The idea that progressive activist media outlets could support biological men competing in women’s sports while also pushing transgenderism among children and then blame the backlash on conservatives would sound absurd to sane folks. Yet, that is precisely what they are trying to do.
The New York Times published a cute little ditty on Sunday intimating that it is social conservatives who are responsible for driving the vitriolic transgender debate into the national spotlight. It was probably one of the most brazen examples of gaslighting that we have seen so far this year. But, as always, there is a huge problem with the article’s premise.
Authors Adam Nagourney and Jeremy W. Peters wrote the piece, titled “How a Campaign Against Transgender Rights Mobilized Conservatives,” in which they opine on the current debate over transgender ideology occurring in political discourse. They argue that Republicans and conservatives jumped on this issue due to the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision allowing gay marriage.
“When the Supreme Court declared a constitutional right to same-sex marriage nearly eight years ago, social conservatives were set adrift,” the article begins. “The ruling stripped them of an issue they had used to galvanize rank-and-file supporters and big donors.”
According to the authors, the ruling left Republicans “searching for a cause” that “would rally the base and raise the movement’s profile on the national stage.”
The article goes on to explain that “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.”
Later in the piece, the article details how 20 red states passed legislation addressing sports, the transitioning of minors, and gender-related instruction in public schools. The authors intimate that this was part of some overall scheme to use transgenderism to appeal to the conservative base.
“But it was also the result of careful planning by national conservative organizations to harness the emotion around gender politics,” they wrote. “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.”
The authors go on to highlight former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is expected to seek the presidency in 2024, as the prime culprits of this supposed effort to infringe on transgender rights. The article looks at polling from the Pew Research Center finding that 58 percent of participants supported the idea that athletes should compete in sports that align with their biological sex and suggests this data is an impetus behind the conservative backlash to progressive gender ideology.
There are a few things wrong with this article. For starters, the authors continually claim Republicans are trying to violate the rights of transgender individuals. However, like most of their ilk, they don’t quite outline exactly which rights are being violated. Which rights do everyday Americans have that transgenders don’t?
Perhaps they believe biological men should have the right to occupy women’s spaces as long as they identify as transgender? They have been trying to persuade – or shame – people into accepting the idea that biological males competing in women’s sports should be a right protected by the law. If this is the “rights” to which the authors are referring, then they should go back to the drawing board.
Why should the rights of biological women be violated to accommodate men suffering from gender dysphoria? Why should a female athlete like Riley Gaines be deprived of her accomplishments from sports because she has to compete with a biological male like Lia Thomas, who clearly has a physical advantage?
The other problem with the authors’ arguments is more obvious. They insist that conservatives are the ones who blew up the transgender issue because of same-sex marriage. But the reality is that nobody cared about transgenders until progressives began pushing to have biological males in women’s spaces and foisting their brand of gender identity on children in classrooms.
It is the latter issue that has made this such a hotly-debated topic. It wasn’t enough for progressives to try shoving their pronoun-infused ideas down our throats when it came to accepting those dealing with gender dysphoria. They messed up when they decided that it was appropriate to use government-run schools to indoctrinate children into this orthodoxy. When it became apparent that public schools were helping young kids transition to the opposite sex without their parents’ knowledge and consent, what the hell did these people think was going to happen?
What is even more telling is how the authors are projecting. After the Supreme Court decision allowing for same-sex marriage, it was they who needed another “marginalized” group to pretend to champion. It was a way for them to galvanize Democrats and paint their opposition as bigots. Can anyone remember Democrats and progressives in the media pushing for men to compete in women’s sports before the court’s ruling?
Didn’t think so, which tells us all we need to know about this silly argument, does it not?
