I sometimes wonder if the original activists who fought for gay rights ever regret adding transgenders to the brew. As a journalist, in the 2000s, I covered the electoral movement for gay marriage, and found its organizers to be savvy political minds who were channeling the Civil Rights movement in their quest for equality. Marriage meant acceptance into the rites of civilization. They were smart, patient, successful.
I remember when then-Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter Mary came out as a lesbian, and moved to the Virginia suburbs with her wife Heather Poe. The gay rights movement had its poster girls: gay Americans wanted what everyone else did — they just wanted to move to a nice home, live out the American dream, maybe even raise children. They were just like us, only gay, and that was hidden, none of our business.
Public opinion turned toward them faster than anyone could have been imagined, as state after state approved gay marriages, which had the ancillary effect of saving the marriage industry from heterosexual indifference. And when the Supreme Court, in 2015, ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment — due process and equal protection — guaranteed same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual ones, it sped public acceptance even further. Uncork the champagne, another victory for human rights.
But now, with the advent of the transgenderism cult, public opinion seems to be turning not only against the depravity of drag show queens and pornographic books in school libraries but against gay marriage. Consider these recent developments:
The American Values Atlas survey, produced annually by the Public Religion Research Institute, found that support for homosexual marriage declined slightly — down from 69% in 2022 to 67% in 2023 — the first downtick since 2015. And among young people 18-29, support for gay marriage dropped from 79% in 2018 to 71% in 2023. Most Americans — 60% — oppose a small business owner’s right to refuse service to homosexuals when it violates his or her religious beliefs. But this is a five-point decline from 2022 when 65% said the same. As for the young, opposition to small business owners who refuse to bake gay wedding cakes is still strong — at 64% — but that is down from 70% in 2022. Maybe it’s too early to declare these headwinds, but it is worth contemplating whether transgender excesses — like the transgender influencer who flashed bare breasts at a White House event and claimed his dog is trans — are turning off voters.
In Huntington Beach, California, the city commission decided to ban the flying of the Pride Flag during Gay Pride Month last year. After backlash from gay activists, the city sent the matter to voters. This month voters approved an amendment to the city’s charter restricting the kinds of flags that can be displayed in city buildings — limiting them to government flags. This seems a tacit admission that the public square belongs to all, that gay rights has become a divisive, fringe cause, and that a quiet majority is now willing to say so.
In Ireland, a majority Catholic country that in 2018 approved abortion, voters recently defeated two government proposals — first, to update the meaning of the word ‘family’ in the Irish Constitution, then to alter the constitution’s reference to a woman’s ‘duties’ in the home. Proponents said these foundational principles needed to be changed because they were either (pick your epithet) sexist or homophobic. Voters delivered a stunning blow to these Woke establishment voices — 67% voted No to redefining family, 74% voted No on a woman’s duties.
In Nassau County, NY, County Executive Bruce Blakeman banned biological male athletes from competing on girl’s teams at county facilities, citing their unfair physical advantage. At his side was Caitlyn Jenner, who won an Olympic gold medal in the decathlon as Bruce Jenner in 1976 and transitioned to Caitlyn in 2015. “It's amazing how much flack I get and all I'm trying to do is protect women,” said Jenner. “You have to compete in the biological sex that you were born. This is critical to protecting the integrity of competition in women's sports.” No one understands that better than Riley Gaines, who lost a swimming match to muscle-bulging Lia Thomas. In a class action lawsuit, she and other female athletes are suing the NCAA for inviting biological males into women’s sports. Title IX — enacted in 1972 and ushering in a golden age of women’s sports — calls for a level playing field. Now, said Gaines, “The dam is bursting.”
In Europe, some countries are putting the brake on transgendering. In Britain, the National Health Service — hardly a bastion of conservatism, as it offers universal healthcare — has banned use of puberty blockers. Dr Hilary Cass, the former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health who led a review of the practice, warned the drugs may permanently disrupt brain maturation, potentially rewiring neural circuits in a way that cannot be reversed, and said there was a lack of long-term evidence and data collection on their safety and effectiveness.
In America, the Woke Left and its allies in the mendacious media, seeking to signal their human rights virtues, are doubling down. School boards are putting pornography in school libraries and inviting drag queen to read books to kids, disturbing the innocence that once protected children. When parents protest these policies, they are arrested or referred to the FBI as terrorists. Some local jurisdictions are removing children from the homes of parents who object to encouraging vulnerable teens to undergo mutilating surgeries that are irreversible.
The glimmer of light here is that brave souls, parents and activists, are standing up against the cult. Moms for Liberty — selectively edited by CBS’ 60 Minutes when its officers tried to read the books they think inappropriate for children — and Gays Against Groomers — often suspended by Meta’s Instagram for material deemed “anti-LGBT” — are defamed by media propagandists. And yet they stand. And grow.
The other hope is that Americans no longer trust the media to tell the truth. I was struck by two recent events that suggest the media can still rant, but they no longer dominate the news narrative. True, what they say is broadcast widely, their talking points repeated across a thousand podiums in Washington DC every day. But as the saying goes, if a tree falls in a forest with no one there to hear it, the noise is irrelevant.
At the Supreme Court Monday, in oral arguments on whether the Biden Administration crossed a constitutional line in working with Social Media companies to censor speech, I listened (the court’s live audio feed is here) as Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson argued the First Amendment “hamstrings" government in its ability to protect Americans from misinformation. This was shocking to anyone who has read the history of our Constitution. The First Amendment was enacted for precisely the opposite reason — to protect the free speech of Americans from their government. She was blistered on Twitter, and I suppose it’s thanks to Elon Musk that his platform is now an actual public square, where issues are debated with passion.
That same day a group of public health activists stood outside on the Supreme Court’s steps, for the case in question — Murthy v Missouri — was mostly about how Biden and the Social Media giants squashed critics of COVID policies. At the Rally to Reclaim Free Speech, Dr. Paul Marik — once chair of pulmonary and critical care at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, VA, until he was canceled and forced to resign — said: “The federal government lied to you. The agencies lied to you. They lied to you about everything about COVID. What they told you was false. We know the six-foot rule was a lie. Social isolation was a lie. The lockdowns were a lie. The vaccines were not safe and effective.” Dr. Pierre Kory — also defamed on Social Media for advocating off-label meds like Ivermectin to treat COVID — added, “Be skeptical of what they say. Question everything!”
Wouldn’t Socrates say the same thing? Or has he been canceled too?
Great article, Johanna.
The site "Libs of Tin toc" produced by a very brave young woman reveals the insanity of these Marxists. And make no mistake, they are coming for your children.