason for what we should be doing is obviously we should concern ourselves with lowering barriers for everyone to enter. So equality certainly, but everything should be determined on merits. And it's always these attempts to kind of correct for what is perceived to be in the past sort of privilege, if you will, in particular areas. So we're going to to you know, we're going to correct a wrong with women. The further wrong, you know, we're going to do this, it doesn't make sense to me at all. So so that's where I fundamentally object because then we get this we get diverted from trying to do the best science, let's say, right? So, yeah, so we've seen diversity high, certainly within the academy as I would see it, because there are all these programs that try to correct for, as I say, the past. So we have scholarships that are exclusively, let's say, for for black individuals. We have scholarships that are focused on indigenous people of Canada. And and once you start doing that, I think you do start to get into trouble. But it is tricky because I know the intention is good, right? Yes. We need more of these individuals in these groups, let's say in science. But I think you start to get into very dangerous waters. And we've seen sort of, you know, job descriptions for professors. Right. And for postings from, you know, established universities where it says you must be you must identify as a woman in order to apply. Well, and even the language identifies a woman. Well, then surely some, you know, kind of ambitious men are going to identify as women in order to be considered in that pool of candidates. Why would they not? Because legitimately you can. So so I think this situation. Yeah, exactly. Just to that point, where do you think the line is between leveling the playing field and maybe going overboard with this? Yeah, well, I haven't established that line, certainly. I don't know. I mean, I try to like, for example, in my treatment of students, I just completely look past all of this stuff. I mean, in fact, that's what's been sort of so appalling as in my experience over the last month or so since the pandemic, this awareness of the social justice movement and the ideology that sort of crept in or crept into sort of taken over the university is it's made me think about these things when I wouldn't normally have done so. So, you know, you look at my students and I wouldn't see race and I wouldn't, you know, the colorblind kind of idea and I wouldn't see gender and it wouldn't care. And because all they care about is that they're enjoying a subject which in my case is organic chemistry, which is not the easiest subject to enjoy. And I'm there to try to encourage them and I just couldn't care less about any of this stuff. And then it's sort of been forced on me in a way, because I've had to address it because it comes up and it comes up continuously. And so now you start seeing race all the time, and now you start seeing gender all the time. Do you see my point? It's it's like it's the elephant in the room. It's constantly you're constantly being reminded of it. So that bothers me a great deal. I think it which I know is a bad word nowadays. I've just learned if you can't say devil's advocate, but I'm going to say it anyways. Well, I hadn't heard that. One really. Just. Recently is that by. Remember? Exactly. Yes. I wish I had the article in front of me, but I read a whole article as to why it's a bad thing to say now. It's racist is what it comes down to. Surprisingly. But race against read people like, Okay, so you're going to be devil's advocate. We're going to see that expression. So I'll give you some background about me. So I you know, obviously I'm a female and a visible minority, but I'm also blind. And that's something that most people don't know when in a school setting I would have had to bring forth to my professors. And, you know, ensure that I was getting the assistance that I needed. So I think that in some ways, you know, these things do need to be brought to the attention of professors. But I think what you're saying is it in many cases it's needlessly brought to the attention of professors. Well, it is funny you mentioned about that, because I just read in a piece about accommodations. You know, again, there's another area which has become sort of a magnet for attention. You know, professors don't want they're not particularly interested in, you know, accessibility and things of this nature because it's not the subject. I mean, think about it. You know, a professor like me is really interested in chemistry, right? And that's everything that, you know, that's complete focus. I mean, otherwise it wouldn't be doing it and I wouldn't be any good at it. And then all of the rest is you know, stuff that we have to do. And, you know, I understand that, you know, we have to do grading. We have to do, which is very tedious, and then we have to do administrative functions. And and part of that is, of course, making sure the students, you know, get accommodations when they need them. But it's just gone bananas. I mean, so so I looked at this and you mentioned blindness. So it's in fact, the person that I replaced in my previous role as an administrator myself was actually legally blind, but you wouldn't have known it. And, you know, he considered it pretty well. But that is a physically disabling issue for for a student or for anyone in life, obviously. And so it's entirely sensible that accommodations are available for people like that. But if you look back at the numbers, I went back to 2015 and 2015, you know, I started comparing classes of the same subjects. So organic chemistry, similar sized classes, anywhere between 50 and 100 students enrolled and compared those over a ten year period. And in 2015, the percentage of students claiming accommodations was 1.5%, the 1.5%. And this year, this summer, just gone 2024, the percentage was 15%. So it's a factor of ten. It's a factor of ten. Now, some will say, well, look, back in 2015, people were comfortable declaring their disabilities and so forth. But in some senses, I think, you know, you have disabilities that have demonstrable disabilities, like not being able to see, you know, it's obvious that that students that are in that category are going to to make it clear that they need accommodation mean, you know so they're the ones that I 100% kind of believe but I don't believe all the other 15% you know, all the you know, the 13.5% have suddenly emerged in the last decade. Right. So and when you look more closely, a lot of it's to do with mental health rights. And so that is very difficult to assess. And I'm not saying people don't get anxiety. And I mean, I, I remember, you know, that it's it's right, though. I remember, you know, how scary it was to be going and doing exams to study, desperately concerned that this is going to affect your career, which it will. And you know, and trying to to learn to deal with it, of course. And people have different capacities to deal with anxiety and stress. But I don't think the answer is just to double their exam time, which is essentially what happens. Right. Right. Because I mean, it comes back to this idea of compassion, right? So so what I would get, and I'm sure you've heard this many times, is like my chair would say, well, you just need to be compassionate to these students. You know, just be kind. And that all sounds wonderful. I mean, of course, it's very hard to deny this sort of like just be kind. And of course, people like Peterson and other commentators have thought about this and realize that if you always kind to everybody all the time, number one, that might not be best for them. Right? Because there are some hard truths out there and, you know, sort of, you know, any parent will know this. You can't always concede to everything the child wants. So there's that part of it. But also the compassion part of it is, is more to do with, well, who are you being compassionate towards? Because if you're being compassionate towards the people who claim that they need an accommodation or they need some concession, academic concession, then where's the compassion for the people who put in all the work and are actually really talented and get the regular amount of time on the exam? And if I. Can, to those parameters. Interject here, because this is of course, you know, something that we work with with our clients and patients all the time is determining when an accommodation is needed for a mental health disorder. And I think the challenge that you're describing here is discerning the distinction between somebody who is anxious about exams versus has disordered anxiety and has a diagnosable condition which requires accommodation. So I think that the lines of that perhaps have been blurred and you know, people who maybe could learn some effective coping strategies that student are being accommodated and then lumped into the same category as those who have a disorder that requires accommodations. Correct. I mean, first of all, is a physician involved in this decision? I mean, look, we don't know, right? So I'm just a I'm just a professor. And so I just get a letter saying you will accommodate this person. And I kind of ask why. And all I can tell you is I know that 99% of the time the accommodation is extra examination time. Now, that doesn't make sense to me because if there were a proportion of people who are suffering from visual impairment, for example, such as yourself, then the accommodation may well be different. Right? They wouldn't you wouldn't necessarily need extra time on an exam, right. Maybe you do, I don't know. But the accommodation. Yeah. The accommodation might be that, you know, the exam has to be in Braille or something. Right. So why is it always extra time on an exam? That strikes me as, as a little bit odd, Right. So people on my side just sort of questioning all of this and go, here's another accommodation. Okay, fine. We don't really know how robust the decision making is. And I would argue it's not always based on medical professional advice. They