IN-DEPTH: Tide Is Turning on Tolerance for Transgender Ideology
'People are sick of being pushed around and told they can't even ask questions,' said one commentator
Over the past few years, the transgender movement has pushed its way into every nook and cranny of American culture, and major institutions and authorities have tried to force all people to go along with it.
But now, the tide is turning.
It started quietly, with biological science and objective reality being given a backseat to internal feelings and chosen identity. To become a member of the opposite sex, all one needs to do is declare it to be so and others will be forced to acknowledge it is so.
Next came the reengineering of language. The word “sex,” which defines a man or a woman, has been replaced by the word “gender,” which can be anything.
Then came the new terms and pronouns.
To help people keep up with the growing list of terms and pronouns, Trans Student Educational Resources provides a tutorial, advising that “these are not the only pronouns” and that “there are an infinite number of pronouns as new ones emerge in our language.”
For those who struggle to differentiate and understand the new terms and pronouns, there’s an “LGBTQ+ Glossary” explaining all of the gender terms, acronyms, initialisms, and pronouns on their ever-evolving and expanding list.
Even the National Institutes of Health under the Department of Health and Human Services provides instruction and guidance on the proper use of “Gender Pronouns & Their Use in Workplace Communications,” warning that “intentional refusal to use someone’s correct pronouns is equivalent to harassment and a violation of one’s civil rights.”
Refusal to use a colleague’s preferred pronoun at work can result in punishment or termination.
Erasing Women
Then came the effort to erase womanhood itself.
Females are no longer “women.” Those promoting gender ideology cannot define the term “woman,” and women are instead referred to as “birthing people” or “people with uteruses.” There are also claims that “men can have periods” and “women have penises.”
Last year, a biological male named Brían Nguyen won the title of Miss Greater Derry in a local New Hampshire pageant that’s part of the Miss America organization, and another biological male, Dr. Rachel Levine, was named Woman of the Year by USA Today.
Sports Illustrated, a magazine known for featuring female models on the cover, recently included a transgender singer, who is a biological male, in its cover photos.
Men are also claiming titles, trophies, scholarships, and accolades in women’s sports.
Then there’s Fallon Fox, a man who identifies as a woman and became a mixed martial arts fighter. After knocking out two women in the ring and breaking one of their skulls, Fox boasted about how much Fox “enjoyed” it, calling it “bliss.” Fox was later named “the bravest athlete ever” and given the Pioneer Triumph Award by Out Sports.
A recent Gallup survey shows the vast majority of Americans believe transgender athletes “should only be allowed to compete on sports teams that conform with their birth gender.”
Targeting Youth
Then they came after children.
As previously reported by The Epoch Times, the progression of the trans movement began in 2015 with the introduction of drag queen story hour, which evolved into “family-friendly” drag shows where men scantily clad in a garish guise of womanhood perform sexually charged dances in front of children. They moved from pride parades to restaurants, amusement parks, theme parks, regular bars, gay bars, schools—and churches.
Laws were passed to facilitate the transitioning of children against the will of parents. Washington state passed a law (pdf) that would enable the staff at shelters where a runaway was seeking “gender-affirming care” to contact the state’s Department of Children, Youth, and Families rather than the parents so the child can obtain that “care” without the parent’s knowledge or consent. California is pushing legislation to take children away from parents who refuse to enable their minor-aged children to obtain sex change operations.
Children are given puberty blockers and hormones. Young girls are having their breasts removed. Then there’s the “painful” truth about sex change surgery.
The Pushback
The backlash that followed transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney’s Bud Light endorsement was swift and costly, and the subsequent efforts by Anheuser-Busch to recover the extraordinary losses it continues to suffer have failed miserably.
The company’s first statement didn’t work. Neither did the second. The patriotic follow-up commercial was ripped as “pandering,” and the manly camo cans were “mocked.” As reported by The Epoch Times, the latest mea culpa commercial striving to reclaim the all-American image it once had is being met by responses that the company is now “trying too hard.”
The Epoch Times reported how two Los Angeles Dodgers pitchers spoke out after the team announced it would honor the drag queens who call themselves the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence during a “pride night” event on June 16.
In the National Hockey League, the number of players who refused to play the “Pride Night” games grew to such an extent that the league’s board of governors ruled on June 22 that none of the players will wear special jerseys for pregame warmups during themed nights next season.
There’s been similar backlash to Target’s “Pride Month” displays and merchandise and to Mulvaney’s ads for Tampax and Nike women’s sports bras, prompting the “Burn Bra Challenge” online.
