I very much appreciate the substance of the piece, and understand you were writing for a certain audience, but I have to mirror some of the other comments and say that I REALLY hate for this to be framed as a "conservative" issue. It is not. 90% of people agree with you. It should have nothing whatsoever to do with right versus left or democrat versus republican. It is science and common sense versus fantasy.
My fear is that there are MANY liberals and democrats who hate this stuff, but they also do NOT want to be associated in any manner with conservatives or Republicans. They are already terrified to speak up -- if this gets painted as an issue solely for right-wing religious fundamentalist crazies, they will become even more cowed. I appreciate you teaching conservatives how to tell themselves come off as common sense rather than like right-wing religious fundamentalist crazies, but we need this issue to simply be framed as NOT at all about right versus left and rather as something that unites all practical people. This country is far too polarized to allow one party to capture the issue, and the more people think of it as a conservative position, the more it will send liberals who are truly concerned about medical exploitation and trans madness into hiding.
I appreciate your intentions here, but disagree that the radical trans-activist agenda is the province of "the Left" and that those opposing it are "conservatives," which you identify with by using "we" throughout this essay. There are some of us on the Left -- the real Left, genuine socialists and feminists -- who are fighting this nonsense too. The Georgia Green Party was recently disaffiliated from the Green Party of the United States for standing up for women's sex-based rights. I resigned from the Illinois Green Party in protest and others are fighting back in various ways and are in the process of building a new Green Alliance for Sex-Based Rights. There are various feminist groups that are furiously resisting this agenda as well that would hardly identify as conservative. I realize that you are writing for the Washington Examiner here but please do not tar "the" Left with the same broad brush. Genuine Leftists are materialists and recognize biological reality. The "Left" that supports the trans-activist agenda consists of liberals, neo-liberals and faux "Leftists" who are simply posturing as "radical" without grasping what is really needed to build social progress.
The genie is out of the bottle with public and private schools, and the media, encouraging and sowing confusion for our children. Therapists are seeing an explosion of cases with children presenting this way and internet searches for parents almost exclusively say to affirm. It's insane considering 0.2% of the world's population is actually transgender, yet clinics are seeing a 4000% increase in cases, mostly young girls. What steps can be taken to reverse the policies in place? Speaking out only gets you labeled as transphobic. That is false. I'm a lifelong Democrat yet am planning to vote Republican to stand with fellow parents who are dealing with what can only be described as a serious mental health crisis with our kids.
I agree with Abigail. The anti-woke movement needs to become more strategic, and the way to do that is to focus on standing up for biological women.
A biological girl on testosterone who uses the boy's bathroom is the wrong battle to fight. But a ninth grade biological girl who gets raped and sodomized by a biological boy who sneaked into the girl's bathroom while wearing a dress is the kind of violent sexual crime that makes everyone's blood boil. If Abigail could interview the girl or her father, I think it would have a tremendous impact.
I'm a straight woman, but I feel it's vitally important to stand up for lesbians who are now being coerced into having sex with biological men with intact penises who claim to be "transgender lesbians." The men threaten to expose the women as "transphobes."
And how can anyone's heart not break for the women inmates in California's prisons who are now forced to share their jail cells with violent biological men who have gamed the system by claiming to be "transgender" despite having intact penises. These women, most of whom are in for nonviolent offenses like shoplifting, have been beaten raped and impregnated by their cellmates. And if they complain, they are labeled as "transphobic," and their sentences are lengthened. Perhaps Abigail could interview one of these unfortunate women after she's released.
What kind of sick, sordid Black Mirror world have we entered? I grow sick to my stomach just thinking about it.
Thank you Abigail for speaking up about this madness. I too, thought this would never come knocking on my door. Until my teenage daughter one day declared in a letter that she is non binary, cut her hair off, and asked to be called he/they/ them. I am a life long democrat who always supported the right for all people to live as they wish. However, the social breakdown sponsored by the democrats is something I can no longer support. It is now in my backyard. Keep up the great work Abigail! Your book was sad but I loved it the truth shall prevail.
I'm about as (sane) a liberal as they come. I have never identified myself as a conservative nor a republican. I have never even voted Republican, though I did vote independent, green, and even libertarian. I guess, in a way it is people like me that can be partially blamed for what's happening. I'm sure a lot of us were blindsided by other, what at the time seemed like more.. Umm.. Important issues.