have advisers who are you know, their job in the universities is to make these determinations. And so, yeah, it's a bit sketchy as far as I'm concerned. And of course, why would I bother about this? Well, because I want to defend merit and I want to defend standards. And I will tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that I don't know this from talking with colleagues, you know, people have just given up. So so we just, you know, okay, if you want an accommodation, you get this. You know, it doesn't affect my subject. Interestingly, it doesn't affect my subject because you could I could give you a chemistry exam and you could go away and I'd say, you've got a month to do this, and you'd still be stuck stumped. Right? If you hadn't studied for answers. Right, you'd be assessed the answers. Yeah, right. And you know, I have to be careful because of confidentiality, but I have a number of patients in various high level roles and very important fields. You know, actually, I say broadly, whether it's academia, medicine, science, research, politics, and they all say the exact same thing. This is universal, at least among the people I speak with. Once they know it's a safe space to talk about it. But we are seeing after years of this kind of accommodation and Malini and I've talked about this again, comedy and the people actually need it. Give them a bit of a leg up, you know, that is fair and it's just and it does make for a better society. But the over application of this sentiment is, you know, ruining the mindset of the people who are in academia. They enter the work field or workforce with that mindset. And the people in those same positions, aside from my patients, their colleagues, their superiors, they basically have the same let's see, call it woke mind virus that has infected the universities. And so nobody is held to account even in the professional realm, not just the academic realm. If it was just school, you go, okay, fine. You know, it's hard for the professors. They've got to deal with these students, but, you know, somehow whatever. But the reality is those students do get into the real world and they spread that mindset and really the compassion and the great Jordan Peterson has talked about it a lot. And people think he's saying not to be compassionate. No, compassionate compassion is obviously very important. But as Malcolm said many times, good intentions executed poorly, lead to terrible consequences, are outcomes. And that's what we are seeing. And I see it from so many patients and their distress because these are fields that they've worked so hard to ascend in. They loved they he loved their field and they saw how good it could become. And I include psychology as well. Melanie, I've talked about this that's like with the feminization. And it's not about women per say. We want to be very clear here. It's not women per se. It's a mindset, it's a perspective. And it's an agenda. And it's again, it's false compassion because it's not very compassionate to the other people, nor is it compassionate to somebody to put them in a position that they're not really suited for, to elevate them to a place where they are going to do, you know, they're going to do wrong by not only themselves, by the people around them. And this is what we are seeing. And I don't think it's hyperbole to say this. I've heard it from so many people in every industry that you know, that you can imagine. So I think you summarize it very well. You know, just referring back to the piece that I was criticized on at the beginning in that video, it's one of the things they left out. I mean, yeah, I did make this anecdotal analogy to my own experience about how my best friend met his future wife at university. And, you know, that's just anecdote. And there are a lot of people who do. I mean, the point is simply this. And women, by the way, are particularly selective about this, which is that there's a tendency for people seeking partners to try to equilibrate to the same level. So if you go to university, you want a university trained, you know, partner, right? I mean, I mean, it's not that big a leap. You know, the fact that he thinks I'm deranged in this in some fashion is not that big an inference once you know that people do, in fact, see people of the same academic level or educational level of achievement. So if you've got twice as many women in university as men and then twice as many women are getting degrees, which is fantastic for women. But. Right. And good on them, assuming the standards are still high, you know, we can argue about then the men are in the minority and so women and then, you know, if we're going to match them up and if if most women are going to be looking for a man of equal level of achievement and attainment, they're going to be out of luck. All right. Because it's going to be very competitive. So I don't know how many women who get a masters in science are happy to marry a plumber. I mean, hopefully they they are, you know, and I but we know just from social science sort of studies that people do tend to want these these things because it's on their checklist, you know. Well, you know, I really feel I have to you know, you're thinking about the rest of your life, right. And you want to match with someone who's perhaps been through the same experience as well. University is very important time in your life, is it not? I mean, we think back to that era. If we're lucky enough to go to university, say, gosh, it changed my life, you know, and so much happened in that time. So to say to say that it doesn't matter. Yeah, there's something biological to it, too, whether we want to accept that or not. I think that Warren and I have talked about this before, that a desire for in heterosexual couples, for a woman have a partner that's going to provide and protect and whatever that means within the realm of their relationship, it's going to differ. But I think that I think the term is hyperbole, that that plays into it as far as looking for a partner that is of equivalent or higher educational status. Right. Its status as the key word. I mean, because that's supposed to be an indication, right, whether it was brute strength in the past or intelligence or a degree. Exactly. And adding to that and I can't remember if you mentioned this in the article, I think you did, but I know I read several other articles, one of which by Barbara Kate, another. She's a writer for the National Post where and we've seen this and so many people are talking about this, the divide in politics as well. Before you could have a liberal and a conservative get married. These days, it's anathema to to, you know, at least to the liberal side, Lino, a lot of centrist and right wing people are like, hey, I'm totally fine with someone on the left, as long as they're not woke, as long as they're reasonable. But we're not seeing it the other way around. So if we're seeing all these women who are getting their degrees and are liberal minded, they are going to it's going to be harder and harder for them to find mates that they can, you know, live with, especially when they're being told by their leaders, by the media, that those men on the right or center, you know, who are anyone, anyone right to them, you know, are evil, they're misogynistic, they're sexist, racist, colonialist and everything like that. The messaging truly is leading to a divided country or countries, whether the states or Canada. And I'm I'm assuming, like, you know, again, in the UK as well, in other countries in the West. I'm sure it's going to be the same. Yeah, it bothers me really, because I don't like to see this battle of the sexes. I mean, I really, you know, I don't want to be tarred with the brush off of, you know, bigotry, that which is what they'll always do. I mean, the other side will I mean, I didn't even perceive it to be another side, to be honest, until relatively recently. But they will. Yeah. I mean, I'm Gen X, right? And I'm actually quite proud of my generation the way because I feel like we've had a robust education and it wasn't diluted in any fashion. And we weren't I mean, we were political, right? As foolish to think that we weren't political at university, but the political movements, which I mean, I remember one of my friends, you know, was really big on protesting Chinese occupation of Tibet and, you know, this sort of thing. Right. So, you know, that was a was a big deal back then. But but this more recent kind of identity politics, I think we avoid it. And so we have a view it that is very much like what's going on. I mean, I was aware of postmodernism and we all knew that it was just a sort of intellectual foolishness. I would describe it that you can get away with at university. But, but the idea has been ported over into, into real life and now being applied is dangerous. I mean, it's is clearly dangerous. I mean, you know, science is applied to real life because science is objectively real and it works. And this is why I find it really frustrating when you have those conversations with people who are coming from a position which is it's sort of this magical thinking about like, for example, I say the gender ideology. So I have a gender identity, apparently. Well, well, prove it to me. So I'm falsifiable. All right. So this is this is clearly problematic for me right away. And yet all of those folks are quite happy to flip a switch and have the lights come on in the house and the air conditioning in a condominium in Toronto, let's say, where I live. And, you know, I drive a car with an internal combustion engine or nowadays, you know, an electric vehicle. And of course, constantly on the cell phones that rely on, you know, quantum mechanics, essentially, and, you know, stuff they don't understand. But it really does work because it's scientifically grounded. Right. I wish they'd just stop using all of these things because if they believe in gender identity, then we're in this space, are we not, Where it's kind of like shamanism, it's like a religion. And so we're in this religious zone