From Rainbows to Pharmaceuticals
Don't be fooled: There's no necessary connection between supporting LGBT rights and pushing radical gender ideology on children and youth
American progressives and left-of-center liberals have been led to believe that the recent explosion of what’s misleadingly termed the “trans rights” movement is simply the logical and therefore beneficent extension of the older commitment to “gay rights” — which (correctly in my view) they uncompromisingly support. Consequently, in such circles it’s widely assumed that if, for example, you support gay marriage, then you must also support (or at the very least not question) teaching radical gender ideology to kindergarteners.
Of course, such pseudo-logics are never stated so baldly. If they were, the vast differences between: 1) the progressive liberal commitment to securing equal rights for LGBT individuals and 2) the “woke,” or post-liberal progressive determination to overhaul society such that “gender identity” always and automatically trumps biological sex would be glaringly obvious.
As I’ve written about previously, this inability of “the left” (such as it is) to draw a clear line between old-school progressive liberalism and contemporary post-liberal progressivism (a.k.a. wokeism) is as endemic as it is problematic. Because it’s not just a theoretical issue: This failure to differentiate between what are, in fact, two very different sets of political aspirations, values, and commitments has serious real-world consequences.
Currently, issues involving teaching radical gender ideology to children and normalizing “gender-affirming” drugs and surgeries for youth are by far the most disturbing case in point. Any honest look at what’s happening is beyond alarming. Nonetheless, your average progressive liberal is still pretending that it’s all part of the same old “right side of history” narrative, building on the legacy of the Civil Rights movement and whatnot. The level of collective self-delusion involved is beyond ridiculous and would be laughable were it not so serious.
Heads in the Sand
Squarely acknowledging, let alone critically discussing what’s been happening on the gender ideology front (particularly but not exclusively with regard to children and youth) has been taboo in mainstream progressive circles since around 2015. Consequently, almost everyone in Blue State culture who’s not a committed gender activist simply doesn’t want to know. Of course, this is in many ways perfectly understandable: People are misled by an extremely biased media ecosystem, concerned about hurting the LBGT people they love, and/or worried about being canceled socially or reported to some DEI or Title IX bureaucrat at work. Unfortunately, however, the resultant ostrich-style “head in the sand” mentality that’s engulfed left-liberal culture has serious consequences.
Happily, there have been some positive if marginal signs of change lately. Increasing numbers of progressives (including many who identify as LGBT themselves and a committed core of radical feminists) are daring to be publicly critical on gender identity issues. Typically, however, such dissent is limited to people and organizations with relatively small platforms. The truly powerful players — including the legacy media, professional organizations, Big Tech, the Democratic Party, and major hospitals, donors, and nonprofits — aren’t budging.
Both moderate conservatives and radical right-wingers, in contrast, have put these issues at the top of their agendas. This is undoubtedly a winning move for them politically: According to a recent New York Times poll, 70% of registered voters oppose teaching kids in Grades 1-5 about sexual orientation and gender identity. Plus, there’s little doubt this number would be substantially higher if more left-of-center voters understood what’s really been happening on that front. By and large, however, they don’t.
The left’s refusal to parse these issues honestly is increasingly forcing Americans to choose between a right-wing agenda that may reject LBGT rights completely and a left-wing one that is, in fact, teaching radical gender ideology to children and normalizing “gender-affirming” drugs and surgeries for youth. And that’s bad for anyone who cares about protecting hard-won equal rights protections for LGBT individuals. Certainly, it lends credence to the right’s long-standing “slippery slope” argument, which holds that if you give “them” what may at first seem like a reasonable inch, next thing you know “they’ll” be taking a socially destructive mile.
Of course, this isn’t true. But if progressives not only refuse to condemn, but tacitly accept fast-tracking children and youth onto a life-long course of “gender-affirming” medicalization, then it’s hard to make that case. This is particularly true given America’s two-party political monopoly and attendant set of partisan media echo chambers. Within this structure, there’s simply no space to insist that yes, we can and will make reasonable distinctions between protecting LGBT rights within a traditionally liberal framework and opposing the destructive extremism of the woke gender agenda. If that’s going to change, the push to do so almost certainly has to come from the left.
