by Dr. Anne Mulhern
An event that was scheduled to be held this Wednesday at the Tewksbury Public Library has been abruptly cancelled.
The event, “Males And Females Are Different And That Matters In Sports” (synopsis included below) was a virtual event to be held via Zoom and would be led by Dr. Greg Brown, a professor of Exercise Science at University of Nebraska at Kearney. The topic was sports physiology, specifically the differences between males and females (human) and how those difference relate to sports.
The library press release, included below, cites bullying of staff as the primary reason for the cancellation. The event has been scrubbed from the library’s virtual calendar (https://www.tewksburypl.org/home/pages/calendar) and I never saw it advertised on the library’s social media (https://www.facebook.com/TewksburyLib).
In contrast, last March, the library hosted a different event on the same topic, “The Real Score: Unraveling Myths About Trans People in Sports”, which was allowed to proceed without incident.
Last week the libraries of Massachusetts celebrated “Banned Books Week” an event sponsored by the American Library Association. They showered praise on themselves for their courage in having so-called “banned” books on their shelves.
This recent cancellation hints at a very different story.
How many items are libraries failing to buy to avoid antagonizing the same kinds of people who would threaten library staff about a Zoom call? How many items are they buying but then not displaying openly to avoid catching the attention of someone primed to be outraged, spiteful, and abusive? One suspects rather many, actually.
Don’t think that librarians should not fear for their jobs in the prevailing political climate.
Last March, a Canadian library director in the small town of Niagara-on-the-Lake was fired for espousing library neutrality in an event that made the national news in Canada (https://hxlibraries.substack.com/p/timeline-the-board-firing-of-niagara). The American Library Association has not deigned to take notice of this event, much less to publicize it, because, not to put to fine a point on it, the political views of the mob that managed to get the librarian fired coincide with their own.
Library Press Release:
“The staff of the Tewksbury Public Library have received feedback about the program we have scheduled for Wednesday, October 2, titled “Males and Females are Different, and that Matters in Sports”. We appreciate all feedback on our services, especially from residents who asked us to reconsider holding this program. This program was created to provide an alternative perspective to the one shared in a March program on this hot-button issue in our society. In considering this program and resulting comments, we discovered a lack of statistically significant research to support either viewpoint favoring or disfavoring transgender participation in sports. We determined that we cannot facilitate a factual, good-faith presentation on this topic as we had hoped. In addition, the levels of intolerance for a discussion around this issue has brought bullying to our staff. This has created a level of unhealthy pressure on our library staff that they do not deserve. We are cancelling this program in order to prevent any further stress on our staff.”
Synopsis of the Cancelled Event:
There is ongoing debate about who should be allowed to compete in female (girls’ & women’s) sports. This presentation will summarize the differences in sports performance between males and females, and the biological factors driving these differences. Current research findings on the effects of testosterone suppression and puberty blockers on sports performance will also be reviewed. Led by Dr. Greg Brown, a professor of Exercise Science at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. He teaches courses in Exercise Physiology, Professional Development in Exercise Science, and Exercise Prescription for Special Populations. Brown has previously taught Anatomy & Physiology, Sports Nutrition, Research Methods, Sports Nutrition, and more. His research focuses on the effects of nutritional supplements, physiological responses to exercise, and sex-based differences in sports performance. Brown has over 50 peer-reviewed publications and serves as a peer reviewer for numerous academic journals. He is an active member of several professional organizations, including the National Strength and Conditioning Association and the American College of Sports Medicine, in which he is a fellow.
12 responses to “Local Library Cancels Event; Cites Staff Bullying”
Un American!
Sad that the library staff has experienced such hate from radical leftists. They should have called the police instead of compromising values of free speech and viewpoint diversity. Besides firing their researcher and hiring someone with the appropriate skills.
I don’t know for sure whether they involved the police or not. I am hoping to find out more of what transpired.
The tolerance from the left is outstanding!
Thankfully they ended up reinstating the talk. It is also available to view on utube https://youtu.be/v8LZaOICIMY?si=qQafmXh78fhOIfnb
It is comprehensive and well presented.
This is an issue of importance that should be discussed not silenced. Many women have serious and legitimate concerns about the trajectory of trans ideology and its harmful impact on women and children. It needs to be discussed openly.
Thanks Betty. Great that WoLF stepped up like that and also excellent that the library reconsidered and chose to go forward with the talk. It seems, as far as I can tell, that the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioner’s has taken no notice (https://mblc.state.ma.us/news/news-releases/index.php) and nor has the American Library Association. Their commitment to freedom is looking awfully one-sided right now.
Thank You. So glad to hear that the talk was reinstated at the last minute. They saved themselves a lot of trouble & money by doing so since it would have been an obvious 1st Amendment violation for a government entity to censor a event based on political content.