now and I just get very tired of it. I don't mind people having religions, mind you, but I do hate it when they foisted upon you and I think that's kind of what we're. Seeing with the challenge here is the foisting upon others of different views and opinions and beliefs. Right? I mean, look, you know, you can go and. I'm sorry. Yeah, go ahead. I was just to say that when you talked about like I'm a Gen Xer as well, when we talk about not having politics, I would say we had politics. But if someone had if someone was protesting and someone had a belief, we said, okay, that's that's their thing. It wasn't that if I'm not doing my thing, somehow I'm the bad guy. That's the difference. I think that, you know, that's why so many people are virtue signaling because they want to be part of that group. Because otherwise not to be is to be the other. And the other is that. I think that's. What it is. Yes. You said demonizing the other side is the new sort of flavor of politics, isn't it? And we've just seen it. I mean, extraordinary. I, I never thought, of course, maybe I should have been a bit more intuitive about this, but I never thought that a TV show host and billionaire in the construction industry would end up being, you know, President the United States, although, well, you know, Ronald Reagan was formerly a B-list out. It wasn't. So I mean, you know, it is interesting who ends up in that office. And certainly I wasn't like this is not going to work out very well, as was my thinking back certainly in the previous Trump administration. And what we saw there was what was almost a clown show, I would argue. Right. I mean, it was pretty pretty funny to be seeing the constant sort of turnstile kind of changing of of, you know, people getting fired. It was like watching The Apprentice was not like, you know, all these different characters that he had in his administration. And then for him to come back recently and then, you know, me in some sort of deranged way going, hooray. I mean, but I did. I did. Because I couldn't imagine how the world is going to survive with Kamala Harris as president of the United States. Right. I mean, and that's because I'd I'd seen all of this begin to happen in the last few years. So so I've been politicized lately. And of course, that means I'm sort of a Trump supporter, which is funny because I'm no big fan of Trump as anything, you know, as a person. But he clearly has the right policies because he's focused on the economy, let's say, and he's also going to obliterate some of the gender ideology, which has gone way too far. And I think Canada will necessarily be drawn along that path as well. Canada's always considered to be more left leaning, more socialist than the US always has been. But I think in all of North America we're going to see this shift in the Western world, I think now. So for me it's it's a big positive lately, although of course I'm not an American citizen. I don't get to vote. And you know, it's their business. Right. But all of this is has deeply concerned me. Right. And I couldn't I don't understand the bit I don't understand. You say it's, you know, the woke being virus. We've heard that from Elon Musk and others and the parasitic mind, you know, from cards yet. Yeah we've we've heard that a great deal but boy is it spread fast Right. And it's also really resilient. Right. You know it seems that it can beat, you know, critical thinking. And that's what really troubles me the most is I don't mind people disagreeing with me. I mean, it's always I mean, like, again, you know, with the videos that commentate, I mean, it's remarkably smug. You know, it's like, it's obvious that this guy's energy is essentially, you know, he says this, this, this. And I didn't, you know, fine, I don't mind him having that opinion, but I bet you when it comes to debating the topic, you know, they don't they don't seem to have this capacity to to really get down to brass tacks as I would say, you know, to really get into the debate. Has that contributed to some of the challenges that you've experienced with your certainly in the workplace where there's certainly no room for conversation? Yeah, I mean, that's that's the hard part of of what's happened to me. I think I mean, much of this began with a much earlier article in the National Post, which is a poster actually that someone has made and put up in a coffee shop, actually on the St George campus, which apparently is frequented by all manner of students. And it's a poster of that particular article. They've actually redacted my name, but it's the headline was I'm a T professor and I got into trouble for encouraging debates. So I did that because we had an event, right? We had an event at motor Parliament Chemistry Department for students. It was for undergraduate students, I believe. And they asked us, all of us to socialize and we weren't having very much of that. And of course, in the post pandemic era, it's been really difficult to get back to kind of the environment that I knew university to be, which is a very social place. And so we professors were encouraged to come along and have activities for students to engage in this afternoon thing and so students just showed up. And one of the things I thought I'd do with some of Peter Boghosian is Spectrum Street based symbology. So I had the I.t guys come in with a big TV and we put up some claims and we had, you know, kind of microphones and so on and then the lines on the floor and then, you know, we asked students to react to the claims whether they agreed or were neutral or disagreed and so on. And then I would go around and because I'm the host, I would be neutral to the claim and then asked them why they believe those things. And I followed the rules of the game. And we started with some fairly simple ones which really were unchallenging, if you like, but just to warn people off. And of course, eventually, you know, because you know, you know, is it is of let's see, are vegetarians morally superior to omnivores or something like this or you know, so so people would argue this point that that's a fairly benign, fairly anodyne thing. And then we'd move on. And I think the pivotal point was when I put up a claim, which was, you know, Jordan Peterson needs to be reeducate, said something like best, right. Which of course has been a topic of much discussion. And then they started, you know, okay, we have people agree to disagree, not surprisingly. And, you know, and we proceeded until I think I got to men can become women. Right. And it's just a statement. And of course that started to get into the whole agenda ideology area. Well, to be honest, the students really engaged in this. I mean, that was the funny thing. I started off with one or two people wanting to play, and at the end of it I had like like dozens of people wanted to play because they all wanted to get in there and start putting their opinions across. Right. Well, you know, a week later I get called into to to see the chair of the department and told that I'm a transphobe and that, you know, that's a long walk. Well, no, but if you put up a claim saying men can become women, that is transphobic, because you shouldn't even be asking the question. And how unfortunate. I mean, obviously getting an education is the main point of university that isn't that type of conversation and debate and critical thinking. The whole point of getting out. Is the whole point. That's the point I put across to my chair. And she said, Well, it's a female. And she said, Well, yes, but you're not thinking about the students, you know, in terms of how they're going to react this is impactful to them. They weren't expecting this. We can have debates like that, but it needs to be they need to have trigger warnings essentially. So you don't it's kind of you know, you've sort of done it in a surreptitious way. They didn't know what they were going to get. And you got progressively more challenging and you should have stuck to, you know, what was it one she wanted? Pineapple belongs on pizza. No, that's okay. So you can have a debate about pineapple belongs on pizza, but you can't have a debate about it. You can see why at that point, I just thought, my God, this is a clown house. This is the University of Toronto. This is the University of Toronto, which is. That's in the country. The best in the country. These are science students, science, Right. And yet we can't discuss these things without, you know, kind of people, you know, because imagine if I'd have put that up ahead of time and said, we're going to discuss whether men can become women. I would have had protests. In that then. Like there's no that anyway. Yeah. Yeah. But you wouldn't Yeah. You wouldn't be able to actually have it because they would have protested protesting. Yeah. It would have been shut down. Right. Had been canceled. So, so that is the tenor of behavior and attitudes on the campus. And we're talking about senior professors, you know, doing this. And now I'm you know that you know, I mean, I'm being beaten up by by a chair who isn't an Earth scientist because I'm a transfer because I did this. So that's my point. And then the other piece to this is to say, if we've got twice as many women as men running the show, the the alignment is and you can argue this melody because, you know, you can say this is wrong, but I think I think this temptation or the trait to be compassionate is stronger in women than men. I think men have a bit more of a sort of you know, you can play this either way. And men's attitudes are a bit brusque and kind of like, well, shut up and get on with that sort of thing. And women are much more willing to to listen. And there there's some fairly good positive outcomes from that. But equally, it is too much of it's and this is what I'm saying, it's like the suicidal empathy. That's the name of Outside's next book and the stuff that he's writing is a it's going to actually have negative effects. So that's what I felt. Does I mean, does that change my view or do you think. Yeah, and that ties into something I believe