Hypothetical Example — author of a new book exploring the rapid, massive increase in straight people self-identifying as gay and leaving heterosexual relationships — published an article in Breitbart describing the extraordinary efforts by major corporations and various activists to prevent her book being published.

The issue here is that certain tomes present a particular issue from such a viewpoint that they lend themselves as ammunition to the people who hate what the book is about. So for example it is harmful to spread a one-eyed story about teenagers “self-identifying” as trans and undergoing surgery without pointing out that the surgery is the culmination of years of therapy and introspection, or suggesting that coming out as trans is not related to changes in societal acceptance of trans people (they feel safer to come out because they see other people doing it and not being stoned to death).

So the book is basically right wing propaganda, rationalising their opinions about trans people and giving them the justification for publicly labelling trans people as trans, as opposed to just letting them be who they are.

It doesn’t matter what the author’s intent was (though interviewing with Quillette suggests they have a dim view of trans people, despite being one herself — perhaps the other trans people aren’t real trans people in her mind because who would want to be a man? I have no idea). Because of the tone and the avoidance of relevant background material, the book harms the trans community.

There are times when hearing both sides of an argument is productive, but when one side of an argument wants to deprive the other of human rights (eg through demonisation) then there’s no constructive argument to be had.

There has to be a line where we say, “any discussion that crosses that line is not tolerated.” Any moderator of an Internet forum knows this: if you let discussions past a certain point they quickly get out of control and instead of just cautioning one person you’re stuck spending your evening banning accounts, deleting posts, posting apologies for letting things get out of hand, and most importantly losing a heap of your regulars who no longer feel this this forum is where they want to be.

So to a lot of people, quisling propaganda like, “I am trans and I have this horrible story about fake trans people going through surgery when they really shouldn’t” is the same as those over-the-line not-quite-trolling conversations which 11 out of 10 times end up in flame wars and mass moderation.

Which comes down to the tolerance paradox: in order to be tolerant, there are some things you can’t tolerate. If there is no line, then you are permissive rather than tolerant. If we accept that publicly demanding that someone or some group of people be murdered is a criminal act, then at some point we have to accept that speech that doesn’t directly call for the same is still as bad and shouldn’t be allowed.

Sure, argue all you want for free speech purism, but you need to accept that some people will view murder as a necessary response to speech that they have heard. You may feel comfortable that you will never be murdered as a result of a call to action, but I am not.

To me, a book that purports to expose some confected controversy about trans people (especially if presented as “from the trenches” reporting) is just as bad as a book that literally calls for the murder of trans people.