Wesley Williams, a non-binary activist and former University of Toronto student, speaks to a small crowd Wednesday at the university to protest the YouTube video posting by Toronto professor and practicing psychologist Jordan Peterson,. ( Vince Talotta / Toronto Star ) | Order this photo

Community members gathered outside the University of Toronto’s Sidney Smith Hall Wednesday to protest a professor’s online lecture they say was offensive towards to the trans and non-binary people, but the professor at the centre of the controversy says the demonstrators are missing the point. In a Sept. 27 YouTube video entitled, “Professor against political correctness: Part I,” University of Toronto psychology Jordan Peterson rails against Bill C-16, among other things, which aims to amend the Canadian Human Right Act and Criminal Code to include protection for gender identity or expression. Peterson drew the ire of some for criticizing the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s definition of “gender identity,” which is described as a person’s “sense of being a woman, a man, both, neither, or anywhere along the gender spectrum.” “I don’t know what ‘neither’ means,” Peterson says in the video, “because I don’t know what the options are if you’re not a man or a woman. It’s not obvious to me how you can be both because those are, by definition, binary categories. “There’s an idea that there’s a gender spectrum but I don’t think that’s a valid idea, I don’t think there’s any evidence for it,” he continues, adding that the idea that gender is independent from biological sex is “a politically motivated and ill-informed opinion.”

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Later in the video, he talks about a hypothetical situation where he would reject a non-binary student’s request to use “gender-neutral” pronouns, saying, “I don’t recognize another person’s right to determine what pronouns I use to address them. I won’t do it.” Riven Thorne, an attendee at Wednesday’s rally, told the Star that it was “shocking that someone (who) literally does not believe in your gender and in your pronouns is teaching and is able to educate other people when they need, themselves, to be educated.” Thorne isn’t a U of T student but said felt compelled to attend the community-organized event anyway, the Star was told. Another attendee, Arden Chow, agreed.