in in our episode that we spoke about, the feminization of psychology is that maybe it was one about masculinity. In any event, I made the statement that we're veering in a direction where men are perceived to be failed women. And what I meant by that is, you know, women have certain traits that, you know, we are more skilled at and men do as well. And that's not a bad thing. But men don't have to be women and women don't have to be men in terms of those personality traits and qualities and skills and so on and so forth. And even in a leadership position, myself, being in a leadership position, I don't try to lead like a man. I lead in the ways that are natural to me and my qualities and utilize my natural qualities. And that's what lends to group leadership. So to your point that those are my thoughts. Yeah, if I can. So sorry just to say that I don't I'm sorry just because I don't remember if it was your article from complete conflicting with another article, but we're talking about again, the ability to debate, the ability to have critical, you know, to to promulgate critical thinking, to engage in civil discourse. And again, I'm not sure what your paper or the other or Barbara is, but or the article sorry but it when the other side if it's when the feminized the worst part of a feminization or one of the worst parts I would say there's many but one of them is that when you do get into a heated discussion but it's civil. But when the other side feels that they're losing or they don't have an argument at all, they resort to an age to say it. But it's tears. You know, they start to get upset, they start calling names, they start going ad hominem. And that is, again, that's you know, men can do it. They do it sadly. But it's that it's more of a feminized approach. And again, when I say feminized, it doesn't mean women per se. It's just it's a name that we attribute to that type of demeanor and engagement style. And that's not engaging. It shuts down engagement. Call someone a Nazi, call them a fascist, call them all these different things. And again, look like you've been victimized by the words that this person uttered there. You cannot have progress in that type of an atmosphere. Yeah, it's interesting. Is there? I was a child of the Thatcher era in the United Kingdom, Margaret Thatcher. And I mean, what sort of fascinates about that is what an incredibly powerful mother you had left or hated her, you know, influential figure she was. And of course, there was this element of where she sort of suppressed certain feminine characteristics to a degree in order to get ahead. And some would argue feminists argue this is this is terrible because she's sort of just becoming a male. But, you know, I think you could equally argue that in order to run a country, there were characteristics that you need to have, and they tend to align more with the male sort of spectrum of behaviors. And if women are going to do those, then they will need to in order to fulfill the job sort of thing, which is you've got to be quite tough. And of course, she was a very tough leader and and that's a very good demonstration. I think, how women clearly can do it. But I don't think it would have been a successful leadership if she had demonstrated all sorts of very feminine traits. Right. Of compassion and all this. Right. So so I think I think you have to look at what the job in hand is. And it's the reverse, isn't it? When you look at, I don't know, nursing let's say, or, you know, any of the medical profession, but particularly nursing where there's a lot of caregiving. And this is an issue that they struggled with in Scandinavian countries, are they really want to get more men involved in nursing, but they just can't seem to be able to do it. Just bend on very interested in giving care to anyone or something. I mean, this is we're not very good at that. Part of our brain is a bit switched off, perhaps, comparatively speaking. It's something I'll add there. Just to your point about leadership, I think it depends on the job. It depends on who you're leading. It depends on the type of leadership, right. So in a position like that, leading a country, perhaps that is the case about myself. I'm in health care leadership that requires a different type of compassion and so on and so forth. So I would hate for people to hear this and think that we're saying leaders per se have to be more No. No, no. I didn't want to. On the type of position. Yeah. No, no, no, I didn't want to. But, you know, during that era there was the Falklands War and, you know, there were sort of there were some pretty significant what if you write whatever kind of masculine sort of decision making things to to do with health care is a very good example I think that you bring up. Right. And I think so. Go ahead. Yeah. Just before you shift from nursing, I have to say this and it's I can say this with I think a very large sample size. The irony, let's say let's talk about nursing, where it is very female dominated, especially on the front lines. But the fact is I have so many nurses sorry, so many patients and students who are nurses and they every single one, everyone says that the environment in which they work is horrible. And it's not just the the you know, the the bad working hours and the conditions and everything that our governments have just destroyed in Canada and Ontario. But they say the interpersonal, the clicks, the targeting, the othering, the maligning of character by certain people, the lack of any type of, let's say, justice when an injustice is perpetrated against any of the nurses. And it is every single one says that it's all female dominated. And this is not me just hating on women. I'm not saying I've got three daughters. They know I don't hate on women. But the fact is I'm just calling it out that there's something wrong with this approach. And because it's being masked by this label of compassion or this this premise, it's a premise. But the reality is behind that is something very different. And every single nurse has talked about it and they're going on leave because of the terrible conditions. Working conditions are hard enough. Interpersonal is what gets them. Yeah, it's another thing that Petersen's talked about a great deal is that because men can resort to violence to settle disputes and women can't, and therefore there's a sort of tendency psychologically to to have different strategies, I guess, to undermine. And so he's talked a great deal about that. But that very bigot term destroying people's careers, It seems so. So, look, I mean, in recent days, you know, what's happened to me, again, I've had another sort of incident which will, I think, touch on what you just said. So we've got an environment, let's say, which is large, a lot of female administrators. I'm not going to say, you know, then meaning the people who are kind of governing the university. There's a lot of this. And so I have had two chairs, both females fine, except that I started to encounter some of these bizarre views, which I saw that's strange, particularly from the chemistry challenge. And of course, I went on this crusade, I suppose, to write articles really, because I wanted to stretch my legs or, you know, stretch my pen, you know, as as she wanted to start to see if I could write. And I haven't done so for a long time in this fashion. And Substack is a great venue for that. So I started writing and putting articles as well in the newspaper, in the National Post, and what happened to me lately was I slipped up a little bit, I think, on one of my substack and I probably named a couple of people I probably shouldn't. I don't know really. I mean, one could argue this point. I mean, this is always about, you know, when you're discussing something that's happened and you want to call it out, you do kind of want to point to the person who did it, especially if they were in a position of authority and especially if they draw a salary which is partly paid for by the taxpayer. Right. So, I mean, I don't have that much sympathy. But anyway, I put out a piece which then was caught by someone who really objected and made a complaint. And so, you know, I was dragged into the dean's office this time to be told, well, you know, you've basically compromised the university's policy on workplace harassment. So I by writing things on my substack, I am now, you know, thought to be a harassing colleagues in the workplace. And, you know, it was more than that. You know, we have well, for example, the dean had received threats of violence, apparently from readers of my article of February 5th. Well, I mentioned him and he he claimed, I think that I mischaracterized him and I'm quite sure quite how, because I just stated he was the dean. And then I quoted some things that it says on his website, if I remember correctly, that maybe I did, maybe I did. But, you know, that triggered apparently threats of violence. I mean, I hope he called the cops. I mean, I wonder if there's a phone call, you know, or are we perhaps what does he mean? Does he mean he got some social media pile on, you know? Well, okay, you know, so all of that. And then there were other faculty members who've complained because I'm so intimidating, you know, because I open my mouth. Right. I mean, that's why I'm intimidating that they can't they don't feel safe in a meeting with me. They don't feel safe in a meeting with me. And that means that the university needs to defend their rights to a safe space. And therefore, I need to be castigated for this. So that's what we're dealing with. Now, I'm going to guarantee you that the people who actually made those complaints are female, because I don't think any man would actually do that. They're just, you know, but that's how I feel. I won't ever work with you. If you're sorry, but I will challenge you on that. Okay? Because again, the feminization it does, you know, again, there are many men who adopt those feminized approaches, right? Well, then those are being successful. They're the men who are being successful, of course, in this