He was a university professor in Canada. He stepped into the media light after Canada was set to pass a law criminalizing dead naming someone. Peterson became very outspoken against this law because it wasn’t a law banning speech, it was a law enforcing you to use specific speech.

A video of some trans students confronting him went viral, which thrust him into popularity. It’s an interesting video, I suggest everyone watch it. After that, the law was put in place, and Peterson got in trouble with the university, and (quit? Was fired? I forget which).

There are two notable events after the first that everyone here is talking about. Due to the media attention, Peterson sought out therapy and was prescribed benzos, which he quickly became addicted to. He kinda fell out of the media light for a bit, and it turns out he was not going through withdrawal very well, so he and his family flew to Russia, where they induced a coma and he was able to come off of the benzos. I know that he did a podcast with his daughter where they go through exactly what happened, if you’re curious as yo his experience (though I’m sure there’s a summary on wiki or something)

The second event is that (one of?) his licenses was pulled by a college board of some sort after he criticized Trudeau on twitter over something, and he was ordered to go to “social media reeducation” training. He took them to court over it and the judge ruled that yes, the board’s ruling was an infringement on his free speech, but since they’re a private board they can withhold his license until they see fit.

And that sums up everything as neutrally as I can get.