NEWS Statement:
We’re pleased that TPL has now rescheduled Dr. Brown’s webinar. However, we can’t help but note that public libraries across Massachusetts joined in promoting a previous libary Zoom talk on the topic of transgender athletes in women’s sports, without being subjected to controversy or abuse for it, because that one was given by a trans activist who claimed such athletes have no unfair advantages.
They have not done the same for TPL’s presentation by a highly qualified professor of exercise science using actual evidence to show that trans athletes do, in fact, have unfair advantages in women’s sports.
It is unfortunately typical of the debate over women’s sports that only the voices of one side are permitted and publicized, and it’s never the side that supports female athletes.
Background: Tewksbury Public Library in Massachusetts had originally scheduled a Zoom webinar presentation by exercise science professor Dr. Gregory Brown titled Men and Women are Different and That Matters in Sports for Wednesday, October 2 at 7 pm. This webinar was intended to give an alternative viewpoint to one that was sponsored by a cohort of many Massachusetts public libraries in March and presented by transgender activist Erin Reed, titled The Real Deal: Unraveling Myths About Trans People in Sports. Reed’s presentation claimed that trans athletes have no unfair advantages in sports, which is contradicted by many studies and papers published in peer-reviewed science and medical journals over the past five years.
Two days before Dr. Brown’s scheduled presentation, on Monday, September 30, Tewksbury Public Library sent an email to all participants announcing that they had cancelled his webinar because their library staff had been subjected to ‘intolerance’ and ‘bullying’ by some members of the community for sponsoring it. TPL Director Dianne Giarrusso also put out a press release stating that they had “discovered a lack of statistically significant evidence supporting either viewpoint.”
After protests from the public via social media, email and those in attendance at a Monday night library roundtable, TPL reversed course on Tuesday and rescheduled Dr. Brown’s webinar for Thursday, Oct. 3 at 7 pm.