environment. So I'm not one of those. So I'm not going to be successful in this environment. Right? You're correct. You're correct. I think and that's the other thing that I've noticed is the issue of, you know, I'm a gay man, right? But I have more testosterone and less limp wristed ness than than colleagues who claim to be straight in my department because of this sort of feeble behavior. Right. I mean, they're just drones, as far as I'm concerned, because they just kowtow to everything. And it's very boring. I mean, it's incredibly dull, right, Because you just know they're not going to say anything interesting. And so then there's a cabal of women who all have kind of got this beady eye bit between the teeth, and that's all they go on about. I to the point where E.D. becomes like, you know, a an agenda item for every meeting. I mean, seriously, that's all you can think of. We're running university here and this is what is a priority. So. So, yes, it is. It's rather dull. And yes, men can get ahead by. It's the cuttlefish behavior, which is to pretend to be something that they're not really. But yeah, men like me just get really frustrated. Right? I mean, I want robust argument. I'm not afraid of it. I'm not someone who resorts to physical violence ever. So I'm not that kind of guy. But I'm. I'm vociferous, right? So I'm strident. I'll go out there and I say, no, this is how I think and this is how I believe. And they just can't deal with it so they can. Feel sorry. For them. I can't deal with it. Then we don't have a university, as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, right. So if I can say two things about that. One, in your in the subset Substack article where you name the person, okay, this is what we would call if they are in a position of authority and presumably a position above yours. Right. A dean you're punching up, right? You are punching up. So and we're talking punching up from a position of status within the university. They should laud that because that's what you know, that's what you're supposed to be not punching down here. You're not picking on some student of naming a student. Right. I would never do that to a student. Yeah. It's like let me just clarify. Let me just clarify, though. Yes. Usually I'd punch up. There was one case, and I think this was one of the ones that was cited. Well, I was in trouble was that I criticized a manager who is not a peer. I mean, they're not they're not faculty. So then you could argue that I was punching down because they're just managers. But I should point out, these managers are completely unionized. There's nothing that I can do to disrupt that. And they were performing a task which I thought was ridiculous. And in so doing I criticized them, but they had a managerial role. So so I believe that counts as punching down always. But because we're on different paths. Right. But you criticize my boss. Yeah. Right, Exactly. Yeah. And I wouldn't consider that. I mean, I don't think someone has to always punch up again. Punching down very down is not the greatest. But in this case, yeah, if someone is in a position that's being paid for by the tax dollars, partially or full, then yes, they should be held to account, whatever the position by anybody, number one. Number two, the way you mentioned this, if you just mentioned I was going to say before you said it, which is one of the most I don't even know if it's I think it's blatant, but I think it was actually insidious manipulation that we've seen of language is saying that words are violence. That is one of the worst developments or regressions of aggressions in the Western society, because then. Yes, because you said a few words. You are now violent and because you're violent. We can, as you say, castigate, we can isolate. We can eventually terminate if, you know, if they're going to keep at this. Yeah. Because. Yeah, who wants a violent person on campus And as you said. Exactly with the dean, I wasn't there. I'm not going to I don't know what happened, but I have seen so many cases where people are, again, totally feminized. No, no masculine person, male or female, would do this. But we see these false claims where they say, you know, I was I was attacked, I was this is that. No, you were criticized. You were held to account. Maybe out of a thousand comments, maybe one or two were ugly. I get that. And that's all that they show and they use that to totally negate the 998 credible, proper criticisms. Yeah, I know. And that's true. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, in that particular instance, right? I mean I've written about 20 odd articles, right. And one of them was flagged and yeah, I probably slipped up a little bit much, which you know, you're going to do. I mean, if I write 100 articles will be some other thing I'll probably do. But I mean, it's not going to stop me from writing. It would just seem stupid, you know. And so, yeah, I just, I just sort of a little bit horrified by the attitudes that are prevailing now because this is not the university that we want. You know, what we want, in fact, is a safe environment for everyone to speak their mind. That's what we actually want. The words of violence, conceptualization. I mean, that is utterly ridiculous. I mean, it doesn't make sense, as you know, because we all know what physical violence looks like and then sort of using that word and sort of then using it to embrace insults. I mean, somebody I mean, would you be insulted? Right. So somebody says, this guy is foolish. He doesn't know what he's talking about. Okay. So all the usual tropes sign, right? You know, this can be I could I'm offended by that. But probably, you know, being offended is doesn't mean you're right. And I think that's what they've kind of distilled it down to. So the first person you can press the button that says I'm offended is suddenly a winning formula for whatever it is. You know, it's like, well, then I've won the, you know, Yeah, I've won the debate because I'm offended. It really doesn't. And if we're behaving like that in our institutions of learning at the highest level, what does that say about us society? So I am hopeful. I'm hopeful that this will change. I don't think I'll be around for it. So, I mean, my view is I've done my bit for university and I'm going to go off and do other things now, including continuing to write, but and maybe get more involved in what Peterson's doing because I've joined up with his academy and, you know, I'm really enjoying that right now. They have a challenge, though. I mean, this is the issue for university right? There is a challenge. If you talk to people like Peter Boghosian, they'll say, burn it down. All right, the universities are over. That done for they've done it for themselves. But there's there's no point saving them. But there is an issue, of course, and that is the huge infrastructure investment that's been made in, say, you know, science buildings in laboratories. You cannot do science without the equipment, much of it millions and millions of dollars worth of equipment. And so you can't just switch to an online platform, can you? So I think I think we do have to say that because all that money is being poured into these organizations, into those institutions. So I don't think we can burn it. But certainly in the you could see shrinkage, right? I mean, we could certainly have the U of T closed all of the departments that the grievance studies departments. Right. We don't need those. We should limit ourselves to the subjects that actually have value to society. And I think those grievance subjects have demonstrated they have negative for society. Right. So so I don't think we should be continuing to pursue those. But yeah, there has to be change in policy because otherwise universities are just that they just going to kill themselves, I think. Well, they've lost. Yeah, we know they've lost credibility. And that's so sad because we want educated people, we want capable, trained people, people who have critical thinking. And so if we all just denigrate universities as these places that need to be burned down, we're losing so much as the old be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. All right, we need to save the baby, but get rid of some of that toxic water. And speaking of which, if I can just add this so people can understand this, it's just an interesting one of the sex differences. In a survey in 2017, they were asked a bunch of college students were asked if we had to choose one diversity and inclusion. You could either protect diversity or to protect free speech. It was almost 2 to 1 opposite. So females students said diversity and inclusion over free speech, almost 2 to 1, and males said free speech over diversity and inclusion. Obviously we want all of these together to some degree if done reasonably, but it just shows the mindsets. These are differences. And again, it's the problem is, you know, the thing is that the people in E.D., right, they're not given a false choice. That's a false dichotomy that you must choose one or the other and the reality, we can have all of it, but they've made it. So it is, E.D., to the exclusion of free speech or critical? You know, in critical part. Melanie, what do you what do you think about that? Because that sounds like a shocking distinction, doesn't it? Like women prefer D. As and as Orin was saying that my vote was for free speech. And so I know you guys both mentioned being Gen-X. I'm of the older millennials. So I went to university in the early 2000s, and I don't remember any of this crap to be honest, like it was. I felt a pretty balanced place to be and a place for free discussion. I think that somewhere the lines that all fell apart, but at least at that time, in the early 2000, I feel there was a balance of the two where there was room for discussion about E.D. type topics without it becoming, you know, an agenda and doing so in a free speech way. Yeah, yeah. Something went horribly wrong, didn't it, Somewhere? Yeah. Because. Because for people of my mindset, as I say, sort