I have been trans "ally" and I guess I still am but I cannot be an ally to the insanity that's going on in trans "movement"
I don't see this as a right vs left issue. Or a Democrat vs Republican issue. I see it as a fantasy vs reality issue. Pseudoscience vs science issue. Common sense vs dogma issue.
What has been most rewarding, about joining a grassroots organization to fight this ideology, is connecting with women across the political spectrum. It has been enlightening to listen to what brought each woman into our group. We bond over our rejection of the authoritarian and anti-truth mantra that trans women are women. It is heartening to connect with women (in lieu of twitter ranting) and discuss our perspectives. I am thankful for this. We will continue to fight the dogma of Canada's Bill C16 and the supposed (anti-woman) Human Rights Code that was produced by these ideologues. Thanks for what you do Abigail.
Ms. Shrier's call-to-arms banner "WE MUST WIN THE GENDER WAR" is a wimpy way to go about winning. In fact, the real war we are fighting is not about an ambiguous thing called gender. Using the opponent’s words will never win this war. Why not instead go for the jugular under the unambiguous banner “WE MUST DEFEAT SEX-CHANGE BELIEF.”
... all of which suggests the whole "bathroom debate" may not be entirely trivial, and that conservatives may well have a point!
That said, the narrow restriction of the much larger gender war to the "bathroom debate" has indeed been counterproductive (both tactically and morally).
Boys and men DO care about females in the bathroom with them, especially in middle school and high school. But also as adults. (I know 2 men who have told me how uncomfortable they are with the sudden opening of their men's rooms to women who are pretending to be men.) Moreover sacrificing the boys, paves the way for sacrificing the girls. Once you've said, Fine, we'll ignore the truth here (i.e. that this person calling herself HE is a she), you can't insist on it over here (where a boy is calling himself she.)
Also, as a left-wing person, I want to point out that there are tons of us on the left who see what's being done under the banner of the Left as unacceptable. It contradicts everything we stand for. I've been enjoying working with conservative people on these issues. We all see some way forward that unites us as working people..... The oligarchs have been calling the shots for eons, pitting so-called Left against so-called Right, but on many vital issues, working people can and must unite.
There has to be a way to support truly gender dysphoric individuals without asking every young child to think deeply about whether they are a boy or a girl. Young children don't need to be thinking about this. I can't believe this is the liberal response to conversion therapy. And therapists and pediatricians should absolutely be questioning this harmful fad and screaming about it from every rooftop.
The term "biological female" is redundant. Females are female because of their biology. Male and female are sexed categories. Please stop using the gobbledygook language of the Woke. There are only 2 sexes, male or female. "Trans" is not a sex. "Trans" is either a persona, a body dissociative disorder, or the cry-bully arm of the ca$h cow "sex/gender reassignment" industry. No drugs or surgeries can "reassign" a little boy's body into a "girl" body or vice versa, therefore no child can "trans" to the sex they are not. "Gender reassigned" children just means life-long, sterilized, medical patient. Our sex is stamped on every cell in our bodies. The Woke have made the word - gender, meaningless. #SexNotGender
Magnificent! You're exactly right: we conservatives always fight on the left's turf and so we lose every battle. Surely it's common sense on both sides that surgery and drugs that cause irreversible damage shouldn't be the immediate response to a gender-confused teenager, and yet the far-left is winning.
We are going to end up with a generation of non-cis children who have been castrated and/or sterilized. If you tried to impose these medical treatments as punishment they would be condemned as crimes against humanity.
Recent events in Loudoun County, Virginia, will change this debate. Scott Smith, a parent of a high school girl, was arrested June 22, 2021, at a school board meeting. It turns out he was there to ask the board what they were doing about his daughter being raped in the girls bathroom by a boy in a dress in May. This arrest was cited in the letter to Attorney General Garland, which lead Garland to call on the FBI to investigate unhappy parents as domestic terrorists.
In the meeting that Smith was arrested at, the school board said there were no incidents connected with their transgender policy. The alleged rapist was quitely transferred to another school, where he allegedly raped another girl in October.
Smith's arrest was designed to cover up the story. I can't think of anything that will inflame parents more than this story.
I very much appreciate the substance of the piece, and understand you were writing for a certain audience, but I have to mirror some of the other comments and say that I REALLY hate for this to be framed as a "conservative" issue. It is not. 90% of people agree with you. It should have nothing whatsoever to do with right versus left or democrat versus republican. It is science and common sense versus fantasy.
