The New York Times Admits Maybe the Trans Movement Overstepped
Its lengthy investigative report still toes the Rainbow Mafia’s lines, but the underlying premise is the reluctant understanding that the movement has become too extreme.
The New York Times published a lengthy piece yesterday titled “How the Transgender Rights Movement Bet on the Supreme Court and Lost.” Investigative reporter Nicholas Confessore must’ve worked on the article for some time before Wednesday’s big ruling, though he purports to tell “the inside story of the case that could set the movement back a generation.”
The usual and well-deserved reaction is to dismiss anything the Times reports, but the story does stumble into a few seeds of self-awareness, which is remarkably rare for the Left.
Confessore certainly approaches the story about “transgender rights” from a left-wing perspective. That’s reflected in his subtitle, which suggests that the movement faces an unfortunate setback. Translation: They’re not going to stop because their cause is righteous. They just need better messaging.
He starts on the wrong foot, relaying the story of the American Civil Liberties Union’s lawyers, who argued and lost the United States v. Skrmetti case before the Supreme Court. More specifically, Confessore reports that the ACLU crowed about its lead attorney, the aptly named Chase Strangio, being “the first openly transgender lawyer to argue before the court.” The identity politics mattered as much, if not more than, the particulars of the case. Clearly, Strangio hoped to prove to the justices that “transgender” people exist, which would somehow dazzle them into agreeing with the Left’s agenda.
Other left-wing attorneys and Rainbow Mafia advocates worried about this approach from the outset of the case.
The Times moves on to lament Donald Trump’s mission “to eradicate” “transgender rights,” characterizing his move to ban mentally ill people from military service as saying “their very identity is a dishonorable lie.” No, to call gender dysphoria and sexual fetishes an identity is the dishonorable — and delusional — lie.
Confessore laments the Supreme Court defeat while celebrating past success: “What makes the defeat all the more striking is the remarkable string of victories the broader L.G.B.T.Q. movement was winning until a few years ago. Tailoring its message to reach skeptical audiences, careful to ride near the crest of shifting public sentiment, it pursued incremental legal and regulatory wins that, ultimately, sparked deep social change.”
Yes, the sexual revolution that began in the 1960s has largely succeeded in its marketing. Yet the reality is that the gender cult went too far — its unfairness in sports, grooming of children, and the fundamental grossness of obsession with genitals has turned off many Americans.
The Times report is at least aware of this, even if the underlying theme is a lament that it happened.
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Indeed, the central premise of the Rainbow Mafia is that they are the victims rather than, well, the mafia. “I didn’t pick this fight around trans rights,” the Times quotes ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero as saying. “The right-wing conservatives of the MAGA G.O.P. have made this one of their cause célèbre issues as a way to kind of scapegoat individuals, as a way to score cheap political points.”
Wrong. Leftists started the culture wars, and they don’t get to play the victims now.
Fortunately, the rest of the Times article largely backs up that thesis, not Romero’s assertion of victimitis. Numerous anecdotes in the article essentially communicate that, yes, the gender warriors went too far. “The L.G.B.T.Q. movement drove itself toward a cliff — and took the Democratic Party with it,” Confessore writes. That’s not victimization.
Speaking of cliffs, he quotes Strangio as saying something so strange I find it hard to believe it’s a real quote: “A penis is not a male body part. It’s just an unusual body part for a woman.”
Gee, it’s no wonder this movement hasn’t quite convinced everyone.
The Times article gets to another area where the cult was too extreme — the assertion that preventing bodily mutilation would provoke suicide. When the Tennessee law went to the Supreme Court, Strangio admitted to the justices, “There is no evidence that this treatment reduces completed suicide.” Yet doctors and gender cultists hold suicide as a threat over the heads of parents who reject “treatment” for their children. Do you want a living daughter or a dead son? parents are asked.
In fact, Joe Biden’s administration added a special federal suicide prevention hotline unique to “LGBTQ” callers. According to another New York Times article, the hotline was “based on a recognition that gay and transgender people experience distinct mental health issues — often driven by family rejection and societal discrimination — and have disproportionately high suicide rates.” The reason such folks may have higher suicide rates is that they suffer from mental illness, and few people in their lives are equipped to help them handle it correctly. Suicide after “affirming” care happens frequently, too. You just don’t hear about it.
The Trump administration this week discontinued the hotline, effective July 17, stating that callers can use the general hotline instead.
“Gender-affirming care” is the upside-down euphemism leftists use for hormone manipulation and surgery to remove perfectly healthy body parts. To affirm gender would be to avoid these things in favor of treating the mental condition that supposedly necessitates them.
I suspect most people understand that the Left’s euphemism doesn’t fit. Many detransitioners, like Chloe Cole, testify to the backward nature of the movement and its terminology.
The first step toward real healing for the people who struggle with gender dysphoria is speaking truthfully about biology and reality. Here’s hoping that losing court cases and a few introspective Leftmedia articles will help jumpstart that process.