Now there’s a movement to reclaim “the rainbow.” Conservative rapper Bryson Gray released a new song called “Reclaim the Rainbow,” with thousands of views on YouTube.
‘Taking the Rainbow Back’
Rabbi Kirt Schneider, a self-described “Jewish believer in Jesus” and host of “Discovering the Jewish Jesus,” is the leader and founder of a new movement called “Taking the Rainbow Back.”
Rabbi Kirt Schneider in an undated photo. (Courtesy of Rabbi Schneider)
The objectives of his movement include “restoring the rainbow’s meaning to its original God-given purpose and message,” and removing “the stigma associated with the rainbow being exclusively an LGBTQ symbol.”
As described in Genesis 9:14-16, the first rainbow was set in the sky by God after the great flood as a reminder of the “everlasting covenant” between God and man “and every living creature.” The rainbow is God’s promise that “never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.”
“I was inspired to start this movement in early March,” Schneider told The Epoch Times. “It came into me suddenly to rise up and speak loudly and to gain an army of people to join me in speaking out against the LGBTQ agenda.”
What motivated Schneider to action was his observation that the LGBT movement has changed. Where it was once “a group of people choosing to do their own thing who want to be accepted and left alone to live their lives as they want,” it has become “an ideology that’s being forced down the throats of America and the Western world.”
“And we’re sick and tired of it,” Schneider said. “It’s harmful and it doesn’t lead to anything but confusion and destruction. Enough is enough.”
Schneider admitted that when he first began “Taking the Rainbow Back,” he felt a bit alone.
“There wasn’t all of the pushback that you’re hearing about today,” he said. “I was tired of the fact that others weren’t speaking out loudly against it. Now we have over 5,000 people a day visiting our website. The movement is growing.”
Schneider described how he recently visited Florida and went into a Target store.
“The first thing I saw when I walked in the door was full-sized mannequins wearing transgender pride clothing,” he recalled. “I was blown away by this. It’s lunacy. It’s madness.”
‘The Ratchet Effect’
While the gay community has always existed and has always struggled for acceptance in society, Brian Clowes, director of education and outreach for Human Life International says, “This is different.”
“The gay rights movement didn’t demand that people tell lies, ” Clowes told The Epoch Times. “This particular movement is demanding that people use pronouns and to call men who are dressed up as women, ‘ma’am.’ People don’t like being forced to lie for a political purpose.”
Brian Clowes, Director of Education and Outreach for
Human Life International. (Courtesy of Brian Cowles)
“There are so many paradoxes here,” Clowes explicated, noting how Americans who are aghast at the genital mutilation of women in Africa are okay with “doing far, far worse to kids who aren’t even old enough for consent.”
“This is straight-out mutilation of the bodies God gave us,” he said.
Cowles also addressed the phenomenon of men “stealing women’s sports,” saying it’s not just about the trophies. It’s about women’s safety.
He noted how Fallon Fox admitted to enjoying beating up women. But if anyone says anything negative, “they call it a threat to free speech.”
“Progressives will always punish you if you go against what they say,” Cowles said.
“I’ve been studying feminists for over 40 years and I used to scoff at them when they said men are always trying to erase women,” he said. “Well, I’m not laughing anymore because this is what’s happening right now. While men are pretending to be women they are erasing women. People at medical schools are even calling women, ‘non-men,’ so women are being completely redefined out of existence. They don’t even have their own character. They are defined as what they are not and I think all of these things are coming together to start a spark of opposition to this transgender movement.”
Asked about the intensity with which the transgender movement is sweeping across the country, Cowles called it “the ratchet effect.”
“When progressives win in one area, they select another area where they start pushing. As long as we’re fighting against the transgender movement we won’t be fighting against the gay rights movement. As long as we’re fighting against the gay rights movement we won’t be fighting against the abortion movement, and so on.”
He says their entire objective is to redefine society so everyone “can have their own truth as long as they approve of that truth.”
“You even have a female anthropologist saying there’s no difference between a male skeleton and a female skeleton,” Cowles noted. “Outright lies that everyone knows are wrong are being cast as truth.”
Cowles did acknowledge that the pushback against the transgender crusade is having an effect.
“Just look at Bud Light,” he said, noting how much the company has already lost in sales revenue. “Target is also suffering.”
“People are sick of being pushed around and told they can’t even ask questions,” Cowles suggested, saying that “if you do, you’re called a hater and a Nazi.”
“People don’t like being treated like garbage and that’s what progressives do and this is especially true of transgenders,” he said. “We had better start electing better people.”
If Biden is elected to another term in the White House and appoints a few more Supreme Court justices, “we’re lost,” he said.
