Is the Transgender Movement Really Backing Down?
On Tuesday, the New York Times published an article declaring that transgender activists are in the beginning stages of wondering whether they went too far when they, in essence, adopted a strategy of screaming “Bigot!” at anyone who dared question even one of their precepts. The article comes at a moment when many Democrats are pinning Kamala Harris’ election loss on the narrative that emerged from the famous “Kamala Is For They/Them. President Trump Is For You” campaign ad: that Democrats are at the mercy of ideological radicals, and are less focused on working for everyday Americans.
But Strangio and the ACLU…. believe “transitioning” children is of utmost priority and a critical civil right that needs to be protected.
In reality, the number of transgender activists who are actually questioning their movement’s tactics — such as deeming it “violence” to “misgender” someone, steamrolling the medical community into saying such insanities as “birthing parent” and “pregnant people,” and calling evil anyone who questions giving little boys estrogen and little girls testosterone (to supposedly turn them into the opposite sex) — is quite small. (WATCH Ellie Gardey Holmes: The Spectator P.M. Ep. 94: Congress’ Bathroom Fight Shows Shift on the Left)
In fact, the New York Times was only able to find two transgender activists willing to say so on the record. This is in spite of the fact that the author, Jeremy W. Peters, said he did everything he could to get transgender activists to do so. He explained, “A lot of LGBTQ leaders and advocates didn’t want to say they had concerns because they worried about dividing their movement.”
The two people who did express some reservations with the transgender movement’s aggressive tactics to the New York Times were Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, executive director of Advocates for Transgender Equality, and Mara Keisling, the funder of the National Center for Transgender Equality. For his part, Heng-Lehtinen said, “We have to make it OK for someone to change their minds…. We cannot vilify them for not being on our side. No one wants to join that team.” Keisling, meanwhile, said activists had “looked unreasonable” when they called people who opposed allowing men in women’s sporting events bigots.
But even as there is an increasing feeling on the Left that things have gone too far in regard to transgender activism, most transgender activists are doubling down. When future member of Congress Sarah McBride, a man who identifies as a woman, agreed to not use the women’s bathroom at the Capitol, many transgender activists decried it as a terrible retreat. LGBTQ publication The Advocate quoted a person who identifies as transgender as responding: “The reaction I am seeing from prominent trans journalists and activists is extremely negative. They are seeing this as a betrayal.”
Additionally, the LBGTQ organization GLAAD responded to the whole episode with McBride by asserting that the phrase “biological sex” is a term that is merely used to dehumanize people:
The resolution seeks to ban transgender women from using female restrooms inside the Capitol, barring both House members and employees from “using single-sex facilities other than those corresponding to their biological sex [sic].” “Biological sex” is not an accurate nor a scientific term, but is used by opponents of transgender people to dehumanize them and deny their equal access to society.
Others are sending out clarion calls begging the Left to not back away from transgender activism. For instance, columnist Will Bunch wrote for the Philadelphia Inquirer last week: “Whether hate-filled TV ads helped elect Trump is no reason to stop fighting for the humanity of 1 million transgender Americans.” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has also gone on a media tour reiterating full support for transgenderism. Beshear vetoed a bill that would have protected minor girls in his state from being injected with testosterone and given mastectomies as part of their parents’ attempts to turn them into men. Last week, he said on Face the Nation, in explaining his veto, “That’s my faith, where I’m taught that all children are children of God, and I wanted to stick up for children who were being picked on.”
The ACLU’s Transgender Extremism
The ACLU, which has a major role in advancing transgender radicalism, in particular has elucidated total support for the same aggressive tactics on transgenderism. In a podcast episode earlier this month, Cecillia Wang, the organization’s national legal director, focused on transgenderism when explaining her plans for the organization’s efforts to diminish the impact of the Trump administration. Before discussing anything else, she worried about Trump’s proposal to cut off Medicaid funding to hospitals that give children medical interventions to attempt to turn them into the opposite sex. She referred to this as “life-saving medical care.”
The ACLU will be before the Supreme Court next month in the case United States v. Skrmetti. The organization decided to send an attorney who identifies as transgender, Chase Strangio, to argue the case. The case concerns a Tennessee law that bans children from receiving puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, mastectomies, phalloplasties, and vaginoplasties. Even many on the Left are questioning the ACLU’s wisdom in taking that case to the Supreme Court, as the 6–3 conservative majority makes it unlikely that the Supreme Court would overturn the circuit court’s ruling. For example, Kate Redburn, an academic fellow at Columbia Law School, told New York Magazine: “It’s understandable to some extent why the case was brought up…. But now the question is, What will the Court do? … I can’t tell the future, but I think the signs are bad.” (READ MORE: DEI Proponents at the University of Michigan Are Panicking but Refusing to Budge)
But Strangio and the ACLU are undeterred. They believe “transitioning” children is of utmost priority and a critical civil right that needs to be protected. “The consequences of these 24 state laws banning medical care for trans young people are so drastic and so severe,” she explained to New York Magazine.
In the end, it makes more sense for the transgender movement to continue its aggressive tactics. After all, when your movement is founded upon pushing a total lunacy that defies human experience (that some men are secretly women on the inside and vice versa), it turns out that aggressive social control is the only reasonable path toward success.
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