It is depressing to consider that feminist activists and gay and lesbian writers have frequently been fiercer in opposing this ideology than many Christians, perhaps because they are more accustomed to being counter-cultural dissidents. I am not saying this fight is lost. Not by any means. But if ordinary people do not refuse to participate in this mass delusion, then it will be. I’m not suggesting that ordinary people need to become activists. But if everyday acts of defiance do not become normal in short order, our collective cowardice will ensure that the transgender movement owns the culture for good.
As the post-Christian West convulses with a transgender culture war that is increasingly careening into violence, people still possessed of common sense constantly ask a single question: How did we go from gay “marriage” to the elimination of sex categories overnight?
There are many good answers to this question, of course—historical, cultural, philosophical, and even (or perhaps especially) theological. But the single most significant factor contributing to the wild success of the transgender movement’s cultural blitzkrieg is rarely mentioned: cowardice.
Transgender Dominance
It took decades for the gay rights movement to achieve political dominance. It took less than a decade for the transgender activists who surged behind them to succeed. As Vladimir Lenin once put it: “You probe with bayonets: if you find mush, you push. If you find steel, you withdraw.” The trans activists have found mostly mush, and I’m not merely referring to the mind of the American president. And so, they pushed, and here we are. Entire institutions have gone down like dominos.
Trans activists swiftly discovered how effective cry-bullying was, and how quickly people cave for fear of being called names. They realized that despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary, they can blackmail their opponents by accusing them of pushing “transgender children”—a now-exploding category hitherto unknown in recorded history—to suicide. They insist that they are on the “right side of history” despite the fact that they have only a few years on their side and we have thousands on ours. The masses remained mostly mute.
There was confusion, yes. Chaos, certainly. But ultimately, it was the cowardice of millions that gave the gender ideologues the culture: the school boards that backed away from a fight and the medical institutions that swung the doors wide open to butchers and extremists. It was the fear of the parents who were cowed into silence while their consciences screamed. Worst of all are the many politicians who, despite claiming the mantle of conservative, have stood by while legions of children have followed activists into a lifetime of excruciating medicalization at the hands of malpractitioners.
Consider, for a moment, how many of our middle-aged and elderly politicians would have reacted if they were told in the year 2000 that one day they would be championing the right of biological males to enter women’s bathrooms and changing rooms unimpeded, or that they would allow brawny male rapists into women’s prisons, or male athletes into women’s sporting events. Imagine how they would have responded if we told them that within two decades, they would call double mastectomies and castrations for healthy children a “human right.”