Commentary
Three utopian projects obsess the left: environmentalism, racism, and androgyny. Climate affects us all, racism affects millions of us, but genuine gender dysphoria is extremely rare. And yet the obsession of radical gender ideologues with de-sexing human beings, and the lengths to which its advocates are prepared to go—speech codes, science subversion, erasure of women’s sex-based rights, repudiation of parental rights in children’s health—has conferred the same importance and sense of urgency as that which surrounds climate and racism throughout the anglosphere.
But a string of rapid successes has bred over-confidence, which in turn has led gender ideologues to mistake temporary compliance for doctrinal acceptance. In their continually escalating demands for special entitlements, trans activists have poked the sleepy bear of tolerance too often. Unpleasant aggression has eroded sympathy for a nebulous cause. Reasonable concerns for women’s and children’s eroding rights are growing. Most important, fear of being labelled “transphobic” is receding, a sure sign that gender mania is losing steam….