By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2024-12-29 18:56:26 | Updated at 2025-01-01 17:35:27
2 days ago
A top US music school is under fire for breaking its own rules on free speech by stopping one of its students from discussing his troubled history with changing sex.
Simon Amaya Price, 20, says Berklee College of Music in Boston canceled his talk about the three years he struggled to live as a female, after the event sparked a campus backlash.
Campaigners say it is the latest example of 'woke' professors abandoning free speech when it goes against the narrow left-wing consensus that pervades academia.
'I wanted to talk about desisting from transgender identity, but that was too much for Berklee,' Amaya Price told DailyMail.com.
'Once the political response became apparent, Berklee administrators indefinitely postponed my event.'
Berklee, a venerated 79-year-old college in Massachusetts that claims to support 'creative expression,' did not answer DailyMail.com's request for comment.
Amaya Price, an indie pop singer-songwriter at the school, was set to make a presentation at a campus venue on October 20 as part of a course on 'social change'.
His classmates spoke about homelessness, eating disorders and motherhood in their talks.
Singer-songwriter Simon Amaya Price, 20, once again identifies as a man, and wants to warn others about his negative experiences
Boston's prestigious Berklee College of Music is under fire for sidelining its own rules on free speech by cancelling the talk
He wanted to discuss his teenage years spent living as a woman and how he came to 'desist.'
He started to question his identity and transition when he was 14 - a tough time in his life when he was mocked by peers and faced 'complete social ostracization'.
Amaya Price says he transitioned because he was mixed up by his autism, puberty, sexual abuse and troubles with friends.
He was spurred on by online trans activists and peers at a summer camp where teens introduced themselves in 'pronoun rituals'.
'I found that people treated me way better if I said my pronouns were anything but he/him,' Amaya Price said.
'I was like: "OK, this makes me feel better. People treat me better. This has got to be the right thing for me".'
He started going by 'Ash.' Clinicians at Boston Children's Hospital affirmed him without delay and proposed cross-sex hormones, he says.
But his dad, Gareth, 'put his foot down' and would not let him take sex change drugs until he was 18, he adds.
He never did much more than mix up his wardrobe a little.
His appearance — as a man, woman, and non-binary — was always androgynous.
Amaya Price describes a 'turning point' when he was about 17 and started to see 'logical fallacies' in gender identity politics.
Amaya Price's event at Berklee was cancelled, but he managed to raise his concerns about gender ideology weeks later at MIT
For three teenage years, Amaya Price identified as a female called 'Ash' but has since switched back to being a guy
He started to develop friendships with men and liked being 'one of the guys.'
He also saw how trans friends undergoing medical procedures were harming themselves.
The teen started to 'desist,' and now campaigns against gender ideology, especially when it comes to children.
'I don't think there's any situation where minors should be allowed to take cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers, or undergo these surgeries,' he says.
'Scientifically, we do not know how to tell apart the kids for whom it might work and for whom it doesn't work.'
This view makes him an 'apostate' to trans activists and leftists, says Amaya Price.
'I falsify one of the core tenants of their ideology, which is that everybody with gender dysphoria needs to medically transition, which is simply not true,' he says.
He wanted to explain all this in his Berklee talk, titled 'Born in the Right Body: Desister and Detransitioner Awareness.'
The college was initially willing to back his event, but pulled the plug after Amaya Price's promotional fliers and Instagram post sparked an angry backlash.
Within hours, he'd received more than 400 'overwhelmingly negative' responses, he says.
Berklee students called him a 'Nazi' and a 'transphobe.'
One said he should be 'scared' to make his presentation, another threatened to 'throw expired groceries' at him.
Amaya Price, pictured here playing a violin aged 11, was interested in music from an early age
Seen here climbing a wall at age six, Amaya Price says he did not question his gender identity when he was a child
Transgender rights activists have pushed to silence conservative voices on US college campuses. Pictured: A gender-related protest in San Diego, California
Angry students gathered some 2,000 signatures in an online petition demanding Berklee cancel the talk.
They said it would 'harm the mental well-being of individuals in the transgender community.'
Within days, the school's vice president Ron Savage 'indefinitely postponed' the event, citing security concerns.
Its office for diversity and inclusion also pulled its support and posted that the event 'will no longer take place as planned'.
Amaya Price says the college had overstated the security threat, which he believed would amount only to heckling protesters.
He was backed in this criticism by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (Fire), a free speech nonprofit that focuses on America's increasingly liberal schools and colleges.
Fire highlighted Berklee's stated support for 'creative expression' and rejection of 'censorship' and those trying to 'obstruct the free exchange of ideas'.
Officials canceled Amaya Price because he 'has the "wrong" things to say,' says Fire.
'Any discussion of transgender issues is likely to provoke controversy and offend some listeners, Fire said in a statement.
'But policing offensive speech effectively tells Amaya Price that he is not allowed to share his own life story — and that others are not permitted to hear and respond to it — simply because some may find it offensive.'
The group stands up for scholars from across the political spectrum, but warns that US institutions have tacked to the left.
Amaya Price warns against breast removal operations and other irreversible sex change procedures on kids
Amaya Price now records music and performs, and has applied to join the US Space Force
Most efforts to cancel speakers in recent years have targeted conservatives, says the group.
Still, that could be changing.
Of the 25 recorded efforts to sanction US scholars this year, most were led by right-wing individuals, groups and activists, Fire's database shows.
Many of the targeted academics had spoken up for Palestinians or the militant group Hamas amid military confrontations with Israel.
Conservative groups linked to Donald Trump seek to curb colleges they see as too liberal, but it's not clear if this will be a priority for the Republican president-elect's administration.
Amaya Price, who graduated from Berklee on December 12, says he was not deterred by the cancellation.
He instead hosted a similar event at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on November 24.
As well as campaigning, he records music and performs, and has applied to become an officer in the US Space Force.
