Transgender Demands Fuel Gay, Conservative Alliance

The Democrat Party is demanding that gay and lesbian people provide lockstep support for transgender activists despite the growing public recognition that transgenderism is hostile to gays, lesbians, and conservatives.

“There is a large body of silent opinion among gay men and many lesbians that deeply believes in [biological] sex differences, cherishes and celebrates the male and female bodies, and does not see gayness as connected to transgender experience,” gay rights author Andrew Sullivan wrote. “Gay happiness depends on our owning our own [male or female biological] sex, not denying it.”

He wrote:

At some point, gay men need to face down those [transgender activists] who deny the biological differences in the human body that make homosexuality possible. … We are not some third sex; we are one of two sexes: men. Our sex is not just in our head; it was not merely assigned at birth.

The Democrat Party is “just pushing us under the water,” Natasha Chart, a lesbian activist who opposes the transgender ideology, said.

But Christian and conservative groups “are reaching their hands out, saying, “Let’s save these kids. … Don’t sterilize these kids. We don’t want this harm to come to you,” she told Breitbart News.

“I’ll take that [outreach] over people who agree with me on almost everything [politically] but are going to deny a full and healthy life to the next generation of kids like me,” she added.

The transgender ideology insists that government should deny the importance of biology in shaping people’s politics and personal lives.

Instead, transgenderism asserts that government should champion each person’s chosen sense of “gender” — which is defined as their sense of feeling male or female.

That focus on feelings — “gender” — instead of male-or-female biology gives men who claim to be transgender a moral right to claim bigotry — “Transphobia!” — when they feel rejected because lesbians do not want to sleep with them and their male genitalia.

The focus on feelings also gives status-seeking K-12 teachers a righteous excuse to groom an effeminate young boy or an insecure girl (who may or may not grow up to be gay or lesbian) towards a transgender identity, complete with a lifetime of sterilizing drugs, surgeries, loneliness, and poor health.

The transgender view also creates a lucrative opportunity for drug companies, doctors, and surgeons to feel virtuous about reshaping children’s or teenagers’ bodies to mimic the appearance of the opposite sex, regardless of the trauma and damage being done to children.

The transgender focus on feelings also pressures impressionable young journalists and accomplished adults to cheer for a “transgender” man racing in a women’s swimming competition, to ignore the multiplying hazards of transgender therapies and to refer to adult men in dresses as women.

Transgenderism “is an ideology that says whatever you think is true [about gender] becomes true,” regardless of that biological reality, Terry Schilling, the president of the American Principles Project, told Breitbart News. But the reality and importance of biology are firmly recognized by many gays, lesbians, and conservatives, he said: “Ultimately, the common ground is that the LGB [lesbian, gay, and bisexual] part of the movement still believes in the concept of biological sex, and that is directly at odds with transgender ideology. … [But] the main divergent point is whether or not parents [or teachers] should be in charge of their kids’ sexual education.”

Sullivan’s article spotlighted the common ground among gays, lesbians, and conservatives. For example, Sullivan also criticized the pro-transgender agitprop in K-12 classrooms:

These teaching materials aim to be inclusive of the tiny minority of trans children — but they do this by essentially universalizing the very rare experience of being transgender, and suggesting that everyone’s gender is completely independent of biological sex, and trumps it in any conflict. The only way to help trans kids feel better about themselves, this argument goes, is to tell the lie that their experience is everybody’s experience … When pushed to defend the idea that humans are not a binary [male and female] sexual species, [pro-transgender] critical theorists [argue] that any single exception to a rule completely demolishes the rule. [They claim] If there are any exceptions to every human being male or female, even if they are a tiny [variant] of the whole, then there is no sex [male vs female] binary.

For years, conservatives, feminists, and lesbians have been working together to oppose the aggressive transgender agenda. For example, the left-wing Women’s Liberation Front group has worked with centrist, conservative, and religious groups to protect children and adults. On March 31, the groups touted draft legislation that “clearly defines ‘sex’ based on biology (either male or female), seeks to enshrine into law common definitions of ‘woman,’ ‘girl,’ and ‘mother,’ and seeks to codify the intermediate scrutiny standard to allow the law to recognize sex when it is relevant.”

“The Family Research Council put out a report [in 2015] noting that a lot of these kids with gender identity issues were likely to grow up to be gay,” Chart said. “The conclusion of their report was that these kids don’t need to be sterilized. They’re not in favor of sterilizing any of these kids, and on that issue, I’d say we’re a lot closer” to conservatives than to transgender activists, she added.

“Gays and lesbians can deal with Christian disagreements over same-sex marriage,” Chart said, even as “the support of Christian conservatives for children who are same-sex attracted to grow up in healthy bodies is a lifeline.”

The issue is getting some attention among left-wing intellectuals, including some who want to create a movement led by “trans moderates.”

Polls show the public is concerned about the child-protection issues, the forced entry of men into women’s sports, and the transgender claims that each person’s gender is more important than their sex.

Even some transgender activists are alarmed. For example, an April 12 report in the Los Angeles Times profiled a psychologist who says he is a transgender woman and who is alarmed at the rising number of children who claim a transgender identity:

Day after day, emails pour into Erica Anderson’s inbox from parents struggling to support their teenagers coming out as transgender.