Teaching Radical Gender Ideology to Children
As I’ve written about previously, growing up in the progressive enclave of Evanston, Illinois during the 1960s-70s socialized me to believe in the aspirational vision of socio-economic equality advanced by the New Deal/Great Society tradition of left-liberalism. Coming from this background, I’ve been especially interested to see how the reigning Zeitgeist in my hometown (which has parallels across the country) has changed. Thus, when I happened across an article by conservative activist Chris Rufo claiming that the same public school system I attended as a child “teaches pre-kindergarten through third-grade students to celebrate the transgender flag, break the ‘gender binary’ established by white ‘colonizers,’ and experiment with neo-pronouns such as ‘ze, ‘zir,’ and ‘tree,’” I immediately wanted to see for myself whether that was really true.
Happily, this was quite easy: Whatever you think of Rufo, he’s very good about linking to original source documents so you can check whether his reporting is accurate. Skimming through the 277-page “Pre-K to 3” curriculum cited, I quickly ascertained he was right: “The curriculum in Evanston–Skokie School District 65” is indeed “the perfect illustration of college-level queer theory translated into early-elementary pedagogy.” He’s also quite correct that “commentators on the political left have claimed that public schools do not teach this material.” Certainly, you’re not going to get any remotely accurate reporting on such instruction from the likes of NPR and The New York Times.
The extreme level of duplicity involved here is maddening. If progressives want schools to teach radical gender ideology from Pre-K on, they should be upfront about it. They should also be willing to field critical questions and offer compelling counter-arguments as to why, precisely, what they’re doing is right.
But that never occurs. Instead, there’s a dizzying oscillation between denial (it’s not really happening), obscurantism (streams of confusing jargon that make no sense), smear campaigns (anyone who asks even the mildest question is a hateful bigot), and emotional blackmail (if you criticize our agenda, kids will be bullied and driven to suicide). It’s a logically incoherent but politically effective strategy: Most progressive liberals who aren’t solidly on board with the program already quickly become too confused and intimated to question it.
Meanwhile, elementary school districts like the one I attended oh so long ago are teaching radical gender ideology in terms that literally any child can understand — which is, after all, precisely the point. The following images are screenshots taken directly from Evanston’s Pre-K to Grade 3 Curriculum:
The claim that biological sex is “assigned at birth” is foundational to this ideology, which rejects the fact that humans, like other mammals, are a sexually dimorphic species. To be clear, the point of images like the one above isn’t that society should not sort kids into rigidly gendered “Boy=Blue” and “Girl=Pink”-style categories and demand that they conform to them forever. Simply rejecting such stereotypes wouldn’t be controversial: All progressive liberals, as well as many conservatives, have roundly rejected such restrictive gender essentialism for at least the past half-century. No, the radical (and false) claim being made here is that any recognition of biological sex should be regarded as an arbitrarily imposed fiction — one that, in fact (as the curriculum goes on to explain) literally embodies the oppressive legacy of European colonialism.
The flipside of teaching children to disregard and mistrust their “sex assigned at birth” is instructing them that their “feelings”-based sense of gender is vitally important. Again, the message here isn’t simply that it’s OK for boys to play with dolls and so on. Today, it wouldn’t be the least bit controversial to teach kids that they shouldn’t be limited by traditional gender stereotypes. Instead, the purpose is to valorize an entirely new set of gender categories and teach kids that it’s necessary to use them. There’s a clear message sent that ascertaining your true gender identity is a vitally important, if perhaps dauntingly complex project (particularly if you’re only 8 years old, the typical age for the following 3rd Grade worksheet):
Of course, kids also need to select pronouns along with their gender identity. Again, there are many options to choose from — including “tree,” which is, just as Rufo reported, presented as an equally valid alternative to “she” for Evanston first graders.
