Mick Hartley

An article from Jamie Paul in Persuasion argues that the the trans movement – in America – moved too fast. People weren’t ready. Hence the current backlash:

In the span of three years, trans activism became not only the beneficiary of an infusion of cash and support from gay rights groups, but it was also handed a level of cultural and institutional power unprecedented for a movement barely out of its infancy.1 From 2018 to 2023, the trans movement held considerable sway in virtually every avenue of culture and information, from universities to government agencies to nonprofits, entertainment companies, streaming services, social media platforms, publishing houses, media outlets, major corporations, professional associations, and even K-12 schools. In 2014, trans issues were hardly a blip on the public’s radar. By the end of the decade, institutional America marched in lockstep with trans activism while the mainstream press covered its most contested edge cases as though they were settled issues.

The author, though, accepts the basic premise: that there is a trans issue to be addressed.

Somewhere in the multiverse, there’s an alternate timeline in which trans activism grew more slowly and steadily, pushed and pulled by the tidal tensions of democratic pressures, forcing it to smooth over the extreme edges, engage skeptics, and hear out the moderate, concerned, or dissenting voices within the community. There’s a world out there in which the trans movement followed in the footsteps of previous campaigns for human rights by building durable liberal progress. Sadly, that’s not how things played out in our timeline. But it’s never too late to, well, do better.

A response from John Connor:

Your basic thesis is that the backlash against trans came about because trans activists moved too fast and failed to put in the work.

I don’t see that. After the wins of Gay 1.0, the public was told, and believed, that Trans was just Gay 2.0. Initially, the public accepted it and did not make much fuss.

But over time, the public witnessed a growing presence of trans in their communities, and in volumes that had never in history been witnessed. Trans (Queer Theory) was being indoctrinated in schools and, worryingly, their children, who had never before displayed any remote interest in trans, where suddenly announcing, sometimes in groups, that they were wanting to take life altering hormones and slice off body parts.

What changed was that the public, who earlier lacked focus, began to pay attention. What they saw they did not like. Not only was what was being sold highly implausible, it had all the markings of a dangerous cult that had become embedded into every institution in society. The trans phenomenon turned from a voter side issue to, for many, the most important issue of our time. When Malcolm Gladwell says it is the singular issue of over 50% of voters, he is right.

What solidified it was that the public’s legitimate questions were met with accusations of transphobia, authoritarian efforts to muzzle speech, and politicians willing to take away the rights of women, children, parents, families, gays and lesbians. Trans activism has also sought to rewrite reality, science, medicine, language, and law. This has made the blowback even bigger and the stakes even higher. Trans ideology in society is now seen as a malignant cancer that must be excised in its entirety.

This blowback is not yet over. In fact, it is growing. The public was once willing to see trans as a civil rights issue. It no longer does. Trans is clearly a mental health issue.

Trans identities are not real; no one is actually trans. Trans identities are avatars. They are the creations of minds fleeing internalized homophobia, trauma, emotional pain, autism-related rigidities, identity cries, or social anxieties. The core belief—that one’s psychological gender does not match one’s biological sex—is no longer entertained as potentially true. It is utterly bonkers.

Gender dysphoria is a sort of cognitive dissonance created by excessive rumination on trans identities. It drives people to undertake harmful behaviours, such as the pathological desire to change one’s body.

Trans has infected society. It will only be cured when the gender affirming model is gone and people are treated for their actual pain.

There is still a long road ahead.

See also Arty Morty’s response.

This avoidance of the core, base-level problems with “trans” is a consistent problem I have seen, particularly and acutely in American liberal media circles. The specifically-American psychological concept of progressivism just cannot swallow the hard pill that transgender ideation is a mental disorder for which social awareness and enlightenment campaigns are not the appropriate tools to address it.