The Democrats’ congressional effort to establish the transgender ideology is being blocked in the Senate by near-unified GOP opposition, according to a report in the Washington Post.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) has withdrawn her prior support for the far-reaching legislation, and the 50th Democratic vote — Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) — won’t support the bill until “a critical mass of Republicans get on board,” says the report by journalist Mike DeBonis.

The Democrats have named their legislation the Equality Act, and it is being backed by nearly all Democratic legislators and President Joe Biden.

The core feature of the legislation is a rule that allows judges to punish Americans who do not submit to the transgender ideology’s claim that a man becomes a woman whenever he claims that he has the “gender identity” of a woman.

This rule would empower the less-than-one-percent of Americans who claim to be transgender to suppress any civic recognition of male-or-female biology-based preferences — even though biology has a fundamental impact on the priorities, needs, and preferences of heterosexual and homosexual children and adults.

The rule would also outlaw any legal recognition or civic support for single-sex activities. Those single-sex activities sports leagues, changing rooms, religious practice, shelters for abused people, plus the many single-sex cultural ideas and practices that adults need to help steer their children through the difficult stage of puberty.

Many establishment GOP leaders have ducked this fight — or even supported transgender activists. But many polls show deep opposition among the GOP’s activists and swing-voters who follow the debate. Their votes are vital to the most liberal GOP politicians, such as Sen. Collins.

“The Equality Act was a starting point for negotiations, and in its current form, it cannot pass,” Collins’ spokeswoman, Annie Clark, told the Washington Post. “That’s why there are ongoing discussions among senators and stakeholders about a path forward,”  she said. The article added:

Collins is seeking amendments that would protect the right of domestic violence shelters to serve men and women separately based on their birth gender as well as protections for faith-based service providers, such as Catholic Charities.

The Washington Post‘s article, however, inadvertently spotlights the extremism of the pro-transgender advocates as they dismiss widespread public opposition:

Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s most prominent LGBTQ rights organization, said the main thrust of the [pro-transgender] advocacy has been combating “misinformation” about the bill — including the notion that it would impinge on religious freedom.

[…]

The bill’s proponents have been reticent to discuss any changes that would address the GOP objections about transgender sports and other issues they have used as political cudgels. Instead, they have focused on convincing lawmakers that their fears are simply misplaced.

Women’s sports and other anti-trans issues are “not a primary conversation that anybody in the Senate seems to really want to have,” [transgender acitvist Mara] Keisling said. “Everybody who has looked at that issue understands it is entirely a red herring, red meat, disgraceful diversion.

The Republicans are relying on transgender debate “as a [election] wedge issue,” says the article, which ignores the right of heterosexual women and men to have the culture and laws that support their different, complementary, synergistic, and vital competition and cooperation.

So far, the bill’s progressive advocates do not want to compromise because their goals are far more revolutionary than the transgender legislation, said one GOP activist who opposes the transgender legislation. “There is no middle ground here,” he said, adding:

It’s all about tearing down the family, tearing down [legal and cultural] structures, tearing down [social] order and [civic] authority … They don’t like America — they think America was a mistake. They think it was founded on systemic racism, misogyny, and oppression.

For example, the bill’s supporters insist on binding the transgender language to other sections which award far-reaching legal rights to same-sex attracted women and men. The pro-transgenderism advocates also have continued to deny the fast-growing evidence of medical risks, the harm to the status of women, and the social harm to young people who try to suppress their natural biological development through puberty.

But the Post article suggests that the views of Fortune 500 companies and legal elites are an accurate representation of the conservatives’ and swing voters’ viewpoints on the transgender ideology:

The partisanship around the issue on Capitol Hill stands in contrast to the wide-ranging support for LGBTQ rights among the public at large, in corporate America, and even in the federal judiciary, which has delivered a string of rulings expanding those rights — including a landmark Supreme Court opinion last year written by conservative Justice Neil M. Gorsuch that effectively banned employment discrimination on the basis of [transgender] sexual identity.

On June 16, President Joe Biden’s Department of Education cited the Gorsuch ban as they declared they would expand the transgender ideology into the nation’s school system. The legality of that expansion is expected to be decided by the Supreme Court, partly because Democrats and Republicans are deadlocked in Congress.

Many GOP leaders “are not interested in understanding this issue, they’re not interested in the details of this issue … they’re out of touch,” said the GOP activist. But “the entire [base of] Republican Party is united in protecting our kids from all the transgender insanity, whether it’s sports, or transgender surgeries or hormones or ideology,” he said.

Broad and vague polls show public sympathy for the Democrats’ transgender legislation.

But detailed polls show deep and widespread rejection of transgender demands amid plenty of anecdotal evidence that many Democrats oppose the transgender ideology.

This public’s rejection reflects the public’s deep support for culture and laws that reflect the needs of heterosexual adults and children, who comprise roughly 19 of every 20 people in the United States. Although numerous polls show that the public wants to aid gay and lesbian people — the polls which detail the transgender demands show strong opposition and growing support for state legislation in many states that protects children from further damage.