Students practice using a variety of pronouns and are instructed to select their own. The curriculum’s “Learning Plan,” for example, provides the following script for teachers to use in class:
Yesterday we practiced using the pronoun They/Them. We are going to practice once more before we start our lesson. Today we are going to practice using the pronoun Ze. Here is an example of using the pronoun “Ze”. Instead of saying He/She dropped His/Her pencil, you can say: “Ze dropped Their pencil. Instead of saying “His/Her locker is next to mine”, you can say “Ze’s locker is next to mine.” Have students practice using pronoun Ze before beginning the lesson.
The curriculum goes on to suggest that beyond identifying as one, two, multiple, or no genders, “Ze” might even choose to be a Mermaid! These are remarkable lessons to teach children who are still young enough to believe quite literally in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.
Evanston students are also taught that thinking in terms of a “gender binary” rooted in the reality of biological sex is part of the oppressive legacy of Western colonialism that must be dismantled. The following text is lifted verbatim from the teacher’s guide to implementing the Pre-K to 3 curriculum:
When colonizers stole the land from the Native Indigenous people, they didn’t understand the value of two-spirit people. Colonizers began to enforce laws and forced two-spirit people to conform to the gender binary that they brought from their society . . . White, cisgender, straight people have been given more opportunities than those who are not. This is something humans made up and is a system we work to break down . . . Colonizers created binary systems and expected people to “fit in.” People in many cultures, including Western culture, are speaking up and living their truths again.
Why do you think it became dangerous for people to be themselves?
No More “Mom”
The Evanston “Pre-K to 3” curriculum is only one example of a powerful and growing trend. Similar original source documents from other school districts (e.g., Portland) are also available online. And while the exact number of public and private schools teaching radical gender ideology to young children is impossible to ascertain given America’s highly decentralized educational system, one knowledgeable source estimates it’s at least half.
And the curriculum is only part of the agenda. To reinforce the lesson that anything having to do with a biological sex-based “gender binary” is illegitimate and oppressive, teachers and staff in school districts that have signed on to this ideology are instructed to avoid using any “gender-specific” words such as “boys” and “girls” at all times. The following page copied from the San Francisco Unified School District’s “Curriculum and Instruction Guide” on “Gender Inclusive Language” provides examples of preferred alternatives, such as saying “Caregivers” or “Grown-Ups” when speaking to students instead of ostensibly oppressive “Mom” and “Dad”:
Such schools have also instituted policies requiring teachers to not only ask students to specify their gender identities and preferred pronouns, but keep records dictating which ones they should use in what settings. Most importantly, teachers must ask students whether or not to keep their in-school gender identity (including not only new names and pronouns, but practices such as changing into different sets of clothes while at school) secret from their parents. At the same time, schools demand that teachers and staff automatically “affirm” every student’s gender-related choices, regardless of circumstances. Special counselors and/or designated support staff may also officially serve as “trusted adults” to help students progress along the path of their “gender journey,” serving as ongoing confidants without parental knowledge or consent.
The Revolution Will Be Medicalized
First, children are taught to see biological sex as an oppressive fiction imposed by European colonizers and instructed to select their gender identity and pronouns from an unlimited number of options. In the process, they’re shielded from the ostensibly harmful impact of hearing gendered words like “Mom” at school, asked whether or not to keep their gender identity secret from their parents, and perhaps matched with “trusted adults” to help them with their ostensible self-realization. Subsequently, once they’re closer to adolescence, they’re told that there are “medications” available that can — if they like — stop the course of their naturally occurring puberty and instead allow their bodies to become “the gender they know themselves to be.”
The following screenshot is from a “Lesson Plan” for Fifth Grade teachers that has been adopted by some New Jersey public school districts:
This is not exceptional: Puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and even sex reassignment surgeries are regularly presented to children and youth as perfectly normal options that carry few if any serious risks. This message is delivered not only in many public and private school classrooms, but also by well-funded non-profits, major hospitals, Planned Parenthood, the Federal Government, and professional organizations including the American Academy of Pediatrics.
