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The cancel-culture mould in this case was not broken by chance

Dr. Zucker, a pioneer and leading expert in the field of gender dysphoria, is a cancel-culture veteran, and remains a magnet for trans activists’ ire. In 2015, when he headed up the Gender Identity Clinic at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), a post he’d held for decades, he was targeted for condemnation by trans activists, who accused him of practicing “conversion therapy,” a false allegation that led to his summary dismissal. Dr. Zucker successfully refuted the charge in a later lawsuit against CAMH, resulting in a payout and retractions, but not in reinstatement. Dr. Zucker does in fact endorse supervised hormone therapy where warranted for adolescents on a case-by-case basis, but is a proponent of watchful waiting and for treating patients holistically.

DSTP Professor Samuel Veissière, organizer of this event, has been keeping me up to date on responses. To be honest, when I received his invitation to the talk and I saw Dr. Zucker’s name, I entered it into my calendar with a question mark. I assumed the odds were high that he would be de-platformed by an administration browbeaten by activists. I’m happy to be proven wrong.

Photo by Tara Paterson for National Post

That’s not to say there was no opposition. Queer McGill issued a warning on its Facebook page, repeating the canard about “conversion therapy” and advising friends that the talk would be given from “a non-trans perspective.” Prof. Veissière made a point of meeting with Queer McGill to hear their complaints and concern. Their position was basically “no conversation without us” at first, but he argued persuasively and respectfully that it is also reasonable for parents to assume their right and to honour their responsibility to be involved in decisions around radical physical changes in their children. This outreach in itself, letting people who object to the talk know that their perspectives are welcome in the conversation, I imagine went some distance in calming potentially roiled waters.