If you're denying that sex is binary and immutable, if you're looking at a woman and calling

her a man, if you're claiming there are 27 different types of gender, if you're arguing

that biological men have no natural advantage of a biological woman in sports like swimming

and running and weightlifting, you're articulating such absurd, clearly intellectually indefensible

points of view that it's a great way of appetizing your field. It's like, I'm so committed

to the cause of social justice, I'm prepared to completely humiliate myself intellectually.

Hello and welcome to the Brendan O'Neill show with me, Brendan O'Neill. This is a podcast

in which an esteemed guest joins me to talk about the big ideas, the bad ideas, the problems

and the controversies of life in the early 21st century. In this episode, I am delighted

to be joined by Toby Young. Toby is a writer, educationalist and a warrior for freedom of speech.

In February 2020, he founded the Free Speech Union, which counters cancel culture and defends

people who are discriminated against or punished for expressing their beliefs. Toby has been

involved in journalism for a very long time. He was a co-founder of the Modern Review in

the 1990s and he subsequently worked for Vanity Fair, The Sun and The Spectator. He is currently

the London editor of Quillette magazine. During the first lockdown, he set up the website

Lockdown Skeptics, which has since become the daily skeptic. He is also deeply involved

in education. He founded the West London Free School and he served as director of the

New Schools Network. Toby, we are coming up to nearly two years since you launched

the Free Speech Union. I want to kick off with a question where we just look back on what

the Free Speech Union has achieved and how much of an impact you think it has had. At

the time that you launched it, I wrote a piece for Spike saying this is an absolutely

crucial project. This is what the country needs. Free Speech is in a terrible state and

...