of grounded in, you know, the philosophy of the enlightenment and empiricism and all of that, you know, both are very liberally minded, you know, like classic liberalism and yeah, of course we want women in science, of course we want people of color, we want everybody, right? I mean, so stupid too. I get really fed up with all of this. well, science is a Western patriarchal, you know, kind of oppressive regime. And that in itself is is the height of derangement. So it's those steps outside of all of that. I mean, you know, it's works equally well in China as it does here in America. It doesn't care about race, it doesn't care about your gender. It works equally well. Women scientists are still, you know, still working on the same principles. It's so narrow minded to sort of attempt to reject science because it happens in human history to have emerged in, you know, some damp islands off the north west coast of of Europe and places like that with the Industrial Revolution and so on. You know, all of this sort of era happens, too. It could have happened anywhere. You know, it could have happened anywhere. It didn't actually happen again. We can't rewrite history. Well, apparently we can rewrite history as the 1619 project tells us. Yeah, but it did actually happen in that place. But that's not important anymore. The important point is bring science to the world, you know? I mean, the indigenous people of Canada will benefit from Western science. I know that sounds apocryphal. It's just, you know, why is he saying this? This is a colonial attitude, but it will. It's the truth, right? You know, if I was an indigenous person, I think, you know, we need to interview those people a little bit more, listen to them a bit more. I think they actually want access to to the modern advances of technology. Yes. I mean, we you know, we should be sensitive to trampling all over them from a sort of cultural perspective. And, you know, I'm totally sympathetic to all of this as a as a Brit to, you know, let's face it, in my history, we had 400 years of Danish oppression, if people forget this, right? Yes. You know, the Vikings and John Guild and we paid tribute to the Danish crown for four centuries. and then, of course, there was the Roman invasion. I mean, you know, it's how long are we going to hold onto these things? In the past, Right. So so all of this sort of fits together in my view, you know, And I you know, I've seen it happen. It's always the same actors who advance the narrative. You know, I've been called out for being a colonial Asian apologist for the British Empire and all of this. And it's just boring. I mean, they have nothing to say of interest any of these people, and they're not actually adding something positive here. To your question and to Oren's point earlier, I mean, I'm just reflecting further on what you're saying. Social justice has always been something at the top of my list, but not in the form that it's taken today. So I don't write saying that out loud because I don't want to be lumped into the category of, you know, these far left individuals. But like social justice is incredibly important, but it's morphed into something that I don't even recognize. So what would you what would you characterize as today, what would you want it to be? Which it isn't? that's a great question. So I think very simply put, treating all people with kindness, compassion, recognizing that people are different and have different needs, but not placing one's needs over somebody else's. Right. So, for example, the big hot topic about, let's say, trans women being admitted into women's spaces, who will be being compassionate towards, I guess, the. And that's one that I struggle with because I know what the politically correct answer is. But to be quite honest, and Oren and I have spoken privately about this, too, and I think probably on the podcast as well. I work out regularly at the gym and that scares me, to be quite honest. Like I'm pretty fit for somebody who's five foot three. But the reality is, and this isn't to insinuate that any transgender person is going to be, you know, a predator or something that's going to harm me. But the possibility is there, and that scares me and makes me uncomfortable. So I don't think that those rules and regulations are compassionate to people like me. Right. And so that's the point about that. I also can't see. Right. There's that, too. I can't really keep myself safe and aware of my surroundings. So there's there's that, too. So I think it's doubly just compassionate to me. As well, because these. Kinds of issues, they're complex, they're controversial, they're equivocal. They require nuance and nuance of the word. We talk about vocabulary early on. That's a word I think is being lost these days. I don't know how many understand not only the meaning, but actually the need for it. And as you were describing about the histories and so on, instead of take a nuanced take, most people want to obliterate it and change, as we say, change history. And that's why, you know, in a situation like this, the question would be, okay, you know, do you, for example, trans people in change rooms, do you say if someone has fully transitioned surgically, then that's okay? Do you say if they're intact, you know, generally, then they shouldn't be. Do they have to pass? And then people say, well, because it's so difficult, again, to take the unknowns perspective because it's so difficult. And if you said, well, only those who pass, well, then that's not fair to those who don't pass as a woman. So therefore, we should just not even think about it at all and just say, you know, trans women are women, put them in, let them in. And we don't think about, again, lack of compassion to people like Molly. And of course, more equally important, if not more so young girls, you know, who will feel uncomfortable and whose bodies are telling them, danger, danger. You are you're naked, you're in a change of you're alone, you're vulnerable. You see a male fully intact in that room who looks like a male. And your brain and body are telling you one thing and you're being told by society. No, no. Ignore what you know. Know what your body is telling you. That that survival instinct. You're to ignore that. And again, those are the kind of things that's not very compassionate to to rewire someone's whole experience, you know, especially when that reaction is to protect themselves. So and again, by saying that that doesn't I don't want people to misconstrue that as being transphobic. I'm just saying these are things that we need to take into consideration that aren't often being taken into consideration for the name of inclusion. This this idea of nuance that you raised. I mean, it's all it's all about trade offs, isn't it, you know, if we need washrooms in public washrooms, particularly in the workplace. So, you know, do you go to the other extreme and say, well, they're all just anyone can go to any washroom and it's all sort of multi gender or gendered for whatever it would be and we don't care at all. And so you insist on, I guess, stools everywhere and so people can have privacy and just go to that extreme and that it kind of does that remove the problem. But of course, you know, women's washrooms were introduced, certainly for my understanding in Britain, sort of as a result of the female workforce sort of coming into factories during World War Two. And of course, the increased sort of harassment that these women then suffered in that environment, which was still, you know, kind of had a lot of men present. And so they became mandated to to create male and female bathrooms. And so, again, it's this trade off. What do you actually want? Right? Because There always will be those individuals, especially with self i.t who are going to take advantage of the system and are going to come and threaten women even if it isn't too fair to label trans individuals in that fashion. Right? I mean, clearly trans people do exist. They have always existed only until relatively recently could they do anything significant to really change the gender. And of course I would argue that you can't change sex, but, you know, it's not got a long history in the sense of you couldn't do a great deal until relatively recently because surgical intervention would have been a deadly cocktail. I mean, you know, so so, you know, the idea of certainly cross-dressing and so on, as we've known this for centuries. But the idea that you would just allow anyone to access women only space, they can identify themselves to be a woman, that that's obviously extremely risky. So the trade off is, well, we want to be compassionate to all of these people, which is a relatively small number of people in society. And we're prepared, therefore, to be dispassionate about the face of women who will, you know, encounter harassment. And there will be, you know, terrible say, but there will be rapes that would not have occurred. No. Others will say, well, you know, it doesn't matter. Just because you put a sign up on an abortion says a women's bathroom, it's not going to stop men from going in. Right. So, you know, again, we could argue back and forth and say, well, really persistent, you know, but I think she's going to go it. Ignores the rules of society. Right. So you're right. That doesn't stop somebody from a male from going into the female bathroom. But I do think that there's a lot of erasure and disappearance of societal rules and norms and understandings that are built into things. And hierarchy is gone. Like everything is just, you know, whatever whatever sex queer theory sounds. Yeah. Sounds politically correct is what goes. Back to be dismantled. Right. So yeah. Exactly. And but again and you say, yes, you're right. I mean, on the one hand, the signs are not going to stop a predator from going in the bathroom. However, A, you know, the easier you make it for someone with bad intentions to do it. We know for fact human nature says that they will do it. And B, if a woman and this happened, I'm seeing stories on my feet