“He’s been depressed and anxious since the pandemic began, and over the past few days he has shared with me that he’s pretty sure he’s trans,” said one message about a 17-year-old.

…

[Anderson]  has helped hundreds of teens transition [their appearance]. But she has also come to believe that some children identifying as trans are falling under the influence of their peers and social media and that some clinicians are failing to subject minors to rigorous mental health evaluations before recommending hormones or surgeries. “I think it’s gone too far,” said Anderson, who until recently led the U.S. professional society at the forefront of transgender care.

“The first U.S. gender clinic dedicated to youth opened in Massachusetts in 2007. Today, there are more than 60,” the paper reported.

Unsurprisingly, ambitious Republican politicians are taking advantage of the Democrats’ unconditional enthusiasm for the unpopular pro-transgender policies:

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But the emerging alliance between conservatives, moderates, feminists, and sexual minorities could change the elites’ support for transgenderism.

Sullivan is an immigrant from Britain, where a temporary alliance of conservatives, gays, and lesbians is beating the well-funded and very aggressive transgender movement.

For example, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has reversed pro-transgender policies in government agencies and healthcare centers, partly because of pressure from the feminist, gay, and lesbian groups who recognize the ideological threat posed by transgender men to their goals. The groups include the international LGB Alliance, and feminists’ Respect My Sex campaign.

Transgender activists have responded with many threats of violence. For example, one gay British anti-transgender protester was shoved by a transgender mob after he protested efforts by transgender groups to isolate and groom teenagers:

The British pushback against transgenderism is being aided by a new populist TV channel that debates issues that the establishment media prefer to ignore — and keeps asking British politicians to say if women have penises:

But in the United States, Democrat politicians are doubling down as they demand gays and lesbians ignore the poor economy and, instead, support the party’s pro-transgender policies.

Transgender activists are an extremely small share of the electorate — less than one percent — but they provide poor progressives with a moral incentive to vote for Democrats in the pending November midterm election.

“To parents of transgender children, affirming your child’s [claimed transgender] identity [is] one of the most powerful things you can do to keep them safe and healthy,” President Joe Biden said in a March 31 video for the White House’s “Transgender Day of Visibility.” He also encouraged more children and teenagers to get into the transgender van:

I want you to know that your President sees you. Joe, Kamala, Doug, our entire administration, sees you for who you are … deserving of dignity, respect, and support. But we know it’s hard when there are those out there who don’t see you, don’t respect you.

In Texas, “politicians have sent state officials into the homes of loving parents to investigate them for abuse just to harass and intimidate the LGBTQI+ community,” White House spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki said on April 7 as she slammed state GOP legislators for curbing the transgender ide0logy in K-12 schools. She continued:

LGBTQI+ people can’t be erased or forced back into any closets, and kids across the nation should be allowed to be who they are, without the threat that their parents or their doctor could be imprisoned simply for helping them and loving them. President Biden has committed in both words and actions to fight for all Americans and will not hesitate to hold these states accountable.

The transgender movement has won a stranglehold on the Democrat party. For example, many accomplished women — including journalists — have submitted to demands that they treat men wearing makeup as if they are fellow women:

“You can’t work in Democratic [Party] politics anymore at all — even if you are a lesbian, gay or bisexual person — if you don’t agree that sterilizing kids for gender identity is the best thing since sliced bread,” Chart said, adding:

You have to agree that this is a new civil rights movement, that this is the direction that we absolutely must force onto society, or they won’t give you a job, they certainly won’t listen to you, they won’t complain when you’re kicked off Twitter and they won’t complain when people tell you to die.

The quiet work of WoLF, Chart, Schilling, and many others on the left and right is paving the way for voters to make their views understood by risk-hating politicians, perhaps as soon as this November.

Their progress is marked by Sullivan’s article, but also by other establishment journalists and editors who are willing to cautiously spotlight the dangers of the Democrats’ transgender push.

“When I was 19, I had surgery for sex reassignment,” said an April 11 op-ed, posted by Washington Post editors and written by a man who was likely homosexual before his surgery:

I once believed that I would be more successful finding love as a woman than as a man, but in truth, few straight men are interested in having a physical relationship with a person who was born the same sex as them. In high school, when I experienced crushes on my male classmates, I believed that the only way those feelings could be requited was if I altered my body.

It turned out that several of those crushes were also gay. If I had confessed my interest, what might have developed? Alas, the rampant homophobia in my school during the AIDS crisis smothered any such notions. Today, I have resigned myself to never finding a partner. That’s tough to admit, but it’s the healthiest thing I can do.

…
What advice would I pass on to young people seeking transition? Learning to fit in your body is a common struggle. Fad diets, body-shaping clothing and cosmetic surgery are all signs that countless millions of people at some point have a hard time accepting their own reflection. The prospect of sex can be intimidating. But sex is essential in healthy relationships. Give it a chance before permanently altering your body.

“Most of all, slow down,” the author said. “You may yet decide to make the change. But if you explore the world by inhabiting your body as it is, perhaps you’ll find that you love it more than you thought possible.”