My fear is that there are MANY liberals and democrats who hate this stuff, but they also do NOT want to be associated in any manner with conservatives or Republicans. They are already terrified to speak up -- if this gets painted as an issue solely for right-wing religious fundamentalist crazies, they will become even more cowed. I appreciate you teaching conservatives how to tell themselves come off as common sense rather than like right-wing religious fundamentalist crazies, but we need this issue to simply be framed as NOT at all about right versus left and rather as something that unites all practical people. This country is far too polarized to allow one party to capture the issue, and the more people think of it as a conservative position, the more it will send liberals who are truly concerned about medical exploitation and trans madness into hiding.
I appreciate your intentions here, but disagree that the radical trans-activist agenda is the province of "the Left" and that those opposing it are "conservatives," which you identify with by using "we" throughout this essay. There are some of us on the Left -- the real Left, genuine socialists and feminists -- who are fighting this nonsense too. The Georgia Green Party was recently disaffiliated from the Green Party of the United States for standing up for women's sex-based rights. I resigned from the Illinois Green Party in protest and others are fighting back in various ways and are in the process of building a new Green Alliance for Sex-Based Rights. There are various feminist groups that are furiously resisting this agenda as well that would hardly identify as conservative. I realize that you are writing for the Washington Examiner here but please do not tar "the" Left with the same broad brush. Genuine Leftists are materialists and recognize biological reality. The "Left" that supports the trans-activist agenda consists of liberals, neo-liberals and faux "Leftists" who are simply posturing as "radical" without grasping what is really needed to build social progress.
The genie is out of the bottle with public and private schools, and the media, encouraging and sowing confusion for our children. Therapists are seeing an explosion of cases with children presenting this way and internet searches for parents almost exclusively say to affirm. It's insane considering 0.2% of the world's population is actually transgender, yet clinics are seeing a 4000% increase in cases, mostly young girls. What steps can be taken to reverse the policies in place? Speaking out only gets you labeled as transphobic. That is false. I'm a lifelong Democrat yet am planning to vote Republican to stand with fellow parents who are dealing with what can only be described as a serious mental health crisis with our kids.
Arguably sensible.
But now we have one, maybe two, bathroom rapes by a "trans" male of a teenage girl.
Maybe we need to stop coddling this nonsense.
A society becomes insane when it lacks the gumption to enforce sane behavior.
I agree with Abigail. The anti-woke movement needs to become more strategic, and the way to do that is to focus on standing up for biological women.
A biological girl on testosterone who uses the boy's bathroom is the wrong battle to fight. But a ninth grade biological girl who gets raped and sodomized by a biological boy who sneaked into the girl's bathroom while wearing a dress is the kind of violent sexual crime that makes everyone's blood boil. If Abigail could interview the girl or her father, I think it would have a tremendous impact.
I'm a straight woman, but I feel it's vitally important to stand up for lesbians who are now being coerced into having sex with biological men with intact penises who claim to be "transgender lesbians." The men threaten to expose the women as "transphobes."
And how can anyone's heart not break for the women inmates in California's prisons who are now forced to share their jail cells with violent biological men who have gamed the system by claiming to be "transgender" despite having intact penises. These women, most of whom are in for nonviolent offenses like shoplifting, have been beaten raped and impregnated by their cellmates. And if they complain, they are labeled as "transphobic," and their sentences are lengthened. Perhaps Abigail could interview one of these unfortunate women after she's released.
What kind of sick, sordid Black Mirror world have we entered? I grow sick to my stomach just thinking about it.
Thank you Abigail for speaking up about this madness. I too, thought this would never come knocking on my door. Until my teenage daughter one day declared in a letter that she is non binary, cut her hair off, and asked to be called he/they/ them. I am a life long democrat who always supported the right for all people to live as they wish. However, the social breakdown sponsored by the democrats is something I can no longer support. It is now in my backyard. Keep up the great work Abigail! Your book was sad but I loved it the truth shall prevail.
I'm about as (sane) a liberal as they come. I have never identified myself as a conservative nor a republican. I have never even voted Republican, though I did vote independent, green, and even libertarian. I guess, in a way it is people like me that can be partially blamed for what's happening. I'm sure a lot of us were blindsided by other, what at the time seemed like more.. Umm.. Important issues.
