The Anti-Transgender Campaign- Not The Principled Moral Crusade You Might Suspect

In the end, it's about money and recruiting...and cynical political calculation

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

• H. L. Mencken

According to the US Census Bureau’s Population Clock, the current population of the United States is just shy of 335 million people. Of that, approximately 1.3 million adults and 300,000 children identify as transgender. So, if we assume those numbers to be correct, the transgender population makes up 0.4776% of the entire American population.

So how did .4776% of the population come to be seen as the most significant moral threat to American children since Catholic priests? It turns out it had little to do with honest, legitimate moral and theological outrage.

It had everything to do with the American Taliban casting about for an issue that would re-energize donors and supporters.

There’s no dignity in this version of America. None whatsoever. Then again, the American Taliban cares far less for dignity than for money and political power.

Yes, the current White Conservative Christian heterosexual patriotic Holy War against the less than one-half percent of Americans who identify as transgender was first and foremost about recruiting and fundraising.

That’s precisely how cynical and hypocritical Jesus would be, yeah?

When the Supreme Court declared a constitutional right to same-sex marriage nearly eight years ago, social conservatives were set adrift.

The ruling stripped them of an issue they had used to galvanize rank-and-file supporters and big donors. And it left them searching for a cause that — like opposing gay marriage — would rally the base and raise the movement’s profile on the national stage.

“We knew we needed to find an issue that the candidates were comfortable talking about,” said Terry Schilling, the president of American Principles Project, a social conservative advocacy group. “And we threw everything at the wall.”

What has stuck, somewhat unexpectedly, is the issue of transgender identity, particularly among young people. Today, the effort to restrict transgender rights has supplanted same-sex marriage as an animating issue for social conservatives at a pace that has stunned political leaders across the spectrum. It has reinvigorated a network of conservative groups, increased fund-raising and set the agenda in school boards and state legislatures.

Judging by the Holy War language being used against transgender people now and the raft loads of legislation red states are passing to regulate their lives and bodies, you’d think that “transgenderism” was just this side of “satanism.”

(BTW, “transgenderism” was a label invented by the American Taliban to reduce a life decision to the level of an ideology and thus denigrate transgender people even further. “Transgenderism” is not a phrase used by the trans community.)

The effort started with a smattering of Republican lawmakers advancing legislation focused on transgender girls’ participation in school sports. And it was accelerated by a few influential Republican governors who seized on the issue early.

But it was also the result of careful planning by national conservative organizations to harness the emotion around gender politics. With gender norms shifting and a sharp rise in the number of young people identifying as transgender, conservative groups spotted an opening in a debate that was gaining attention.

I’ll freely admit to being unable to fully grasp the shift from gender being a binary construct to being viewed as a spectrum. I was raised in a historical period when gender was very definitely binary. You were male or female, either/or, and there were no questions about where you fit. Younger generations have changed that conversation- and that’s a good thing. It doesn’t mean I’ve fully adapted, but I think the greater acceptance of a more comprehensive view of gender identity is a net positive.

I don’t claim to understand how it all fits together, but then I don’t have to. All I need is to be able to accept people where they are. It’s not my place to pass judgment. If someone tells me that they’re A, I don’t know to understand or even accept the particulars. I only need to accept them for who they are.

That seems to be a bridge too far for many White Conservative Christian heterosexual patriots to process.

“It’s a sense of urgency,” said Matt Sharp, the senior counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom, an organization that has provided strategic and legal counsel to state lawmakers as they push through legislation on transgender rights. The issue, he argued, is “what can we do to protect the children?”

Mr. Schilling said the issue had driven in thousands of new donors to the American Principles Project, most of them making small contributions.

The appeal played on the same resentments and cultural schisms that have animated Mr. Trump’s political movement: invocations against so-called “wokeness,” skepticism about science, parental discontent with public schools after the Covid-19 pandemic shutdowns and anti-elitism.

