U o T students say professor should apologise for transphobic comments

Peterson was seen in a YouTube video, criticising the Bill C-16, aimed to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and Criminal Code to include protection for gender identity or expression.

He also disregarded the non-binary students’ request for gender neutral pronouns, saying “I don’t know what the options are if you’re not a man or a woman.”

The LGBTQ co-ordinator with the University of Toronto Mississauga Student’s Union, Denio Lourenco believes Peterson’s comments are “disturbing” and suspects the professor is trying to “hide behind the shield of academic freedom.”

The student’s union along with other active campus groups, condemned Peterson’s remarks and penned an open letter asking him to seek apology.

Lourenco said, “Although this is very much about him, it’s also about demanding accountability from the university.”

The student union teams also called for a complete retraction of Peterson’s comments and the removal of his lectures from YouTube too.

Lourenco points out that the University of Toronto already has a policy to support an environment free of discrimination and harassment.

“They actually made a commitment, we just need them to follow through with it at this point,” he said.

However, Elizabeth Church, spokesperson of the University of said the university has acknowledged the letter and is “considering it.”

Contrarily Peterson at a campus rally said, he has no plans to either apologize or retract his statements.

“The whole letter is just basic ideological boilerplate, it’s exactly what you’d expect,” he said.

(Reporting by Debarati Mukherjee)