Why Gender Ideology Doesn’t Impress Me — Part 4
Are We Ready to Look At It and Talk About It?
This essay is Part 4 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, Part 2, and Part 3 if you missed them.
Here are a few more of the many reasons I’m not impressed with gender ideology.
Gender ideology is like a new religious cult
We see zealous teachers, counselors, medical professionals, and activists often consider themselves as saviors and use religious jargon like “gendered souls,” “save trans kids,” “God is trans,” and much more. Eliza Mondegreen describes it well: “Just like the cultist, who feels newly reborn after a divine encounter, so do those adolescents embarking on a gender-changing journey. They adopt a new name, become active in their new fellowship of believers, oppose apostates while proselytizing, and proudly do everything they can to distinguish themselves from the rest of an unbelieving world.”
Learn more about the concept of gender ideology’s similarity to religion in Ryan Heath’s essay, particularly in section 20.
Trans activists seem to think humans should be compared to clownfish
Pamela Garfield-Jaeger discussed the ridiculous connection trans activists make with clownfish in her article on Inspecting Gender entitled “Debating a Religion?” She writes, “They argue intersex conditions and clownfish prove multiple genders exist. They overlook that humans still only produce male or female gametes, regardless of rare birth defects. They also cite anomalies like clownfish and seahorses to bolster their case. Yet, despite which fish lays the eggs, these species remain male or female. Plus, trans activists forget a basic fact: humans aren’t fish.” I believe many people, like Pamela Garfield-Jaeger and me and perhaps you, are tired of the flimsy arguments presented by trans activists.
Gender ideology believers do not seem to value the truth
I’ve written about truth in my advocacy for truthful, factual birth certificates. And others have written about the need for truth as well. Kassandra Stockmann elaborates on this theme with her essay “Why the Truth Doesn’t Matter.” Stockmann nails it when she says, “The point is that right and wrong do not matter. Catering to and appeasing the trans activists is what matters. This situation is the maddening reality that we are up against whether we are in a family with someone who is trans identified, have a co-worker with a trans identified child, or are watching in horror as our political party bends over backwards for an illogical, radical group of people.” I’m assuming that Stockmann is a Democrat and is disappointed that her party cannot stand up to activist bullies.
She goes on to say, “When others bend over backwards to appease them they are considered good. When others stand up to them they are considered bad. This is why the rules are rigid, contradictory, and why they don’t make sense.” Indeed, the dictates of gender ideology don’t make sense, yet so many refuse to acknowledge the senselessness or to stand up to it. I understand that activist bullies often threaten those who say “Enough!” and “No!” with the loss of employment or cutting off an important relationship, and as a result, some people stay silent.
Stockmann has strong words describing the reality for many: “For someone who isn’t managing their anxiety, dysphoria or insecurities, right or wrong isn’t about the facts, it’s about whether or not someone is bending over backwards to appease them. And the more painful thing to accept is that those committed to enabling them aren’t concerned with the facts either. They are committed to keeping the radical happy. … What matters is whether or not the world is bending over to make them happy. That they aren’t actually getting better mentally is irrelevant. That people are being harmed is also irrelevant. Keeping them appeased is what matters. But eventually there is a reckoning to be had and a price to be paid, as we are learning the hard way.” And yes, we are in a period of reckoning, and the controversy is heating up.
Gender ideology codifies feelings over facts
It’s essential to understand what a woman is and that “woman” is not a feeling. In the Substack article, “It’s Time for the Real Women to Stand Up,” the author dismisses that a man can opt into womanhood based on feelings. She writes:
In today’s feminism, “women” is not a sex-based group – it's a feeling. Not only is it okay to erase everything we’ve fought for and hand it over to boys and men who now “identify” as female, it’s required and increasingly even mandated and codified in our legal systems.
Like many women, I am now asking, how can one say they feel like a woman when they’ve never actually been a woman? And more importantly, why is society so quick to affirm and accept young boys as identifying as girls?
It isn’t the dress that makes a woman. Or makeup. Or our painted nails. Or even our curves that appeared almost over-night at the onset of puberty. For anyone to suggest that that’s all being a woman is, well that’s just plain ignorant. Offensive. Or in today’s world, woke. It’s sending the wrong message to the world and most importantly, to our young girls. Girls and women can’t opt out of womanhood, and no one, similarly should be able to opt in to a protected class.
