Many social conservatives and gay activists are ridiculing President Joe Biden’s State Department for declaring an “International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia, and Transphobia.”
Conservatives criticized the department’s off-course worldwide advocacy for the controversial niche cause of transgenderism amid a growing diversity of diplomatic crises, including a near-war with nuclear-armed Russia.
“How does this advance US interests in foreign countries?” asked Christina Pushaw, a GOP advocate in Florida, adding:
This aggressive woke imperialism is actually scaring away our potential allies in socially conservative countries, e.g. in the former USSR or Latin America. The State Dept is supposed to represent America… not one specific identity group. Focus on what unites us.
“Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams are rolling in their graves,” tweeted Jeremy Carl, a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute.
Gay activists, libertarians, and social conservatives also criticized the tweet’s insertion of transgenderism into the gay rights cause.
The department’s tweet subordinated the gay rights rainbow flag under the pink-and-blue spearhead used by well-funded transgender advocates, said many tweets.
“Look how that [has] just about erased the pride flag,” tweeted Justin Bryan Galloway, a gay man in Texas:
“It is their goal to erase Lesbians and Gays,” he added.
Transgenderism demands that government enforce its claim people can freely change their “gender identity” and their sex, regardless of their body.
If that view is recognized in law and culture, it would negate the legal and civic identity of gays and lesbians as people who have a same-sex attraction.
WATCH: “Gender Dysphoria is a Mental Disorder” — Young Women on Dangers of Transgenderism
The department’s tweet also ignores the growing evidence that teenagers who might become gays or lesbians can be pushed into transgender status — and then be surgically converted into supposedly heterosexual women and men.
The department’s transtweet ignores that growing problem while denouncing the idea that teenagers can zig-zag between heterosexual and homosexual desires.
“Are you even thinking about what you’re saying?” said a tweeted response from author Christina Dalcher. “Convincing a tomboy girl that she is actually a boy IS a conversion tactic.”
“Can you please explain why conversion therapy being used to change sexual orientation or characteristics is bad, but hormones and surgery are good?” responded a civil liberties lawyer, Jenin Younes.
“So conversion therapy- which uses just words- is bad because it attempts to change sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics— but hormones and surgery are good?” she tweeted, adding, “Make it make sense.”
The Free Press posted an article on May 19 that spotlighted the growing danger of gay and lesbian youths being converted into sterile, unhealthy and dependent “transgender” people:
Conversion therapy typically refers to the … efforts to change gay people’s sexual orientation to straight. But in the context of gender distress, activists have intentionally reengineered that phrase to include any therapy that doesn’t immediately and completely affirm a young person’s desire to change genders. This means the therapist cannot explore possible sources of [teenagers’] dysphoria such as traumatic childhoods, sexual abuse, and family [opposition to a gay identity]. It’s also well-documented that many gender-dysphoric young people have numerous other mental health conditions that need addressing. These include autism, ADHD, eating disorders, and self-harm.
Because “anti-conversion therapy” laws may prohibit exploring those other issues, and require therapists simply to affirm a person’s gender identity, providing exploratory therapy can be dangerous. These laws “create a chilling effect,” says Lisa Marchiano, a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia who often works with clients with gender issues. “Good therapists are afraid to do good therapy. They want to get away from this topic altogether.”
This leaves the rising number of “detransitioners,” people who have made a gender transition, realized it was a mistake, and wish to return to their birth sex, without professional psychological support.
Many troubled teenagers are being pushed into the transgender movement because of political advocacy by teachers, mental health workers, and government officials including Biden.
But many young people also escaping the movement.