I think there’s much nuance to this than boiling it down to “Why is x OK & y isn’t?”
For starters I’d say that the reason the trans athlete myths segment went without incident compared to this one is that one is seeking to debunk harmful misinformation, in a library of all places, & the other is persuasive. I think it’s also worth noting that the library also noted they discovered a lack of statistical evidence being presented. This isn’t an opinionated piece by an author, it’s a doctor presenting a topic, shouldn’t a lack of statistics matter on this? I have to ask as well, have you looked into the presentation, that actually ended up being reinstated? Though you didn’t report on the decision being repealed, funny that.
As for the Canadian librarian being fired, actually reading the articles listed would be helpful. They mention Irreversible Damage being an example of a book not allowed on library shelves, it being a banned book that isn’t being fought for. Irreversible Damage covers the same rhetoric of there being a trans ideology push onto young women, similarly to the WoLF presentation on the trans ideology being harmful to women. I have to wonder why it isn’t obvious to some that this sort of talk wouldn’t be allowed. If we keep pushing this rhetoric (that apparently doesn’t have the statistics to back it up) how are we going to see it affect our transgender neighbors & our children? What would seeing, for example, Irreversible Damage on the shelves do to a young transgender man who already might be facing harassment? Coinciding with this, what would this do to the women in our community if we continually push this idea of what a woman is & what she should look like? Publishing this in the wake of Imane Khelif, a cisgendered woman facing harassment from anti-trans folk, seems irresponsible to me.
The presentation was reinstated & the Canadian librarian story seems to speak for itself. I haven’t heard of an issue with the sex of our athletes here in the Lowell area, have you? If so, I’d much rather see a report on that than an article that seems to stand so loudly for not much of anything. Their previous presentation of debunking myths gave a voice & a safe place for those who need it, this presentation is an opinionated piece on a doctor who studies exercise physiology, nothing to do with sex or biology or how that may affect the brain or the behavior of people. I simply see this as cut-and-dry. I think the issue with one is clear as day & doesn’t correlate with there being no issue with the other.
For the record, the author of the article followed up on the story the very next day: https://insidelowell.com/un-cancelled-a-victory-for-free-speech/
We’ve also reported on issues regarding gender in the Lowell area, as you suggested: https://insidelowell.com/safety-concerns-spark-gender-controversy-following-game-involving-lowell-school/
I do have to ask, however; who is more qualified to analyze the “statistics”…Someone with a P.h.D. in Health & Human Performance (with an MS in Exercise & Sports Science) or a library director?
My own belief is that what exposed the Canadian librarian most to this coordinated mobbing was that she was executing library neutrality on her own initiative. In the current political climate, that’s dangerous. That is the reason for my proposal to make every week “Freedom to Read Weak”. If a patron requests that an item be purchased, then the librarian can purchase it without being exposed to the same knee-jerk accusations of bigotry.
https://insidelowell.com/make-every-week-freedom-to-read-week/ .
Of course, the other problem, in her case, was a pusillanimous library board; hopefully Tewksbury’s library board is a bit better.
We’re not exactly talking about rocket science here. Regardless of his qualifications, they aren’t really relevant if he’s not in the field he’s talking about. Most of his peers that talk about things such as sex & gender have specific studies in either the body as it pertains to gender or psychology/behavior & those are the qualifications that they’re using when they publish studies, not qualifications they use to put together a powerpoint using sources such as “Reality’s Last Stand,” a website where they talk about “wokeness” and harboring the truth, surely an unbiased source. If you look at the presentation itself you’d find that, for example, a source he uses referencing intersex people changes the accepted 1.7% of the population figure to 0.02% & in the article listed as a source, they re-define the standards of what intersex means & instead say that their new definition only has a resulting percentage of 0.02% of the population. You wouldn’t get that by looking at the powerpoint, though, that this figure was because of a different definition used, you’re simply shown statistics that are low-balled to further prove a point. Further on, an article is linked from Washington Post where they mention athletes in the Olympics that may possibly be intersex & have XY DSD. So, somehow, the definition of intersex needs to be changed, yet he then uses a source that highlights people that would be considered intersex. So there’s -1.5% less intersex people in the world, and somehow they all happen to be at the Olympics? It’s really one or the other & this is just after looking at two specific sources used in the presentation. I mention this all to say that what we’re looking at is really cut-and-dry to me, you don’t need a degree in the field of study to be able to notice flawed reasoning, and yes, I would trust someone entrusted to run events held at our local public libraries when they tell me something does not look sound. Imagine how the director must have felt citing “lack of statistics” to someone with that qualification, no one would do that if they felt like they didn’t have enough reason to.
Alessia Jones, you don’t seem to have a point to make. To address your very last remark, library directors are generally very poor statisticians, like most of the rest of the population. With one published statistical paper, (https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~liblit/ecml-2007/), I am most likely the expert on statistics here.