all the time, but not all the time. But a number of cases where a woman did oppose, she was feeling threatened. She was concerned someone was acting suspiciously and they were fully intact. They looked like a, you know, just a regular male. But he said, I identify as a female. He was even trying to. And when they complained to the, you know, the gym or where else they are, they're banned for life. They are told they are wrong. So, you know, so again, so having a sign is not going to stop the necessarily. But if you saw someone in there, you could say, hey, get out now. If you say, hey, get out, you risk serious sanction and public humiliation. But you're never going to please everybody. Right. And I think, you know, if you're just going to be statistical about all of this, we've got to look at how many people were impacting women. Is 50 of, slightly over 50% of the population. Right. And trans trans individuals are, what, 0.2%. So, you know, just it's a simple decision. It's a simple decision, unfortunately, which is a you know, I totally want to be compassionate to people who are trans. Right. But the reality is that that compassion should not extend to, you know, oppressing other people or putting other people at risk, particularly because a large portion of the population, i.e. women. So I think I think that's and I just found it astonishing how people are quite willing to go the reverse direction because and the reason they will is because they think the biggest thing to do, that it increases their own status. It's usually a luxury belief, You know. Rob Henderson You know, it's typically middle class. Interestingly, typically middle class women, which I always thought was also very strange. It's almost like they're it's again, it's a suicidal kind of empathy, which is actually essentially bad for them, but they don't get to sort of have to deal with it like, you know, having the double rapist kind of committed to a woman, a women's penitentiary, for example, or something like that, they're not going to see that. So so I think the agenda area is it's a hot area, Of course, I, I get very upset about it because, you know, being gay means that I am sort of, you know, forced teamed into this. This crowd of alphabet people, as they jokingly referred to, were LGBTQ. I asked you to do the LGBT has nothing to do with the other letters at all. And so gay men like myself are beginning to recognize that this is this is really sucking us down into into a into a bad place politically. I think, you know, I just I'm not comfortable with it at all. You know, where same sex attracted people, trans and queer and all of that is is something completely different. Trans has to do with gender. Of course, queer is really to do with behavior, right? It's it's a social kind of construct, isn't it? So a lot of straight people kind of identifying into into sort of LGBT collective doesn't mean you have to you know, if you're a man, doesn't mean you have to sleep with a man. And so it it's just a whole different know we're supposed to stay together because we're all oppressed by that. I don't think that's a very good argument. And it's so interesting you say that because that I think summarizes what I take issue with the DCI initiatives, is that because of how I look and because of what I have experienced, I'm lumped into that category. But I still believe in meritocracy and I still believe in all of the things that should exist, despite the fact that, you know, I maybe meet some of that criteria. So it's it's really difficult to navigate because, like I said, social justice is really important. Accommodations are really important, but not in the way that it's being put out there. Just like what you're saying about the LGBT population. Well, I don't you know, I don't need anybody's sympathy because I'm gay, Right? I mean, that's that that's in fact, it's an insult, right? well, we need more LGBT folks running universities, let's say, for the sake of argument that what? Why? I don't need representation. I don't need to see people like myself on TV or in the media. Right. I just need to know that I'm not going to be discriminated against because of my preference for men as opposed to women. I mean, you're right. That's all right. Leave the rest alone. Judge me on my performance or what else I do, because the rest is is just this most appalling condescension. I mean, that's the bit that also points me up quite. It's so many middle class people I know you don't have you have middle class people in North America. Really. I mean, in Britain, of course, classes are huge. Thanks. Yeah. But, you know, people who are doing comfortably, economically comfortably. Well, that then sort of demand that, you know, because they can afford to let me get, you know, go and ask about gender ideology and I don't know some African state somewhere where they're worried about famine or something and they're just going to laugh at you. Yeah. And by the way, just one thing, because it was you said this at the near the beginning. So I just want to clarify because, again, being about language, you said earlier that I don't see color and then people will take an unwanted look and say, of course you see color. Of course you see sex. Yeah, we see it. But that's not the determining factor, right? That you base it, you base your your impressions, you base your grades on merit, on behavior, on their character, not on the race or gender or sex or anything per se. But it goes back to the definition of color as well, because apparently white isn't a color. Or is it a color either? Yeah, but Well, it's a point. I mean, this is stupid. Let's let's stick to the physical definition of color, right. To do with a rainbow and there's the rainbow, right, LGB and all of that. But seriously, let's let's stick to what we know color to mean. But then, you know, people of color I doubt irritates the hell out of me as well, actually. Really? Look, if you're black, you're black, you're white. You're right. Okay, fine. And I don't mind, you know, so they'll say he's a white man. Okay, fine. But I don't think about that. And I don't think people should think about race. Race is really an imaginary concept anyway. It's not the same biological basis for this, right? It's a continuum, right. Where sex is binary. I mean, that's the thing. Biologically speaking, sex is binary. Race is not right. Race is a continuum. And then we see the boundary of race or we think we do. I mean, you know, I mean, obviously when you see people who've got mixed heritage, then it gets really complicated, right? Because they're blurring. Right. What I'll say is that I think that there's importance in recognizing people from different ethnicities, maybe have different experiences, and their experience isn't the same as ours, but that's where it should end. But that culture. And acknowledging and. Yeah, as culture, as opposed to, you know, the way that race is used, I think it kind of gets sucked into biology a little bit or people kind of, you know, because it's physical characteristics that are involved in it. And those are kind of dictated by, you know, expression levels of melanin in your skin. Right. Okay. Okay. So you you produce a bit more pigment than me or something along those lines, right? I mean, so there's a bottle. Bigger than you therefore. Yeah. Well, right, right. I mean, you know, and so I find it a little bit tedious. I mean, ethnic distinctions clearly are important because it's it's culturally embedded, isn't it? It's like you're being brought up in a particular environment and then you take on all those that word tropes, but you adopt all of the cultural names of of that particular I mean, I'm English, right? So I drink tea, you know, and I yeah, I do write. Gosh, what a stereotype, you know. No, I don't have a pocket watch and no, I don't own a mansion or something. But no, I do have an English accent apparently, and so on. So yeah, I mean I thought that's all fun actually. I mean, do you just love the cultural diversity? I mean, that's the best bits. And even in social context, it's always awkward these days to ask people where where are you from? You know, because they could that they're going to attribute to you what you mean. I'm from I'm from Toronto, you know, to sort of get around it because you're in the same city as me. Well, you know what I meant. well, but, you know, that's kind of inappropriate. I mean, I don't have a problem saying I'm from Britain, you know, that damn island full of miserable folks that drink tea all the time. You know, it's interesting, right, to to ask people about their background, to learn about who they are and what they stand for and what their cultural experiences are, which are doubtless different to mine. Yeah, that's a tricky question. And admittedly I have a hard time with that one because I think it's the way in which it's asked, right? Because I. Do. Ask people well, people have asked me in a very racist way and like they do, they're speaking louder to me because I look like I don't speak English. So that yeah, that's mad. And I, I should add and respond with I'm from Windsor. I was born in summer. Good for you. But there are times where people like me genuinely ask because. Yeah, for a good reason. Yeah. Right. So it's. It's a conversation or someone wants to know about, you know, my heritage and my ethnicity. I'm happy to talk about that. But it's, I guess the way in which it's asked that matters. Right? So that's a that's the sort of sensitivity of discourse that, you know, I think, okay, so we get into political correctness to a degree. Totally. I think at that point, I just I mean, look, I think you can slap people the wrist if they behave that way because it's, you know, that's Yeah, quite likely. On the other hand, I don't think you should get sort of like screaming kind of you the sort of hysteria which we see. I mean, I'm not, I'm not sure that you would never do that. I'm sure neither would I. But but we see it on external and we see the screaming hysteria. I've, you know, just been misjudged. I