To say that it’s difficult to wrap your head around the fact that so many of the most powerful institutions in U.S. society are systematically pushing such profoundly misleading information onto children and youth is a mind-bending understatement. Because once you start getting a sense of just how dangerous these recommended drugs and surgeries are for minors, the insanity of what’s already a well-established institutional matrix is revealed. It’s shocking, dismaying, and scary. (This isn’t to say that adults shouldn’t have access to such medical interventions; there’s no doubt that a small minority truly benefits from them. The issue here is normalizing the use of what are, in fact, highly risky and often permanently life-altering drugs and surgeries for minors based on some ineffable sense of “gender identity” that they’ve literally been pushed to develop since preschool.)
Consider the following info from StatsForGender, a resource that provides user-friendly summaries of high-quality research that challenges the dominant progressive narrative on the supposed safety and all-around goodness of so-called “gender-affirming medical care”:
Puberty blockers are more than a ‘pause button’; roughly 98% of children who take them go on to take cross-sex hormones.
Puberty blockers change young bodies in ways that are not understood and may be permanent. This is an experimental treatment program: Puberty blockers have never been licensed to treat children with gender dysphoria, in any country.
Feminizing hormonal treatments in males lead to a lessening sex drive, erectile dysfunction, and shrinking of the testes and penis, which significantly compromises sexual function.
Long-term testosterone use in natal females can cause vaginal atrophy, which makes sex painful.
Transmen are four or five times as likely as females in general to suffer a heart attack. Transwomen are at increased risk of developing osteoporosis and cardiovascular problems.
Female-to-male genital reconstruction surgery has a high negative outcome rate, including urethral compromise and worsened mental health. Even with the “radial forearm free flap” method of creating a synthetic penis — “considered by many as the gold standard for phalloplasty” — there are high rates of complications, with up to 64% urethroplasty-related complication.
Male-to-female genital surgery (vaginoplasty) is associated with significant long-term complications: there is a 2% risk of fistula, 14% risk of stenosis (abnormal narrowing), 1% risk of necrosis (tissue death), and 4% risk of prolapse. One systematic review found an overall complication rate of 32.5%.
Medical transition puts both males and females at risk of infertility.
The question of how we arrived at a place where it’s seen as the height of progressivism to encourage children and youth to pursue such dangerous medical interventions is important but not simple to answer, and won’t be tackled here. Simply starting to understand where we are if you haven’t previously been aware is challenging enough: It’s like seeing “through the looking-glass” into some medical-industrial complex dystopia that you never could have imagined existed — but yet, in fact, is already a well-established, rapidly growing, and highly profitable reality.
Having turned into the post-neoliberal, oligarchically driven, corporate capitalist hellscape that it is, the U.S. is of course an international outlier when it comes to promoting “gender-affirming” drugs and surgeries to children and youth. As The Economist reported in July 2022, “the American situation contrasts with Europe, where some medical groups are moving in the opposite direction:”
In 2022 Sweden said it will not give blockers or hormones to anyone under 18, with a few strict exceptions. Finland discourages medicalisation for those under 25. Both now prioritise therapy. Britain has launched a review of child services by Hilary Cass, a former head of the Royal College of Paediatrics. Her interim report this year appeared to distance itself from the “affirmative model” that “originated in the USA”.
William Malone, an endocrinologist with the Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine, a non-profit group, sees parallels with previous medical scandals, not least the opioid crisis. There is a mix of “Big Pharma, a vulnerable patient population, and physicians misled by medical organisations or tempted by wealth and prestige”, he says. But now there is gender-identity ideology on top. “We are completely saturated with corporate influences and lobby groups,” says Dr Malone. “The only way they will be halted is if a massive number of people are harmed and they get together to sue the people who harmed them.
Beyond litigation, which would be astronomically expensive and almost certainly traumatic for the plaintiffs involved (most likely young detransitioners), it would help enormously if more progressives and left-liberals would question the false narratives they’re relentlessly being fed. While radically disillusioning, particularly for anyone who still trusts elite American institutions, the collective weight of such a shift in public opinion would almost certainly make a difference. The message needs to come through loud and clear that it’s not only 100% possible, but in fact completely logical to simultaneously support LGBT rights within a traditionally liberal framework and oppose pushing radical gender ideology and its attendant drugs and surgeries on America’s children and youth.
Tell em Big C. Ain't nothing woke about these folks....... They're really quite asleep.