I appreciate your thoughtful response even if I don’t entirely agree with it. Discriminatory and harassing speech are already illegal — in both the US and Canada. This bill was simply a move to add refusing to use non-binary pronouns to the list of what is considered discriminatory and harassing. You don’t need to evaluate the validity of someone else’s experience in order to buy into treating someone else with respect. You can say, “If that affirms who you are as an individual (something Peterson claims to care about) then I’m willing to honor that, for your sake. But he has made it clear that he doesn’t see this as anything other than some Marxist (???????) political assertion, rather than the highly individual expression of personhood that it nearly almost always is.

I remember preparing a letter of congratulations for several dozen people who worked for the organization that I did in the late 90s. I had to go ask all of the women if they preferred to be addressed as Miss or Mrs. Invariably, the vast majority wanted to be addressed as Ms. I had to tell them this was not an option (because the man who wanted to honor them didn’t like that term). So instead, they had to select a way to be honored that felt offensive to them. Not cool!

Choosing self-identification is extremely important to self-worth. Refusing to honor that is a choice (even if subconscious) to devalue that — to say that I get to choose what to call you, not you. Peterson, the individualist, should be rabidly against this.