mean, the idea of misgendering. By going into these conversations with the assumption that somebody is is being violent and harmful and, you know, fill in the blank with whatever where they're assuming they're. Yeah. Benefit of the doubt is another term that seems to be lost these days where you don't give the person the benefit of the doubt. They must have evil intention when they ask that question or forgiveness. Where's the forgiveness as well. Forgiveness as well. Right. Good Christian, Good Christian values. I mean, you know, I'm not religious, I'm an atheist. But not surprisingly, being a scientist, it's quite common for scientists to kind of not not really kind of be very keen on God and, you know, sort of Richard Dawkins and so on, who is a tutor of my naturally and at university. Yeah, he's a game changer for me. Yeah, he was at Oxford when I was, I was there in the Department of Zoology and. So. So yeah, you know, I'm not religious because I tend to believe in an objective reality in the world, and it's hard to reconcile that with this unidentified being like a god. But I do recognize that religion in society is an enormous value proposition, right? And so the face, you know, it comes with all these rather pleasant sort of behavioral characteristics like, you know, forgiveness and charity. And I, we need more of that. Yeah. You know, I look, I totally expect never to be forgiven by my colleagues. You see, I was talking to Peter Boghosian and he was saying, Leigh, they, they absolutely despise you for what you've said. And you know, and that's just the reality, unfortunately, because they won't see it as anything else. And it's really sad. I said it's really sad. So So yeah, I mean, personally, I find it difficult to go into campus these days, not least because of the the, the question of LGBT and all of that. That's another issue that I encountered. You know, my department, the second department, I mean, they decided to have an event for all faculty, which was an award giving event, you know, to recognize the contributions of faculty members. I never got those awards, of course, but it was open to all. And then I noted that, you know, they were having the photo ops for the award winners in front of a balloon, an arc balloons. That was in all of the Pride colors. Right? Because it was it was happening during June. It was happening during the Pride month. And I just felt really uncomfortable about that because it was taken as a given that the pride colors and I mean the progress color so and so I didn't have a problem with that. Making a rainbow flag which had a reason for its existence. It meant everybody, you know, to to bring together everybody. The colors didn't have an actual meaning in the sense of to do with race or something. And then they added these other colors. They all know about all the chevrons and all of that. And, and of course that drags you into this belief system because it embraces the trans ideology, it also brings race into it because it has a black and brown Chevron on there as. Well which doesn't really have a place because race has got nothing to do with sexuality. And so but they use all sorts of specious arguments like, but some of the leading figures of the Stonewall riots were were black or, you know, I mean, or were trans or I mean, so what's that? That doesn't matter. They were fighting for it for same sex rights. That's what the point was. I mean, yeah. So they wouldn't. Happen to be. They also happen to be. Yeah, exactly. It's just it's intersectional isn't coming to play. So. So as soon as I saw that I objected. Right. And I had a meeting with the higher ups to kind of explain why I felt uncomfortable because that flag essentially correlates with gender ideology and therefore it shames same sex people for for not including members of the opposite sex in the dating pool. In other words, you know, I'm supposed to accept a trans man in my dating pool if I go going. There was some sort of act. Yeah, yeah. Gay men have an app called Grindr that people know about, and it's a kind of a hook up app, I guess. You know, came into seeking sex. It's a very common trope amongst gay men. I don't think I'm shocking anyone with this, but the reality is that I won't actually allow you to exclude trans men, right? Because that would be bigoted. So therefore, to have a preference is when that. No, you're not really so so but of course the reaction to this, of course your your guess, it's quite extreme. But men will very quickly ask you for a picture of your genitalia. Right. Because they'll demand a picture of your genitalia because you can't fake that. But it's the idea. They want to know that you have the appropriate tackle, so to speak. So, I mean, it's typical of men is that they would do that because they're focused on on getting to the bedroom quickly. So but the point is simply, you know, you could end up chatting on an app like that and and hook up with someone not knowing, in fact, that they're essentially a biological woman and you object to that. That's transphobic. There is a kind of homophobia. Right. And we hear much more of that. Just, you know, speaking of chatting, yeah, we've been chatting for a long time, so we're going to have to wrap it up. But I will tell you that we hear much more of what you just described in the converse, where it's, you know, where women are saying, you know, I have men who I can't, you know, lesbians say I have men whom I can't exclude. Right. And in that case, yeah, there I see a much more they call it the the cotton ceiling right where we're right. So trans women are saying, why can't I, you know, be allowed, you know, even if I haven't changed anything at all, I identify as a woman, How dare you not let me, you know. Yeah, but what are they going on? They're going on there to meet people, aren't they? Right. Right, right. So presumably the intention of a sexual encounter eventually at some point. I mean, you know, lesbians are probably not as aggressive. Something that they're looking for in particular are not looking for, just like anybody else would be hesitating to say these words out loud, because I can see how they'd be perceived. Yeah, no, I just noticed it anyway. So I raised that with these folks and said, Well, why are you doing this? And they basically dismissed me completely and just said, Yeah. What keeps you going with all of this? Why, why don't you just sit there and be quiet and do your job and go on with life? What what keeps you going? Well, there's these things called principles that much of society seems to have abandoned or forgotten, which is that it's so easy to just, I think, forget your principles and just correct what what's the prevailing wisdom just so that you're you're not bothered. But I've got to a point in my life where I just don't care what they do to me. You know, I guess that's I have a certain sort of privilege in that regard. And so this is this is a battle which I think is worth fighting for. And I think I think we're seeing the turning of the tide, to be honest. I think obviously Donald Trump's going to bring some change to North America. I think Canada, if it votes the way that we think it probably will based on polling, we'll have a majority conservative government this time next year. And again, although I don't think poorly of is going to be quite as aggressive as Trump, but I think he will stamp out some of the idea. And so I think I think, you know, yeah, there's a sea change happening and I think common sense is coming around. But there are academics like me who also believe in that, you know, we're not all crazy, but I would say nine out of ten academics are deranged in this in this particular area. It doesn't mean they don't know their subjects, but but they they they've lost the plot and are now not prepared to lose the plot. So that's so it keeps me going. I enjoy the conversations. Today has been great. Thanks for the opportunity. I hope I wasn't too outrageous. I, I don't know if the opportunity to debate. we like provocative and thought provoking and I think that's what this is. Absolutely. Okay. Yes. Thank you so much, Leigh. Yeah. It's a. Pleasure. Yeah, it was great speaking with you. And yeah, I mean, I encourage you and, you know, it sounds like you've been contacting or speaking with communicating with, you know, some heavy hitters in the field of, you know, critical thinking and trying to bring, you know, civil discourse to society like Peter Bogosian, Jordan Peterson. You know, people may find them uncivil, but that's you know, that's in the eyes of the beholder. So I agree. And yeah, okay. So I think. I think the point is you have be a little bit prepared to upset people in order to table the ideas. Exactly. The nature of difficult conversation. You Exactly. So so we have one today, which is good. Let's also I think the three of us did not find it too difficult. I think some people will find the topics and the perspectives challenging. And if we can challenge people, that's good, right? It is good to challenge. And, you know, just to get open people's minds and help. We hope hope that we can move in the proper direction. So. Yeah, okay. Well, I'd like to see it just in closing, I would just say what I would like to see is a discussion between two people who've got very clearly different views, one more on my side and one coming from the other side where the person on the other side does not lose it and resort to homonym type attacks like we've seen in the media, on X and on CNN and so on, where, you know, I think was it one one panelist just completely losing it because another said about boys being, you know, you saw this one about. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, in girls sports, I think it was and it just completely lost its what we need is someone from the other side to engage properly in a thoughtful way without, you know, kind of losing their rag. I think that's what I'd like to see. Right, exactly. Well, on that hopeful note, until next time, everyone, keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel.