PEN America, an organization purportedly meant to advocate for free speech in America, has chosen a radical transgender activist as its new president. Transgender activist Jennifer Finney Boylan, a man who “transitioned” to a woman in the year 2000, told the New York Times that as an organization PEN America fights for free speech for both conservatives and left-wingers.
“As PEN president, it is my job to fight for free expression on the right and the left,” Boylan told the paper on Dec. 11. “I’m an author. I’m a writer. And at this perilous moment, I am really going to try to fight for everybody as best I can.”
Boylan was the vice president of PEN America’s board of trustees and has written 18 books pushing the transgender and gay agendas. Along with being a writer and novelist, Boylan was also a contributing opinion writer for the left-wing New York Times from 2007 to 2022. In addition, the transgender activist was a top official of the militant gay advocacy group GLAAD when chosen as the co-chair of GLAAD’s National Board of Directors in 2013.
Despite this long history of hardcore, left-wing activism, Boylan says that free speech for the right is also important.
“Look, people are going to see in me an L.G.B.T.Q. advocate, but that’s not my job as PEN president. My job is to fight for freedom of speech for everybody, including people I disagree with,” Boylan told the Times. “I’m going to be fighting for free expression for liberals and conservatives, because freedom of speech is under attack from the right and the left. From the right, there are book bans and educational gag orders. On the left, there can be efforts to prevent certain writers from telling the stories that they want to tell because they don’t have the right identity, and to suppress or reject books based on the topic or the author’s conduct without even giving the work a chance.”
Pictured: (l-r) Fred Armisen as Larry King, Will Forte as Jennifer Finney Boylan during “Larry King Live” skit on March 4, 2006 (Dana Edelson/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images)
Still, Boylan already has a tendentious relationship with any speech that could be construed by the left as “right wing,” even by mere association.
In 2020, Boylan joined many other high-profile people in signing onto a campaign advocating for free speech. Boylan was an initial signatory on “A Letter on Justice and Open Debate” published by Harper’s Magazine on 7 July 2020.
The “Letter on Justice” said in part that “[t]he free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted” and added that “censoriousness […] will ultimately harm the most vital causes of our time.”
But Boylan quickly denounced the letter’s plea for free speech merely because author J.K. Rowling was also a singer of the letter.
Boylan issued a groveling apology to the extremist transgender lobby to explain the sudden turn against the free speech campaign, writing “I did not know who else had signed that letter […] I did know Chomsky, Steinem, and Atwood were in, and I thought, good company.” Boylan added, “The consequences are mine to bear. I am so sorry.”
Perhaps tellingly, Boylan also turned off commenting on the tweet so people who disagree could not be heard.
I did not know who else had signed that letter. I thought I was endorsing a well meaning, if vague, message against internet shaming. I did know Chomsky, Steinem, and Atwood were in, and I thought, good company.
— Jenny Boylan 🍯 (@JennyBoylan) July 7, 2020
The consequences are mine to bear. I am so sorry.
That an advocate for free speech would turn against a letter advocating for free speech just because one of the singers was someone the left does not like makes the PEN America appointment a worrisome sign.
Boylan also repeatedly talked of opposing “book bans” in America in the New York Times article.
“This is not the first time that books have been banned in this country, and this is not the first time that there has been pushback against the social changes that writers can bring about,” Boylan told the paper. “So, in some ways it feels like new work, but it’s a very old story. For as long as there have been authors and stories, there have been people trying to shut us down. But in the long run, literature always wins. Imagination always wins.”
In truth, the “bans” Boylan is talking about are chimerical. There are no actual book bans in the U.S. today. Removing sexually explicit and inappropriate books from libraries that cater to small children is not the same as a “book ban.” Every book the left claims is being “banned” is still fully available for purchase at any book seller by anyone who wants to buy one. And most are still in libraries that cater to adults.
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