I'm Asking "What Now?" Who Should Answer?
Teeing up the "Going foward" committee
One of the best book edit suggestions I received was to include a section on what I’d like to see going forward. For years, I’ve been talking up a Gender Reconciliation Commission—a bipartisan, multidisciplinary group that would manage to secure records from gender clinics; listen to a multitude of different and conflicting constituents; and try to piece together what happened and what should happen now. Kind of a like the 9/11 Commission. (If this ever happens, please let me be on it!)
Writing up my best-case scenario injected into my writing (and my mind) some optimism and hope, which has been in short supply on my end. That’s not because there hasn’t been some progress in exposing the lack of evidence to support youth gender medicine, or because we haven’t made some progress in law and policy. Rather, it’s because we’ve had to sacrifice national security and America’s standing in the world just to budge on gender identity. And because, instead of modifying, some parts of the Democratic party are going full-DSA radical, which is the opposite of where I wanted them to head: toward Normieland.
While Supreme Court decisions will outlast this administration, the Executive Orders might expire with the next one. And because the deinstitutionalization of gender identity, and shutting down of pediatric clinics, happened during Trump’s reign, many liberals and lefties cannot absorb the reality that those changes are positive. There is more to be done long-term: in schools, psychology, medicine, the law, and our culture generally. There is work to do to repair families that have been torn apart by the unofficial rules of gender-affirming care, which insist on each person pledging fealty to the idea of gender identity in order to stay connected. There is work to be done to reopen minds, to make liberals liberal again.
I’m going to begin a series of discussions with different stakeholders about “What now?” I’ve got a few lined up, but I want to know from readers which voices you’d like to hear.
Please leave suggestions and requests in the comments, as well as anything else you’d like me to investigate and share. Comments are open.
Include older people. Those of us who actually created the gay rights organizations that have been hijacked by gender ideology know how to work with a coalition of diverse communities to address an issue. We recognize when compromise is warranted and when it isn’t. We worked across the aisle with conservatives to achieve equality.
Talk with Jonah Wheeler, NH Democratic State Representative (he is running for reelection).
https://jonahwheeler.com/