Indeed, the issue wasn’t “[W]hat can we do to protect the children?” That was the label the American Taliban cynically put on it to maximize donations. After trying out several issues, they landed on transgender identity. It’s not that .4776% of the population poses any threat to the broader population. There’s no way a demographic that small could even pose a danger to themselves, much less Christians and their children.

And yet, if you listen to the messaging from the American Taliban, there are hordes of transgender activists just over yonder ridgeline. They’re salivating over the opportunity to force your precious snowflakes to transition.

As ridiculous as that sounds, it’s essentially the argument being made to White Conservative Christian heterosexual Americans. “Transgender activists are after your children, and without your money, we won’t be able to stop them.”

A fool and his money are soon parted….

Nadine Smith, the executive director of Equality Florida, a group that fights discrimination against L.G.B.T.Q. people, said there was a direct line from the right’s focus on transgender children to other issues it has seized on in the name of “parents’ rights” — such as banning books and curriculums that teach about racism.

“In many ways, the trans sports ban was the test balloon in terms of how they can frame these things,” she said. “Once they opened that parents’ rights frame, they began to use it everywhere.”

None of these issues, from transgender identity to “parents’ rights,” are based on legitimate, identifiable problems. Instead, they’re all relatively minor issues that have been seized upon for their emotional appeal and inflated for their ability to attract donations and press coverage, which attract more subsidies.

Whether it’s transgender identity, book banning, “parents’ rights,” or critical race theory, they’re illusions. They don’t exist, at least not in the form the American Taliban would have us believe.

Transgender identity is not exploding nationwide, and activists aren’t forcing children to transition. And children aren’t transitioning because it’s “fashionable.” Transitioning is emotionally wrenching, time-consuming, and physically painful. It’s not for dilettantes.

School districts are banning books because they’re afraid of ideas. They’re worried that children will learn to think critically about things that schools and parents won’t be able to control. And that terrifies them.

“Parents’ rights” is a smoke screen. Parents always have the choice of sending their children to private school or homeschooling them. If they send their child to public school, they agree to an educational system designed to meet the needs of society and all children. That’s why they’re called “public” schools. Parents shouldn’t be able to determine what parts of the curriculum are or aren’t “appropriate.”

Critical race theory is a catch-all for those afraid that little Johnny will learn that White people did some bad things to Black people throughout American history. Guess what? They did, and they should know that. History and accountability shouldn’t be comfortable.

Critical race theory isn’t taught in most cases until graduate school, and certainly not in elementary, middle, or high schools.

For now, the legislation has advanced almost exclusively in Republican-controlled states: Those same policies have drawn strong opposition from Democrats who have applauded the increased visibility of transgender people — in government, corporations and Hollywood — and policies protecting transgender youths.

The 2024 presidential election appears poised to provide a national test of the reach of this issue. The two leading Republican presidential contenders, Mr. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who has not officially declared a bid, have aggressively supported measures curtailing transgender rights.

None of this has anything to do with protecting children. Instead, it’s about politics, power, and money. “Protecting children” is the buzzword used to raise money and create the facade for political campaigns.

It’s as cynical as the day is long, but then that’s Right-wing politics. No real surprise there, eh? The problem with this state of affairs is that it’s challenging to address and resolve legitimate issues when one side is so heavily invested in creating and fundraising off fake, wholly illegitimate issues.

I would argue that there are issues surrounding transgender identity, but they’re not what the American Taliban have led us to believe. Instead, they’re issues requiring love and compassion.

We have thousands of transgender teenagers struggling with mental health issues as they deal with the transition process and lack of acceptance from people in their lives. We should create infrastructure to assist them with their medical and mental health needs.

Given that we’re talking about .4776% of the population, the investment required, relatively speaking, wouldn’t be a significant outlay. But if it prevents teen suicides and helps to ease mental health issues in general, that would seem a worthwhile investment.

Of course, for the American Taliban, love and compassion are never worthy investments.

Those are best left to losers and Liberals.