On the 16th January 2018, the well known and controversial Canadian clinical psychologist and professor, Jordan Peterson, appeared on an infamous interview with Cathy Newman on the UK’s Channel 4.

Jordan Peterson rose to fame with his refusal to be coerced by proposed Canadian laws that demanded all people call trans-gender citizens according to their preferred gender pronouns (e.g. her, him, ms, mr). Since then many Liberal activists of the post-modernist bent (aka Social Justice Warriors [SJWs], third-wave feminists), have protested and strongly campaigned against Jordan Peterson.

The 40 minute interview between (presumed left wing) Channel 4 host Cathy Newman and Dr Jordan Peterson had received a lot of press due to the highly contentious interview techniques by Cathy, and Jordan Peterson’s very composed and astute responses.

Many have rebuked Cathy Newman’s interview approach, which was widely held to be twisting Dr Peterson’s words, putting words in his mouth and attempting to misrepresent his position.

Almost 3 years to the day, in 13th January 2015, I had previously been in an interview on Channel 4with the very same Cathy Newman, but on the topic of Charlie Hebdo attacks, and whether they were indicative of “extremism” in the wider Muslim community. Although my segment with Cathy only lasted around 5 minutes, and was nowhere near as combative as the Peterson interview – it was illustrative of some of the approaches media hosts use against narratives that challenge the mainstream.

Ironically, one of the questions she challenged Dr Jordan Peterson with, i.e. “Does your freedom of speech triumph the rights of transgenders to not be offended?”; Cathy Newman argued that if people have the freedom to practice their religion, they have to respect the rights of others to criticise religion. She referenced the mayor of Rotterdam who said that if people are unhappy with such freedoms, they should leave. She also asked me whether I took offense at the Charlie Hebdo cartoons.

I responded clearly, but it struck me after watching the Jordan Peterson interview, that it seemed that the Western mainstream would see it as wrong to offend ‘transgender’ people, but not wrong to offend Muslims.