Many people feel that the words they say are as much a part of their identity as their sexuality. We should go a long way to give people freedom of expression in both areas.
Jordan Peterson got in trouble with Twitter for a tweet saying:
Remember when pride was a sin? And Ellen Page just had her breasts removed by a criminal physician.
Jordan’s Twitter account is frozen unless he deletes the Tweet using a button that says “By clicking delete, you acknowledge that your Tweet violated the Twitter rules.” In a YouTube response, he said he “would rather die” than delete the tweet by his own action and doubled down with a critique of what is typically called “gender-affirming surgery,” performed on teenagers. His complaint with Elliot Page (formerly Ellen Page) is primarily that, as a role model (being a famous actor), Elliot might inspire more teenagers (mostly young women who would like to transition to being men) to deal with gender dysphoria by getting radical, dangerous, irreversible surgery. In his YouTube response to the Twitter ban, Jordan grudgingly allows that perhaps Elliot should have the right to undergo surgery to feel more like a man, but criticizes Elliot for encouraging others to do so.
My own experience with anyone who is transgender is limited to very positive experiences with Deirdre McCloskey. I don’t myself know what the right policies are in this area, though I tend to have Libertarian instincts, without being a full-fledged Libertarian. What I want to argue for, though, is that it is not only permissible, but essential, that our society have a vigorous debate about the appropriate age of consent for gender-affirming surgery. Parental input is another complicated issue, but I doubt anyone would say that a 6-year-old asking for gender-affirming surgery should be absolutely determinative, and let me write as if we agree that at age 30, anyone should be allowed to make that decision. Where should the line be drawn between 6 and 30? We default to age 18 on many things when faced with arbitrary determination of an age of consent. In this case, 18 is enough after puberty that it may cause technological problems to wait that long. But surely that makes figuring out good rules a societal decision that should be considered difficult rather than thinking it means we should short-circuit discussion by insisting peremptorily that technological concerns should trump concerns about the ability of teenagers to make wise irreversible decisions.
Let me make two analogies that suggest we should allow discussion about the age of consent for gender-confirming surgery—two analogies to suggest a range of views about this issue.
First, many feel plastic surgery for people who begin with a low normal appearance can be very helpful for their self-esteem and can really change their life for the better. Others fear that too many people are driven to get plastic surgery because of social pressure—or at least that this is true in some places, such as South Korea. Surely, people should be allowed to take either side in this debate!
Second, many (including me) feel that taking Psilocybin (the key ingredient in psychoactive mushrooms) can be very helpful to people in orienting their lives and may save the lives of a substantial fraction of those subject to suicidal ideation. Proponents of this view would like to see more states legalize the careful administration of Psilocybin, as Oregon has done. Others, for reasons I don’t fully understand, feel that clinical use of Psilocybin should not be allowed. Surely, however wrongheaded they are, we should not deplatform someone for arguing that Psilocybin should remain illegal.
If people should not be shouted down for expressing the view that the age of consent for gender-affirming surgery should be higher than it is, then the justification for requiring Jordan Peterson to delete his tweet in order to get his Twitter account unlocked becomes very thin.
