This is more a comment for a BV open thread, but I think Lisa’s framing of this being the imposition of a religion is the best approach to start to break people free from this. I think we should increasingly push the word “Evangelical” on this group, because it is such a third rail term for the group that now is forcing The Gender Cult on everyone but 20 years ago was ironically convinced the whole country was going to become Jesus Camp.
Should it be an open question around what people see as the most effective language in breaking through with people? There’s a component that’s around how effective an argument is, but maybe it would be good (and fun) to bat around language that’s really more geared towards branding. (I think, for instance, the term Woke Right is very effective.)
Open question could be: what do people see as the most effective terms we can be using to break through to people on this topic when talking and writing about it?
Democrats who think they need a special law protecting gender identity need to go back and read the Bostock decision. "An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex." It's sex discrimination, pure and simple.
There is no need for a new law, and the Biden administration didn't need to complicate matters by decreeing that "sex" includes sexual orientation and gender identity. If they had just quietly taken the win, maybe we wouldn't now have Trump 2.0.
But people who are believers don't think it is a Belief System.
Slogans? Liberals for Sex-based Reality? No, that isn't catchy.
We need a lot more independent candidates to run outside of the two party system.
The Democrats are as wedded to transqueer, as TQ is to LGBTQI. To most people, it's a monolith.
Money runs the election, as Leor Sapir says in his X thread 3/4/25:
"To the extent Democratic politicians understand this problem, they have another "good" reason to not be too concerned. Although most Democratic voters agree with female-only sports policy, the issue ranks lower on their list of priorities. For many, it's little more than symbolic, showing the overall credibility of a candidate/incumbent. But credibility is relative, and Democratic voters are always comparing their (imperfect) representatives to the leading figures in the opposing party. As long as Democratic voters view those figures as less credible or more ominous, they won't punish their own party representatives at the polls.
Are there exceptions to the rule? Sure. Some Democratic voters do place trans issues high on their list of priorities and have jumped ship. But most don't, and haven't.
If you want Democrats to back away from gender extremism, find a way to mitigate or bypass the influence of the NGO/donor networks that make up the backbone of the party's power. Paradoxically, this would require strengthening the party as an institution: supporting systems of candidate-centered patronage, undoing campaign finance reforms that strengthened NGOs at the expense of parties, making the primary system less open (i.e., less "democratic" and with more smoke-filled-rooms), and so on.
This is just further proof (as if any were needed) that the Democrats are completely mind-controlled by the transqueer cult.
The solution is NOT to try to talk to them, or to try to come up with clever slogans that might get them to see reason. Anything like that has zero chance of breaking the transqueer mind control.
The only solution is to work as hard as possible to GET THEM OUT OF OFFICE, EVERY SINGLE ONE, and replace them with Republicans, from local school board to US Sentate.
And then to make absolutely positively sure that the Republicans keep the Presidency in 2028.
As a registered Democrat for half a century, it pains me to say all that. But the evidence is overwhelming that it is all true.
I think the cleverly more accurate name for the bill isn't to persuade those pushing the faulty legislation; it's to catch the attention of the passionately uninformed onlookers . . .
I think there are green shoots among the rising generations of non-Republicans in the form of young and ambitious politicians who are itching to replace the old guard in the Democratic party, like Jonah Wheeler (see interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ujq8PtL-aJA ). And time is on the side of the young. Also the fact that this is an 80/20 issue with the general public will not escape the notice of the up-and-coming politicians who will most certainly use this to differentiate themselves from the "out of touch elitist" incumbents with their hoary old "luxury beliefs." The process may move too slow for those of us who have become over-acquainted with the zealots on the front lines, perhaps . . . change certainly won't come soon enough to save me and mine. But the lunacy cannot last forever . . . perhaps the grandchildren of my peers will read about that era in the past when "Trans Hysteria" took over for awhile, just as I remember hearing about "the Red Scare."
There are 3,210 Democrats in state legislatures across the country, and exactly one is speaking out on our side. Another who did last year, Shawn Nicole Thierry in Texas, was primaried by a transqueer candidate and lost her seat. Those "green shoots" are being weed-whacked by the transqueer-controlled Democratic Party as soon as they appear.
I'm sorry to be so negative, but I am convinced (by the overwhelming evidence) that the only meaningful short-to-intermediate-term action is to elect as many Republicans as possible to as many offices as possible, which is what I will be spending my time and effort on.
I'm frustrated and overwhelmed most days too. We all gotta act on what we can see. So I honor that your opinion is based on a perspective I maybe can't share at the moment. But I believe you and I both want to see an end to this great evil. Showing Democrats the door, by means of voting in Republicans who demonstrate sense on this issue will certainly help.