It is not helpful to our youth to affirm and celebrate their dissociation from their body and their sex. Enabling maladaptive behaviors is not love and support.
People often deflect hard truths in conversations or say, “I know a happy trans person”
When I mention the harms befalling children and young adults from the medicalization of drugs and surgical procedures, I often hear the comment from the person I’m talking to that they know someone who is happy as a trans-identifying person. Magical thinking and fantasy that one can change sexes might make a person happy for a time; I’m not going to argue with the state of happiness of that person they know. But I will ponder if their high at the moment is sustainable for years when their body starts to suffer from the adverse effects of turning their endocrine system upside down with cross-sex hormones. Will the constant pretending that they are someone they are not, and always trying to pass as the opposite sex, be fulfilling in the decades to come? Will they miss natural health and their natural bodies? Will they always feel authentic with the cosmetic changes they put themselves through?
More concerning is the empathy hijacking occurring with the person I am speaking with. It seems they cannot bear to hear about or see the harms of medicalizing kids for gender identities, so they deflect the conversation. For more, watch this YouTube video posted on Independent Women’s Forum: “Identity Crisis: The Detransitioner Taking on Planned Parenthood.”
Here’s the video description introduction: Cristina Hineman grew up in a happy, healthy, loving home. Though she knew by the age of 12 that she was attracted to other girls and experienced some confusion over this, she never experienced any discomfort with her female sex. But after enrolling in public school her freshman year and making friends with a social group, all of whom embraced “gender identities” different from their biological sex, Hineman’s life took a dramatic turn.
Will the public continue to deflect the hard truth behind how children and families are affected by trans ideology and medicalization, or will more people start caring about girls like Cristina? Should we continue to sacrifice more kids to this ideology? Shouldn’t we consider protecting kids from having healthy body parts and healthy reproductive organs removed during a time in their lives when maturity and critical thinking may not be developed enough to understand the long-term ramifications of such drastic measures? Is it good care to make them drug and medically dependent for life for gender confusion or gender identity ideation that may resolve if left alone or be helped if the root cause of their pain or reasons for fleeing from their natural bodies were addressed?
“Happy in the moment” seems to be overvalued by many, causing massive harm to children who aren’t mature enough to realize that their in-the-moment decisions will impact their bodies, relationships, and lives forever. Immediately give the kids the drugs and surgeries they demand because they might be happy with those drugs and surgeries! And don’t consider if their parents are devastated or that the family and community around the child have to collude with the falsehood that one can change their sex and must kowtow to the demand of pretending that the child is now the opposite sex. Life is all about happy and elusive euphoria-chasing. If the drugs start to cause problems and the surgery doesn’t work out that well, just take more drugs and have another surgery! Chase the promised happiness of the next procedure! Or blame the parents and non-affirmers because if everyone affirmed and believed in gender ideology and medicalization, then the person would be happy.
On Substack, HIPPIESQ’s Newsletter: “A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing: The most dangerous enemies masquerade as allies,” which says, “It is reprehensible to tell children their bodies are wrong and should be rejected, and to convince them not only to hate their bodies, but to actually agree to let doctors cut off body parts and disrupt their endocrine systems, in a vain effort to achieve greater happiness and peace of mind.”
“Happy” can be a false and fleeting god, and I and many others will continue to focus on protecting the natural body and health and returning our society to one of common sense.
I have great compassion for those in distress. We must address, treat, and help those in pain. I advocate for finding the real reason a child or young adult dissociates from one’s body and sex and helping them with that reason or causation. I’m a skeptic about the merits of “affirmation-only” and removing healthy body parts as a procedure that claims to save lives and provide good mental health care.
Trans activists seem to think men belong in women’s prisons
It seems that an activist agenda to put a man’s feelings above all safety or common sense even extends to prisons. Amie Ichikawa discusses new frontiers of violence against women in her submission to the United Nations on behalf of incarcerated women. It seems reasonable that “Women in prison deserve safety, dignity, and the opportunity to rehabilitate.” But to the trans activist, that consideration is ignored.
