Why Gender Ideology Doesn’t Impress Me — Part 2
Are We Ready to Look At It and Talk About It?
This essay is Part 2 of a collection of reasons I’m not impressed (a massive understatement) with gender ideology. In some sections, I provide links to my previous essays; in others, I point to articles by other writers. It is time for an open discussion focused on common sense and then a political unification for course correction away from an ideology that has gone too far. (Read Part 1 if you missed it.)
Here are a few more of the many reasons I’m not impressed with gender ideology:
Gender ideology degrades women and mothers
I am an adult human female and mother. I am not an inseminated person, a birthing body, a child bearer, a cisgender menstruating individual, a bleeder and breeder, a vagina/front hole/bonus hole owner, a uterus or ovary haver, a non-prostate owner, or a human milk or chest feeder. I am unimpressed by an ideology that pushes these words and descriptions to replace females, women, and mothers.
Ingrid Jacques wrote an opinion piece entitled “‘Inseminated person’ vs. ‘mother’? Dems keep proving they’ve lost common sense: What’s going on in Wisconsin is worth drawing attention to because it’s part of a bigger trend among progressives to undermine traditional family values.”
How much longer will women and mothers be degraded with disrespectful adjectives and have the degradation endorsed by institutions as acceptable?
Gender ideology has inappropriately attached itself to the LGB community
It has all gotten a bit confusing, but for clarity’s sake, “trans” is not the new gay. Although not all “trans”-identifying kids are same-sex attracted, many are. “Trans” is rapidly becoming the new homophobia, which transes away gay kids. Furthermore, TQ+ jumped on the coattails of the LGB community and is now destroying the rights and progress the LGB community has made. Cross-sex hormones may make homophobic parents feel like they can trans away their gay kids, or the hormones may seem to allow gay kids who have internalized homophobia to try and trans their gayness away—or a combination of both. So we are losing our gay youth to the new homophobia that pretends to be aligned with the LGB community.
Listen to Jamie Reed, a whistleblower, describe the transing of kids. She discusses how the protocol is itself homophobic. She recently admitted she had once been an “absolute true believer.” In her previous employment, she helped guide hospitals, courts, and institutions to adopt a “gender affirming care” model. She talked about her paradigm shift: “The first and most damning revelation was the deep-seated homophobia at the heart of gender medicine. The overwhelming majority of the children being fast-tracked into transition weren’t ‘gender dysphoric’ in any historical sense. They were same-sex attracted.”
Reed adds, “The so-called progressive movement that claims to support LGBT youth has, in reality, created a system that medicalizes them for failing to conform to gender stereotypes. A feminine boy, a masculine girl—their ‘treatment’ isn’t self-acceptance. It’s lifelong medicalization.”
How much longer will we allow unchecked homophobia to continue?
Gender ideology is cultish
Many people see how the ideology tries to control information, thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Once immersion in the ideology is solidified, those in it act hurt and betrayed if others do not accept and affirm their “true” selves. Those who do not adopt the compelled speech of the ideology are called transphobic/bigoted, unsafe, unloving/hateful, toxic, abusive, or many other derogatory labels. Once those enmeshed in the ideology find they cannot bully, emotionally blackmail, and convert someone, they deem that person as the enemy. The “enemy” is also anyone who dares to question them. Questions upset and hurt those who are part of the ideology and are not accepted or tolerated. They even use the hashtag #nodebate on their posts.
Those inside the cultish ideology become elitist, and therefore, members need special protections and extraordinary concessions because they believe they are marginalized victims. When their demands are not met, or if they hear the word “no,” they distribute misinformation about suicide and try to make others cower in fear that they will kill themselves if they don’t get what they want. Some are willing to take their own lives as a political statement, with the motto “death before detransition.” Or they tell others that a “trans genocide” is occurring and anyone who does not believe in gender ideology wants them to suffer.
The focus seems to be only on themselves and their unending demands upon everyone they encounter, and they ignore the wide ripple effects of their behavior on others. The ideology often becomes the member’s entire life and identity.
One does not have to declare they have a “trans” identity to join in on the cultish behavior. Plenty of people in ideologically captured places, such as some schools, medical organizations, courts, and political offices, are happy to join in and intimidate, bully, cancel, and make life as miserable as possible for those who are unwilling to go along with the dictates of the ideology. Many have written about the cultish behavior of gender identities, such as this post on PITT, “The Cult of Gender Ideology: Psychological Manipulation and Social Control,” and also an article by Jason, “Are You, or Your Children, in a Cult and Don’t Know It?”
How much longer will cultish behavior be tolerated and endorsed? Our kids deserve better protection.
Gender ideology promotes men and boys entering women’s and girls’ organizations and spaces, collapsing safety boundaries
LeAnne Owen and the LGB Courage Coalition articulate the human rights violations perpetrated by those who push gender ideology. In their article “Womanhood is a Reality, Not a Feeling,” they say the teachings of this ideology become clear. “Asking women to forgo their safety, privacy, and dignity in the name of ‘inclusivity’ is not progressive—it’s regressive. It prioritizes male feelings over female rights and dismisses the very real reasons why these spaces exist. Women are not obligated to sacrifice their boundaries or accept male intrusion into their lives simply because someone claims to ‘feel’ like a woman. Erasing sex-based rights and denying biological reality is a profound injustice. Women are not a feeling, a costume, or a stereotype. To deny our biology is an affront to our humanity, and asking us to compromise our safety in the name of someone else’s identity is nothing less than a human rights violation.”