But I guess what I'm trying to point out is that can't be the only tactic. Parties have a habit of taking constituencies who have nowhere else to go for granted, so we need a sane opposition party at some point to keep the dominant party in line. Our system has always run on progressives versus conservatives, each countering the excesses of the other (that whole "loyal opposition" thing), right? So the reform of the Democratic party has to happen, or something new has to take its place. We're just the very beginning of that process.
I can tell you that a lot of rank and file Democrats you and I had never heard of until now are starting to organize themselves (like https://www.di-ag.org/ ) into new institutions that will shift things. Find one (Themis is another worth checking out https://themisresourcefund.org/ - It's just full of Democrats.) and volunteer your time to help them grow.
I've just spent an hour talking with a person who's been traveling all over the country, helping organize lobbying efforts, supporting a growing list of detransitioners suing the quacks who misled them, etc. There is grunt work to be done. We can't sit back and wait for the incumbents to change their minds, we need to get them replaced. Find some competent, energetic and dedicated nobodies starting these organizations and offer your help.
Thanks for a clear argument for why "gender identity" doesn't belong in the same category of immutable categories such as sex or phenotype. How do we get that message out there?
"If I were good at snappy slogans, I could have gone into advertising." LOL!
Maybe there's a place for "gender presentation" when discussing anti discrimination laws? It's obviously not an immutable characteristic, but it is akin to something like religious affiliation.
Trans ideology movement will always overstep. It's intrinsic to who they are. While there's a narrative about "the nice ones," no one knows their behavior behind closed doors. The fact that their therapists suggest, cajole and coerce wives in suddenly untenable marriages to "try out" pretending to be male in order to keep husband from doing his fetish in public tells us exactly how demanding and narcissistic behavior is sanctioned in the movement. For reference, the link to Behind the Looking Glass at Lime Soda Films YouTube channel, the documentary on 18 trans widows and the daughter of an AGP father, now with 168,000 views:
How about calling it Democrat Kryptonite, because its mere presence in the vicinity of Democrats seeking elective office can weaken or even destroy any hope for success.
This is more a comment for a BV open thread, but I think Lisa’s framing of this being the imposition of a religion is the best approach to start to break people free from this. I think we should increasingly push the word “Evangelical” on this group, because it is such a third rail term for the group that now is forcing The Gender Cult on everyone but 20 years ago was ironically convinced the whole country was going to become Jesus Camp.
What should the prompt be on the open thread? I'll do it Thursday!
Should it be an open question around what people see as the most effective language in breaking through with people? There’s a component that’s around how effective an argument is, but maybe it would be good (and fun) to bat around language that’s really more geared towards branding. (I think, for instance, the term Woke Right is very effective.)
Open question could be: what do people see as the most effective terms we can be using to break through to people on this topic when talking and writing about it?
Thank you for considering it, Lisa.
Democrats who think they need a special law protecting gender identity need to go back and read the Bostock decision. "An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex." It's sex discrimination, pure and simple.
There is no need for a new law, and the Biden administration didn't need to complicate matters by decreeing that "sex" includes sexual orientation and gender identity. If they had just quietly taken the win, maybe we wouldn't now have Trump 2.0.
Gender identities constitute a Belief System.
But people who are believers don't think it is a Belief System.
Slogans? Liberals for Sex-based Reality? No, that isn't catchy.
We need a lot more independent candidates to run outside of the two party system.
The Democrats are as wedded to transqueer, as TQ is to LGBTQI. To most people, it's a monolith.
Money runs the election, as Leor Sapir says in his X thread 3/4/25:
"To the extent Democratic politicians understand this problem, they have another "good" reason to not be too concerned. Although most Democratic voters agree with female-only sports policy, the issue ranks lower on their list of priorities. For many, it's little more than symbolic, showing the overall credibility of a candidate/incumbent. But credibility is relative, and Democratic voters are always comparing their (imperfect) representatives to the leading figures in the opposing party. As long as Democratic voters view those figures as less credible or more ominous, they won't punish their own party representatives at the polls.
Are there exceptions to the rule? Sure. Some Democratic voters do place trans issues high on their list of priorities and have jumped ship. But most don't, and haven't.
If you want Democrats to back away from gender extremism, find a way to mitigate or bypass the influence of the NGO/donor networks that make up the backbone of the party's power. Paradoxically, this would require strengthening the party as an institution: supporting systems of candidate-centered patronage, undoing campaign finance reforms that strengthened NGOs at the expense of parties, making the primary system less open (i.e., less "democratic" and with more smoke-filled-rooms), and so on.
But good luck with that."
Such a well argued and well written piece. I think you are wrong though. You are pretty good at pithy catch phrases. I liked Women's Inequality Act.