And if that article didn’t sway you to consider women in prison, perhaps this one will. Typically, the trans activists have swayed the Democratic party to allow men in women’s prisons. When will Democrats care about women again, or will they continue to pander to a few outspoken activists rather than support safety and fairness for women?
Trans activists took over the sensibilities and courage of the Democratic party
The only aspect of caring about women that I observe from the Democratic party is the advocacy for a safe solution to an unwanted pregnancy. There seems to be no concern about the growing number of vulnerable young girls or adults dissociating with their bodies and their sexes and proceeding to engage in surgical or chemical self-harm. And the party seems to endorse and encourage this trend and condemn parents who wish to protect their daughters and help them heal their distress. Parents who want to encourage their girls to love and accept themselves, develop adaptive coping mechanisms, and grow up to be healthy women and mothers should not be demonized and feel they must leave the party.
As I shared in a previous essay, a young Democrat finally stood up and advocated for women. I was hopeful that New Hampshire Democrat representative Jonah Wheeler would lead the reform of his party to care about women. Unfortunately, and ironically, he was accused of Jim Crow-style discrimination for standing up for women’s rights and keeping transgender “women” out of women’s restrooms and other spaces. In the article “Anger, Personal Attacks and Porn: Dem Wheeler Takes the Heat at LWV Event in Peterborough,” Wheeler explained that some biological women had approached him asking that he protect their spaces. “What was I supposed to do — ignore these women?” The article reported that Wheeler said he’s been getting angry calls, emails, text messages, and even death threats since he voted for the bill. “The moral line of the party that’s been drawn by the Democratic Party is why this party has atrophied so much in the last 25 years,” Wheeler said. My hope that Democrats can stand strong and return to common sense dissipates again as the party flogs anyone brave enough to stand up for women beyond abortion rights.
Everyone, including me, seems tired of this topic. Yet, are apathy and bending over constantly to appease a few people good directions for us to go? The activists probably want us to become too tired and demoralized to continue to speak up.
The choice is yours about where you will go from here. I hope you will choose truth, goodness, protection of children and vulnerable adults, and protection of women’s and parental rights. I hope you will open your eyes to what is really going on. Let me know what you see when you do. Perhaps you will become involved in an organization that calls to you or donate to them financially. Perhaps you will read and research and learn more. I offer a resource page to give you a place to dig in further.
And congratulations if you got to the end of this essay and read all four in this series. I appreciate your interest and support. Thank you.
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.
Another well-thought-out essay, Lisa, with very relevant samples from others' works. Here were some standouts:
About how silly the transmafia's arguments get, with their false equivalencies:
-"trans activists forget a basic fact: humans aren’t fish"
- it's all about "APPEASING THEM". Forget anyone else's feelings, or truth, for that matter. I bring this up during my monthly fights against the transmafia in the NYC schools...that we should NOT placate them. (Linked below)
-And....a "woman is NOT a feeling".
LINK to me saying do NOT placate this trans mob:
https://www.youtube.com/live/7blNYocj-cE?si=3KmGhBqne_-NEB1L&t=12785
Thanks for this series, Lisa. I've got my own series on gender as religion coming out on the Genspect Substack shortly. Plot spoiler: the sources of the sex cult religion go all the way back to Plato, brought to us by Gnostics, heretical Protestants, mystical frauds and Jungian psychotherapy. The Gnostic is a disciple of their own mind, and so the reality which the rest of us inhabit doesn't concern them at all.
Regarding your point "The only aspect of caring about women that I observe from the Democratic party is the advocacy for a safe solution to an unwanted pregnancy", is it likely that this is a genuine anomaly, or is this 'caring' performative?
What if progressives have other reasons for supporting widespread abortion access which have nothing to do with women? For example, men's right to cause unwanted pregnancy without being held accountable socially or financially? Or limiting the number of 'outside' children with a claim on inheritance or social security?
From my point of view, as a man living in a country with de facto abortion on demand, which is virtually free of charge to the patient, I would suffer fewer financial consequences from causing a hundred unwanted pregnancies that ended in abortion than I would from parking one car in an unauthorised place. From this, I conclude that the men who make the rules really care about their parking spaces.