After publishing a review of Matt Walsh’s What is a Woman? this week, the expected avalanche of blowback from activists and even a few friends did arrive. Most went straight to the word “bigot,” while others decried “platforming a fascist.”

Let me explain my thoughts on this subject, since some seem to feel that laughing when a professor is caught calling “truth” transphobic is equivalent to supporting genocide.

Over the years I’ve probably interviewed twenty people in this field, usually over speech issues. These ranged from a trans activist who screamed at me before the first question (as part of a “censorship” story I ultimately decided not to do, because the complaining trans-skeptic wasn’t really being censored), to others like Dr. Kenneth Zucker, who for 35 years headed Canada’s Gender Identity Clinic. I’m obviously no expert in the field, but I do know about media, and the Zucker case was a clear example of press malpractice. It also showed how a dynamic one colleague tabbed the “either TERF or saint” formula has become a mandatory coverage template.