This past May, videos of former Bachelorette star Josh Seiter started circulating on social media after he shared an open letter with his nearly one million fans. In the letter, he revealed his plans to start living his life as a woman. As this particular life choice is known to attract positive attention these days, he quickly surged in popularity online, earning unwavering support and protection from the “LGBTQIA community.”

On this supposed journey, he shared regular videos of himself offering input on stereotypically feminine topics, like applying makeup and working through the challenges of modern dating. All of his commentary was filtered through the lens of what seemed to be the true belief that he was a woman and, therefore, had an unquestionable understanding of some of the trials that come with womanhood.

However, after months of true dedication to this new version of himself, after endless footage of his feminine outfits and his conversations with his many supporters about hormones and women’s rights, Seiter joined Blaze TV host Alex Stein to share an October surprise of his own:

The whole time, he was faking his identity as a trans woman.

Seiter’s explanation for the ruse was to “expose how gullible and delusional the left is.” Societal acceptance is ridiculous, he says. “Just because you put on dresses and makeup as a man doesn’t magically make you a woman.” As for the push for everyone to accept, he said, “Don’t make your fetish my truth.”

For years, we’ve watched these destructive ideas permeate all levels of society with alarming intensity. Today, it’s normal to walk into an elementary school classroom and see several reading options about picking your gender as a normal part of growing up — and with a blue-haired teacher ready to correct the suggestion that being born a boy or a girl is the natural order of things.

Many businesses have caved to the demands of the trans community, showing their allyship by displaying “inclusive” bathroom signs and using pronouns in the signature lines of their company emails.

In the highest levels of government, there are men in women’s clothes — like HHS Assistant Secretary Rachel Levine, and former Energy Department staffer Sam Brinton, whose gig was terminated due to his penchant for stealing people’s luggage.

Based on the energy and enthusiasm behind the notion that gender is fluid and disconnected from our biology, you’d think that the evidence to back it up would be solid and impenetrable. However, Seiter’s spontaneous social experiment is just one more reminder of how flimsy and nonsensical these concepts are — and, therefore, how dangerous their long-term consequences are.

Further into the interview, Seiter accurately pointed to the faulty nature of the research that has been used to justify this nonsense. He corroborated what many of us have been saying for years about the flimsy requirements for “changing” your gender. Seiter’s assessment is simple: “The medical guidelines and scientific literature make it clear that trans individuals don’t have to have gender dysphoria, don’t have to transition, don’t have to take hormones, get surgery, or alter their appearance in any way to be trans.”

Just how feeble the scholarly standards are was proven throughout Seiter’s time as a man pretending to be a woman. Despite being a 6'1" male with bulging muscles and tattoos (as we saw whenever he paraded around in bikinis and crop tops), Seiter’s “transition” was limited to superficial modifications like wearing women’s clothes and using cosmetics. Though he suggested at times that he was on hormone therapy and stated that he had the intention of eventually undergoing surgery, the surface-level adjustments were enough for him to be fully accepted as a female, to be referred to as a “she,” and to validate disappointment in the lack of support he was receiving from fellow women.

Of the absurdity, Seiter said, “The fact that millions of people are debating if I am a woman after living for 37 years as the man I am anatomically says all that needs to be said about how shallow the intellectual waters are that we are wading in with the trans movement and gender ideology.”

While Seiter’s experiment has shed one more light on the ludicrous gender movement, the other message is that, alarmingly, it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between authenticity and fakery in today’s upside-down world. Behavior that would have once landed Seiter in a straitjacket is now regarded as normal and even praiseworthy. And this speaks to our abandonment of truth and our devaluation of reality.

Josh Seiter may have taken one for the team, and we can all celebrate his return to a more suitable wardrobe — but it is undeniable that the pathway back to sensibility will be long and exhausting.