As I walked in the doors of the Social Science Centre at my one-time alma mater, the University of Western Ontario, I was struck by this sign. No, not the No Smoking one, which has been de rigeur for decades, even before I was there, nor the hand sanitizer, ubiquitous now for two years. No, the one in school colour, purple, warning the unsuspecting student wandering into a toilet proper to their sex that there may be a person of another sex present, claiming to be the first sex – or is that Simone’s second sex? There is apparently no sex anymore, unless you declare a sex, by default or design – and, hence, use whatever you deem ‘appropriate’, as whim or occasion dictate.
Ideas have consequences (I think that may become my motto, like Cato’s Carthagena delenda est, for forgive me, dear reader, if it gets oft-repeated). What this means in the present case is that a ingenue of the fairer sex entering a bathroom with the image of a woman on the door may be treated to the sight of a disrobed, hirsute member of the less-fair sex, with all that implies. And anything that is seen can never be unseen. I would presume Western’s caveat, and permission, applies to change rooms, even showers.
In my brief perambulation through campus on that brief return visit, I saw such a young woman, on a tour, with her mother. Should I have cried out a Jeremiad, warning them to flee for the hills, study anywhere, go anywhere, except a modern university, where the mind, and the soul, are almost certain to be malformed? And if they are not, it is in spite of that to which they are, ahem, exposed. I thought that perhaps one could go for practical reasons – say, to study engineering, math or medicine – but even such fields are becoming more untenable for those of sound conscience and good will, as the tendrils of wokeism wend their way, strangling free and honest debate, along with any discussion of the greatest that has been written and said, much of which is now verboten. Western’s motto is Veritas et Utilitas – Truth and Utility, but the institution has become ever less a source of truth, and ever less useful. Alma maters – nourishing mothers – universities are no longer.
I said nothing to the daughter and mother, remaining incognito, but prayed quietly, that God guide such young souls. If they are led astray, may they be brought back to the straight and narrow way.
I formally cut whatever tenuous ties I had with Western when they gave Henry Morgentaler, Canada’s foremost apostle of abortion, an honorary doctorate. (As an aside, in the photo above, the image to the bottom right, which is just a glob of leftover glue, looks oddly like an unborn child playfully leaping in the womb).
All things considered, it may well be a good idea to cut your ties while you’re still ahead, or never bind yourself in the first place, for the mind, and four years of your life, are terrible things to waste.