In addition, Amy Sousa shares examples in her article “Trans Entitlement & Sex-Based Violence in Our Schools.” She wrote, “Under the banner of ‘gender identity’ kids who claim trans identities are told that they are entitled to constant affirmation, validation, and inclusion for their opposite-sex identities. They are told that any failure by others to affirm, validate, and include them based on their claimed identity is equal to hate.” … “When boys are taught they are entitled to violate girls’ boundaries when it comes to their privacy in intimate spaces, it teaches them to practice predatory and abusive behavior. And when girls are taught by teachers and school boards that their boundaries around their bodies don’t matter, it teaches them that there is no one to turn to to help them uphold their boundaries. It teaches them to dissociate and deny their own discomfort in order to emotionally support boys. This is the opposite of healthy bodily autonomy, authority, and boundaries. This creates a vulnerability to future predation. This teaches them to accept abuse and become the caretaker of their abuser.”
Sousa goes on to say, “The way these values are taught under the banner of gender identity ideology, affirmation, validation, and inclusion amount to forced positivity. Forced positivity is a manipulation tactic that gives the illusion of a moral good that is beyond question. It implies an unspoken allusion that the person who does not comply with these things is morally bad. It is an attempt to coerce the person who is taught the doctrine to disregard their own intuition and instincts. The doctrine teaches that if they want to be a good person, they must comply rather than speak up on their own behalf.” … “When boys are told that all they need do to become a girl is simply declare words and change clothes, this reduces girls to nothing but a concept and style of dressing rather than human beings with unique physical needs that require tending. To reduce girls to whatever it is that boys think about girls is to begin to dehumanize the girls.”
She adds, “It teaches boys to objectify and commodify girls as things they can purchase: clothes, makeup, hormones, and plastic surgery. Girls cease to be human beings for these boys because girls are simply a collection of parts that can be purchased, put on, and owned.”
How much longer will we allow girls to grow up with no boundaries for their protection?
Is it good for our future generation of girls and women to lose their spaces and collapse their boundaries? Who is behind this motivation, and why is it being taught?
Gender ideology destroys fairness in women’s sports
I’m politically independent, but I am disappointed to watch the Democratic party alienate so many of their following due to their dedication to keeping boys and men competing in girls’ and women’s sports instead of being concerned about the fairness of sports. It might behoove Dems to shift their focus to create an open division for athletes to compete in if they do not identify with their biological sex. Still, sadly, the party continues to demand that boys and men take positions, medals/trophies, and scholarships/sponsorships away from girls and women. Seeing a girl’s goals and dreams shatter as a political party constantly says she has no value and doesn’t deserve fairness in competition has pushed many Americans further and further away from respecting Democrats who have disconnected from common sense, care, and protection for girls and women.
Valerie Hudson posted, “Perspective: Democrats will long pay the price for their position on women’s sports,” and asks: “Eighty percent of Americans oppose biological males on women’s teams. So why have Democrats chosen to die on this hill?” How much longer will Democrats disrespect women and women’s sports fairness?
Gender ideology does not value the truth and facts of vital records
Those who believe in gender ideology seem to think it’s okay to rewrite history and do not believe in preserving accurate historical records. Truthful, factual birth certificates are important to maintain, and we have lost these records due to revisions based on feelings. The ideology affects the whole extended family, including grandparents, and it disrespects the ancestry of generations, alive and deceased. Furthermore, when a child is named after a grandparent, and the child rejects the name and changes the birth certificate, it not only disrespects the child’s grandparents and parents but also dishonors truthful ancestral records. Do people realize that we have lost the ability to keep accurate historical records due to an ideology that does not value the facts of biology and what occurred on the day of the birth?
Gender ideology may once have started with good intentions, although some debate that premise. But whatever was behind the start of it, gender ideology and the practice of medicalizing children and vulnerable adults have become a destructive agenda with tentacles in most aspects of society.
Readers, does this ideology impress you? If not, let’s get busy, address these issues, and return to common sense, comprehensive care, and compassion for all.
Watch for Part 3 of “Why Gender Ideology Doesn’t Impress Me.”
Lisa Shultz advocates for parents’ and women’s rights. She is deeply concerned about the influence of gender identity ideology and the lack of comprehensive, ethical care for children and vulnerable adults.
"I am not an inseminated person, a birthing body, a child bearer, a cisgender menstruating individual, a bleeder and breeder, a vagina/front hole/bonus hole owner, a uterus or ovary haver, a non-prostate owner, or a human milk or chest feeder."
All of those dehumanizing euphemisms were cooked up by and for women who identify as men or as nonbinary. Just so you know who to blame.
Thanks, Lisa. Another great essay.
I especially agree with this comment about the trans-identified: "The focus seems to be only on themselves". I have started to really think these individuals are strikingly selfish. There are so many actual causes they could involve themselves in, but they are (mostly) so self-absorbed that they won't touch any of them.
And I know many have traumatic backgrounds, whether or actual or perceived, but they are ALSO largely selfish, babyish people who are harming a lot of other people in their unknowing service to the medical-pharma industry's propaganda.
I wrote a reply to one of your commentators below, if you want to read it.