College blocks student from speaking about detransitioning
Boston’s Berklee College of Music blocked a student from speaking about his detransitioning experience after falling victim to gender ideology, the Daily Mail reported Sunday.
Twenty-year-old Simon Amaya Price says he began thinking about changing his gender identity at 14. He was facing social challenges at the time, exacerbated by adolescence, autism, and sexual abuse. After being influenced by gender activists online, he attended a summer camp where his peers had “pronoun rituals” and found that his social difficulties eased when he pretended not to be male.
“I found that people treated me way better if I said my pronouns were anything but he/him,” he said. “I was like: ‘OK, this makes me feel better. People treat me better. This has got to be the right thing for me.’”
He changed his name to “Ash” and was diagnosed with gender dysphoria by doctors at Boston Children’s Hospital, who tried to start him right away on puberty blockers. His father Gareth stepped in and prevented the administration of the drugs, which have been found to cause irreversible sterility and castration.
For three years, Price flitted between identifying as a man, a woman, and non-binary. At 17, he began to see the “logical fallacies” in gender ideology and eventually outgrew his dysphoria.
Barred from sharing his life story
As part of a “social change” course at Berklee, Price and his fellow students were asked to give presentations. Some delivered talks on motherhood, others on homelessness, and others on eating disorders. Price planned to deliver a presentation based on his experience titled: “Born in the Right Body: Desister and Detransitioner Awareness.”
Immediately, he received over 400 negative comments, including violent threats and accusations of being a Nazi and a "transphobe." Students circulated a petition against Price’s talk that gathered roughly 2,000 signatures. Berklee Vice President Ron Savage canceled the presentation, citing “security concerns.”
“Any discussion of transgender issues is likely to provoke controversy and offend some listeners,” the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) said in a statement. “But policing offensive speech effectively tells Amaya Price that he is not allowed to share his own life story — and that others are not permitted to hear and respond to it — simply because some may find it offensive.”
