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As University of Toronto psychology professor Dr. Jordan Peterson says, “Every day something happens that’s true but which makes the absurdity from the day before seem benign.”

He was either referring to the news out of Alberta this week, the friendly little “gender unicorn” of that province’s teachers’ association, or “otherkin,” about a recent essay by University of Cambridge professor Pedro Feijo which explores those who identify, ah, more broadly than human (as elves, for instance, or “human pups”), or maybe it was the happy announcement from Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould that all new federal judges will be asked about their gender identity and the committees which screen them will be trained to be on the lookout for and ferret out “unconscious bias.”

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Peterson, of course, is the man who dared question the new push for genderless pronouns — he says he won’t use “zie,” “zher,” “they” or any of the two dozen made-up words now in fashion — in a series of YouTube videos and found himself on the front lines of a battle for campus freedom of speech.

While he’s been inundated with messages of support from outside U of T, on campus he’s been protested against and criticized (and vandalized, with the lock on his office door glued shut last Saturday) and the university brass has hardly rushed to his side.