I have been trans "ally" and I guess I still am but I cannot be an ally to the insanity that's going on in trans "movement"
I don't see this as a right vs left issue. Or a Democrat vs Republican issue. I see it as a fantasy vs reality issue. Pseudoscience vs science issue. Common sense vs dogma issue.
What has been most rewarding, about joining a grassroots organization to fight this ideology, is connecting with women across the political spectrum. It has been enlightening to listen to what brought each woman into our group. We bond over our rejection of the authoritarian and anti-truth mantra that trans women are women. It is heartening to connect with women (in lieu of twitter ranting) and discuss our perspectives. I am thankful for this. We will continue to fight the dogma of Canada's Bill C16 and the supposed (anti-woman) Human Rights Code that was produced by these ideologues. Thanks for what you do Abigail.
Ms. Shrier's call-to-arms banner "WE MUST WIN THE GENDER WAR" is a wimpy way to go about winning. In fact, the real war we are fighting is not about an ambiguous thing called gender. Using the opponent’s words will never win this war. Why not instead go for the jugular under the unambiguous banner “WE MUST DEFEAT SEX-CHANGE BELIEF.”
Coincidentally, just today some rather shocking news has come out of Loudon County ....
See here: https://thepostmillennial.com/loudon-county-school-sexual-assault?utm_campaign=64470
https://www.dailywire.com/news/loudoun-county-schools-tried-to-conceal-sexual-assault-against-daughter-in-bathroom-father-says
... all of which suggests the whole "bathroom debate" may not be entirely trivial, and that conservatives may well have a point!
That said, the narrow restriction of the much larger gender war to the "bathroom debate" has indeed been counterproductive (both tactically and morally).
Boys and men DO care about females in the bathroom with them, especially in middle school and high school. But also as adults. (I know 2 men who have told me how uncomfortable they are with the sudden opening of their men's rooms to women who are pretending to be men.) Moreover sacrificing the boys, paves the way for sacrificing the girls. Once you've said, Fine, we'll ignore the truth here (i.e. that this person calling herself HE is a she), you can't insist on it over here (where a boy is calling himself she.)
Also, as a left-wing person, I want to point out that there are tons of us on the left who see what's being done under the banner of the Left as unacceptable. It contradicts everything we stand for. I've been enjoying working with conservative people on these issues. We all see some way forward that unites us as working people..... The oligarchs have been calling the shots for eons, pitting so-called Left against so-called Right, but on many vital issues, working people can and must unite.
There has to be a way to support truly gender dysphoric individuals without asking every young child to think deeply about whether they are a boy or a girl. Young children don't need to be thinking about this. I can't believe this is the liberal response to conversion therapy. And therapists and pediatricians should absolutely be questioning this harmful fad and screaming about it from every rooftop.
The term "biological female" is redundant. Females are female because of their biology. Male and female are sexed categories. Please stop using the gobbledygook language of the Woke. There are only 2 sexes, male or female. "Trans" is not a sex. "Trans" is either a persona, a body dissociative disorder, or the cry-bully arm of the ca$h cow "sex/gender reassignment" industry. No drugs or surgeries can "reassign" a little boy's body into a "girl" body or vice versa, therefore no child can "trans" to the sex they are not. "Gender reassigned" children just means life-long, sterilized, medical patient. Our sex is stamped on every cell in our bodies. The Woke have made the word - gender, meaningless. #SexNotGender
Magnificent! You're exactly right: we conservatives always fight on the left's turf and so we lose every battle. Surely it's common sense on both sides that surgery and drugs that cause irreversible damage shouldn't be the immediate response to a gender-confused teenager, and yet the far-left is winning.
We are going to end up with a generation of non-cis children who have been castrated and/or sterilized. If you tried to impose these medical treatments as punishment they would be condemned as crimes against humanity.
Recent events in Loudoun County, Virginia, will change this debate. Scott Smith, a parent of a high school girl, was arrested June 22, 2021, at a school board meeting. It turns out he was there to ask the board what they were doing about his daughter being raped in the girls bathroom by a boy in a dress in May. This arrest was cited in the letter to Attorney General Garland, which lead Garland to call on the FBI to investigate unhappy parents as domestic terrorists.
In the meeting that Smith was arrested at, the school board said there were no incidents connected with their transgender policy. The alleged rapist was quitely transferred to another school, where he allegedly raped another girl in October.
Smith's arrest was designed to cover up the story. I can't think of anything that will inflame parents more than this story.