Nkechi Amare Diallo is back in the news. Nkechi who? One suspects only the most avid followers of the progressive movement’s labyrinthine efforts to alter the meaning of reality itself would be aware that Diallo was formerly known as Rachel Dolezal, the former NAACP chapter head who decided to “identify” as black, despite being born to Caucasian parents.

Perhaps no other human being better reveals the monumental dishonesty of progressives who embrace the “standard” of self-identification — but only as they define it.

Thus, while these self-professed enlightened thinkers champion the idea one can simply declare to be a member of one sex “trapped” in the body of another — utterly irrespective of chromosomal reality — they thoroughly reject the notion that the same standard can be applied to “trans-racialism.”

The result? People like Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner are trumpeted as courageous pioneers and rewarded with both a Vanity Fair cover photo and Glamour Magazine’s “Woman of the Year” award — while Dolezal/Diallo remains a full-blown pariah. A pariah the UK Guardian describes as “jobless, and feeding her family with food stamps.” The paper further notes that Diallo “has applied for more than 100 jobs, but no one will hire her, not even to stack supermarket shelves.”

Progressive reaction to Diallo’s trans-racialist self-declaration? “African American commentators called her a ‘blackface,’ guilty of the worst extremes of cultural appropriation,” the Guardian explains. “She was ‘mentally ill,’ and had cheated black people out of positions that were rightfully theirs.”

Those would be the same progressives who utterly reject the possibility that gender dysphoria, which forms the basis of transgenderism, is also a mental illness.

As for the appropriation of positions that “rightfully” belong to others, we turn to Texas, where female high school wrestler Mack Beggs finished the season 54-0. That impressive record is belied by the reality that Beggs has been taking testosterone since 2015, a steroid prohibited for use in professional sports, but one she needs to transition into the male she wants to be. Texas Education Code and University Interscholastic League rules also prohibit steroid use, but there is a “safe harbor” provision allowing steroids to be “dispensed, prescribed, delivered and administered by a medical practitioner for a valid medical purpose.”

Valid medical purpose? “Testosterone therapy can have significant physical and emotional side effects,” reports Livestrong. “Mood swings and increased anger are frequently reported. Because testosterone is metabolized by the liver, regular blood tests for liver function are important. The ovaries cease estrogen production in the presence of testosterone, so osteoporosis is a risk.”

Engendering such wholly avoidable risks in children is apparently viewed as reasonable among progressives and their enablers in the medical community. Scott Summerall, spokesman for the GENECIS clinic at the Children’s Medical Center in Dallas, insists that administering life-changing, cross-sex hormones at around age 16 is in line with industry practice.

Not exactly. In 2013, Boston Children’s Hospital endocrinologist Norman Spack revealed that his idea of industry practice "is to prevent pubertal progression in the first place.“ Thus he advocated "biological clock-stopping drugs" for boys as young as 12 and girls as young as 10, lest the immutability of testicular development and breast development, respectively, make it harder to transition.

Such treatment flies in the face extensive data collated by Dr. James Cantor revealing "60-90% of trans-kids turn out no longer to be trans by adulthood” — meaning the medical community is proceeding with these transitions even when they know a substantial to overwhelming majority of the subjects themselves will ultimately reject them.

Valid medicine? Deplorable politics is more like it.

In fairness, Beggs wanted to wrestle against boys, but the Texas public school district superintendents had less “modern” ideas. In 2016 they voted 586-32 in favor of requiring state officials to refer to a student athlete’s gender as the one listed on his or her birth certificate. Thus Beggs was forced to compete against other girls, even as the steroids she was taking engendered the “imminent threat of bodily harm” to the girls competing against her, as attorney Jim Baudhuin, the parent of a wrestler on an opposing team, argued in a lawsuit filed against the University Interscholastic League (UIL).

Yet even Baudhuin has waffled. He amended his lawsuit, asking the UIL to reform its gender policies so they align with those of the NCAA, where athletes transitioning from female to male and taking testosterone can compete on men’s teams, but not women’s teams.

Meanwhile, Beggs now claims she is “holding back” on her testosterone doses because “I don’t cheat.”

Others suggest transgender athletes be given the opportunity to change their gender designation on their birth certificate. In Texas that requires a court order, and many judges are reticent to grant one.

Missing from the debate? It is apparently “transphobic” to suggest would-be high school athletes choose between competing or transitioning. The problematic alternative? Several girl wrestlers wondered why they can’t take steroids — to become more competitive.

Who will tip the scales one way or the other? Bet on the Left’s feminist constituency, smart enough to see shrinking opportunities for biologically female athletes. Athletes who eschew steroids to hold their own against self-identified competitors. 

They have an uphill climb. “I want to know if you’re a man or a woman. I’m a scientist. How do I find out?” Fox News’ Tucker Carlson asked DNC senior advisor Zac Petkanas in recent interview. “One’s gender identity is enough to show what gender they are, and so if you’re confused about that then I leave that to your level of enlightenment,” Petkanas initially condescended. Pressed further by Carlson, Petkanas revealed the essence of what this debate is really about, declaring, “Your gender identity determines your gender, period.”

But not your race. Diallo has written “In Full Color,” a memoir to “open up this dialogue about race and identity, and to just encourage people to be exactly who they are.”

Nonsense. Like her fellow progressives, Diallo is advocating that people be exactly who they want to be, irrespective of reality.

So why do those same progressives despise Diallo even as they man the ramparts for transgenderism? Because nothing matters more than the acquisition and maintenance of power by any means necessary, even if those means include embracing diametrically opposed positions on the same subject.

Thus, as columnist Thomas Lifson points out, trans-racialism threatens “a huge racial grievance industry that keeps blacks voting at 90% levels for Democrat presidential candidates,” largely engendered by a spoils-system “of affirmative action, race-based government contracts, and racial intimidation of corporations and nonprofits,” while support for transgenderism enables the Left to “legitimize every permutation and combination of sexual activity, destroying biblically based norms.”

Again, it’s about power — period. And Americans must understand the Left’s insatiable appetite for it will not be limited to contemptible machinations surrounding race or gender.