This is just further proof (as if any were needed) that the Democrats are completely mind-controlled by the transqueer cult.
The solution is NOT to try to talk to them, or to try to come up with clever slogans that might get them to see reason. Anything like that has zero chance of breaking the transqueer mind control.
The only solution is to work as hard as possible to GET THEM OUT OF OFFICE, EVERY SINGLE ONE, and replace them with Republicans, from local school board to US Sentate.
And then to make absolutely positively sure that the Republicans keep the Presidency in 2028.
As a registered Democrat for half a century, it pains me to say all that. But the evidence is overwhelming that it is all true.
I think the cleverly more accurate name for the bill isn't to persuade those pushing the faulty legislation; it's to catch the attention of the passionately uninformed onlookers . . .
And what do you want the passionately uninformed onlookers to do after they've been informed?
If it's anything other than "vote Republican", it won't change anything.
I think there are green shoots among the rising generations of non-Republicans in the form of young and ambitious politicians who are itching to replace the old guard in the Democratic party, like Jonah Wheeler (see interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ujq8PtL-aJA ). And time is on the side of the young. Also the fact that this is an 80/20 issue with the general public will not escape the notice of the up-and-coming politicians who will most certainly use this to differentiate themselves from the "out of touch elitist" incumbents with their hoary old "luxury beliefs." The process may move too slow for those of us who have become over-acquainted with the zealots on the front lines, perhaps . . . change certainly won't come soon enough to save me and mine. But the lunacy cannot last forever . . . perhaps the grandchildren of my peers will read about that era in the past when "Trans Hysteria" took over for awhile, just as I remember hearing about "the Red Scare."
There are 3,210 Democrats in state legislatures across the country, and exactly one is speaking out on our side. Another who did last year, Shawn Nicole Thierry in Texas, was primaried by a transqueer candidate and lost her seat. Those "green shoots" are being weed-whacked by the transqueer-controlled Democratic Party as soon as they appear.
I'm sorry to be so negative, but I am convinced (by the overwhelming evidence) that the only meaningful short-to-intermediate-term action is to elect as many Republicans as possible to as many offices as possible, which is what I will be spending my time and effort on.
I'm frustrated and overwhelmed most days too. We all gotta act on what we can see. So I honor that your opinion is based on a perspective I maybe can't share at the moment. But I believe you and I both want to see an end to this great evil. Showing Democrats the door, by means of voting in Republicans who demonstrate sense on this issue will certainly help.
But I guess what I'm trying to point out is that can't be the only tactic. Parties have a habit of taking constituencies who have nowhere else to go for granted, so we need a sane opposition party at some point to keep the dominant party in line. Our system has always run on progressives versus conservatives, each countering the excesses of the other (that whole "loyal opposition" thing), right? So the reform of the Democratic party has to happen, or something new has to take its place. We're just the very beginning of that process.
I can tell you that a lot of rank and file Democrats you and I had never heard of until now are starting to organize themselves (like https://www.di-ag.org/ ) into new institutions that will shift things. Find one (Themis is another worth checking out https://themisresourcefund.org/ - It's just full of Democrats.) and volunteer your time to help them grow.
I've just spent an hour talking with a person who's been traveling all over the country, helping organize lobbying efforts, supporting a growing list of detransitioners suing the quacks who misled them, etc. There is grunt work to be done. We can't sit back and wait for the incumbents to change their minds, we need to get them replaced. Find some competent, energetic and dedicated nobodies starting these organizations and offer your help.
Thanks for a clear argument for why "gender identity" doesn't belong in the same category of immutable categories such as sex or phenotype. How do we get that message out there?
"If I were good at snappy slogans, I could have gone into advertising." LOL!
I like "facts not feelings"--?
How about The Gender Woo Bill?
The (Undefined) Gender Identity Act
Stupid is as stupid does.
Maybe there's a place for "gender presentation" when discussing anti discrimination laws? It's obviously not an immutable characteristic, but it is akin to something like religious affiliation.
Trans ideology movement will always overstep. It's intrinsic to who they are. While there's a narrative about "the nice ones," no one knows their behavior behind closed doors. The fact that their therapists suggest, cajole and coerce wives in suddenly untenable marriages to "try out" pretending to be male in order to keep husband from doing his fetish in public tells us exactly how demanding and narcissistic behavior is sanctioned in the movement. For reference, the link to Behind the Looking Glass at Lime Soda Films YouTube channel, the documentary on 18 trans widows and the daughter of an AGP father, now with 168,000 views:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Frffv2sB8zE
How about calling it Democrat Kryptonite, because its mere presence in the vicinity of Democrats seeking elective office can weaken or even destroy any hope for success.