The following is a letter I sent to the Vice President of Student Affairs at San Francisco University, Jamillah Moore, following the assault on Riley Gaines after her speech there. In comments emailed to the student body, Ms. Moore did not address the assault in any way and clearly sided with the students.
For those who note I do not use Moore’s title of Doctor, I reserve that title for those who have earned it by demonstrating the intelligence, wisdom and respect for science that doctors are normally noted for. Moore fails on all of these counts.
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Dear Ms. Moore - This letter to you will not be pleasant reading as it will go against most, if not all, of what you believe in. This is your trigger warning. If you think you cannot handle a heavy dose of honesty, I suggest you stop reading now.
I read your email to the SFU community following the incident involving Riley Gaines. I beg to differ.
Ms. Gaines is a talented, accomplished, intelligent and very brave young woman. She has demonstrated those attributes in the pool and in her life, and recently, on your campus when she faced a hostile crowd of your students.
A crowd so hostile in fact that they mobbed her, forced her to seek police protection and hide from the mob, and even with all that, a man in a dress still assaulted her.
Yes, I said a “man in a dress”, because if we take his DNA, science will tell us that’s what he is, no matter what he professes to be. To be more accurate, if he actually believes himself to be a woman, then what we have is a mentally disturbed man in a dress.
You’re an educated woman, so I must presume that you believe in science, right? If so, why would you call this person a female, when science clearly says he is not?
Ready to quit yet? This isn’t going to get easier for you to read, not in the least.
In your email to the SFU community, you make no mention of the violent attacks on Ms. Gaines. In fact, your horror seems to be that someone might express an opinion that, God help us - let’s quote you on this:
But we may also find ourselves exposed to divergent views and even views we find personally abhorrent. These encounters have sometimes led to discord, anger, confrontation and fear.
But did you condemn your students who demonstrated their anger, confronted Ms. Gaines in a violent manner and created in her a fear of death?
No, you did not, did you? Your clear dislike of someone’s views that disagree with yours wouldn’t allow that, would it? Can’t have that, can we?
No, you can’t possibly recognize that while American tradition exalts disagreement, it assumes peaceful and respectful disagreement - not the violent and hateful disagreement of the mob. Your side knows nothing of peaceful protest, because to protest in that manner presumes respect for the other point of view, and you and your ilk do not respect views with which you do not agree.
It has been my experience that those who disagree violently do so because they have no actual facts on their side. They can’t debate the issue respectfully using facts and intelligence, so they use violence. Not to debate, but to shut the other side up, to cause fear that, it is hoped, will keep the other side from speaking.
The problem you and yours face is that we are not afraid of you. We may be forced to cower in the moment, as Ms. Gaines was forced to cower behind a locked door with police officers protecting her - but we are not running from you in the public square, no matter how hard you try to shut it down.
We will not stop until this insanity you promote is in history’s dustbin, with appropriate reflections in the record on those who supported this idiocy.
I have a question for you. Who should Nike have hired to promote women's sports clothing?
Dylan Mulvaney? Or a woman?
My view is that some deserving woman just lost a job to a con artist, or a mentally ill man. This is what misogyny actually looks like. Stealing jobs, awards, scholarships, all of this... that is love?
Seriously? It isn’t - it’s hate. And it’s what you support, isn’t it?
You celebrate the Dylan Mulvaneys while deserving women like Ms. Gaines lose opportunity, awards, scholarships, jobs and recognition for their talents, and you call it good.
Frankly, you’re a fool, despite all your degrees. Or maybe because of, but I digress here.
Tired of this yet? I’m just getting to the good part.
Women worked for decades to achieve, to be recognized for their abilities and talents. Title 9 for example was heralded as a major achievement for women's sports, allowing girls and women to compete at high levels, bringing millions more girls and young women into sports. You can read about this at https://www.history.com/news/title-nine-womens-sports but the bottom line is, Title 9 was a huge success for women’s rights, and not just in gyms and sports fields.
What is happening now is misogyny. Denying women the rights they are entitled to, that those millions of women over the decades fought for.
Women such as yourself have had all of the successes of this fight handed to you. You and other women like you have done nothing - absolutely nothing - to advance women’s rights. In fact, you - you personally - are working to destroy them, whether you believe that or not.
As a young man just out of university, I fought for women's rights in the 70s and 80s by hiring women when I had bosses in the major corporations I worked for telling me not to. I took that heat because I believed in those women and, I’m happy to say, I was proven right in every instance.
I will not let my small efforts, and those of other men more prominent than I, and the work of millions of women, be lost by condoning the idiocy and misogyny of transgenderism pushed by people like you.
The only reason you occupy the position you do is because millions of women - and their sisters and mothers and grandmothers, along with many men, worked to give you the opportunity to sit there and write your asinine memos that ignore the truth and the facts of the situation.
Frankly, and I say this as bluntly as I can say it - as a woman regarded as a leader among women, if you support transgenderism, you should be ashamed of yourself. You are hurting women.
Stop it. Because as sure as you’re reading this, we will stop you. Not with violence, but by demonstrating to the world that the foolish and science-ignoring beliefs of you and others like you are not worthy of the least consideration.
And since sports is one of the clear fields of endeavour in which the rights of girls and women are being abused by you and those like you, let me close with a quote from Dr. Emma Hilton:
"Female sports exist to celebrate the achievements of extraordinary females, not those of ordinary males."
One last thing - you owe Ms. Gaines an apology from SFU for the behaviour of the hooligans amongst your student body. Show some integrity, and do it.
Sincerely,
W. J. Moran
I don't think for one minute that Riley was 'cowering' in that room. BTW, excellent letter.
If I could heart this more than one time I would do so! Well said, and thank you