The polling is clear: Americans are done with the “transgender” lie. Support for transgenderism in the United States has plummeted across the board in recent years – even among Democrats. A new national survey of American voters, conducted by The Argument, found that most Americans now oppose gender transition surgeries for minors, even with parental consent, and support prohibiting the teaching of gender identity in public elementary schools. They also support prohibiting individuals from competing on sports teams or using private spaces that don’t align with their biological sex.
Even a year ago, such widespread opposition to transgender ideology, especially among Democrats, was unheard of. Finally Americans appear to be casting off the chains of conformity and admitting the truth many knew the whole time: transgender ideology is dangerous and fundamentally at odds with safety, fairness and reason.
Why did this collective awakening take so long?
In search of answers, take a quick look at the children’s fable by Hans Christian Andersen, “The Emperor’s New Clothes”. The story depicts two swindlers who convince an emperor and his subjects that only clever people can see the clothes they made for the ruler. As the emperor parades around the kingdom, both he and his subjects intentionally ignore the obvious – that he is naked – to avoid appearing unclever. It is only when a young boy has the courage to say,“He’s completely nude!” that the emperor and his subjects finally admit the truth.
In recent years, Andersen’s fable has become a reality in America. Transgender activists wielded the threat of “bigotry” to browbeat the American public into supporting the unthinkable: gender transition surgeries on healthy young boys and girls, allowing biological men in female locker rooms and bathrooms, and having them compete on female sports teams. They also downplayed and ignored the high rates of transgender violence.
Just recently, however, the façade has begun to crumble.
The horrifying stories of detransitioners, many of whom underwent permanent gender transition surgeries as children and later regretted them, had already poked a hole in the narrative. But when Fox Varian became the first detransitioner in American history to win a medical malpractice lawsuit against the doctors who removed her breasts when she was just 16, the narrative was blown completely out of the water.
Cushioned by the so-called “medical consensus” – as well as support from the media, the Democrats and even much of the American public – the doctors who mutilated Varian and thousands of other children never imagined they’d be held accountable.
Now they owe Varian $2 million. More importantly, transgender ideology’s grip on the medical community seems to be collapsing.
Soon after Varian’s legal victory, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons and the American Medical Association stated publicly that they do not recommend transgender surgeries for minors. They clearly saw the writing on the wall, and, fearing a tidal wave of medical malpractice lawsuits from detransitioners, decided to save face.
Unfortunately, this reckoning is both belated and disingenuous.
In the past few years, there have been few new revelations showing that transgender surgeries on children are harmful. The proof was intuitive and easily accessible: surgically or chemically castrating healthy, developing children and creating fake genitalia was always a terrible idea. Even before dozens of detransitioners spoke out about the horrors they endured – breasts and testicles removed, permanent scars and infertility, suicidal thoughts and more – medical professionals knew that these procedures were extremely risky, had damaging consequences, and also that the long term effects were unknown.
They blazed ahead anyway. Their Hippocratic oaths were forgotten. Thousands of vulnerable children became victims and medical experiments of a political ideology. Parents were devastated by doctors pressuring them into allowing these procedures by telling them “would you rather have a living son or a dead daughter?” And, like the swindlers in “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, activists and medical professionals collected the lucrative profits of American conformity.
This approach extended beyond medical procedures. By labelling critics as transphobes or bigots, transgender activists repeatedly persuaded many Americans to suppress concerns about safety and fairness. Some individuals had their jobs threatened or were described as bigoted for refusing to use preferred pronouns or for voicing concern about allowing biological men to use women’s and girls’ locker rooms and bathrooms. When men exposed their genitalia to young women or girls in private spaces, it was the complainers who were punished rather than the perpetrators. When a transgender-identifying girl filmed young boys in a men’s locker room, it was the boys who were punished for speaking out. Again and again, basic safety and decency were discarded in favor of “trans rights” and the American public bought it in the name of “trans acceptance.”
Female athletes were silenced as biological men stole their trophies, podium spots and opportunities across America. Each time felt eerily reminiscent of the Emperor’s New Clothes: massive, biologically advantaged men, their genitalia visibly intact, repeatedly stole the trophies of disappointed young women while bystanders clapped and pretended not to notice the obvious discrepancies.
The mainstream media and transgender activists worked together to downplay or ignore reports about physical harm and sexual assault that resulted from allowing biological males to compete in female’s sports. They were even more reluctant to admit that there is a disproportionate incidence of transgender violence lately – including just last week, when a transgender man tragically shot up a Rhode Island hockey rink, killing both his ex-wife and his son.
Despite years of gaslighting and conformity, however, The Argument’s poll data promisingly suggests that Americans have had enough. Not only did the poll reveal widespread opposition to gender ideology, but it also found that even 45% of parents who voted for Kamala Harris – a prolific advocate of transgender ideology – support banning biological men from women’s sports and oppose gender reassignment surgeries for minors. Even far-left American parents are willing to break from party allegiances on this issue because they see the threat it poses to their own children.
Indeed, just as it took a child in Andersen’s fable to point out the obvious, today it seems as though transgender ideology’s attack on children may have been its death knell.
Fox Varian’s victory has now given hope to countless other detransitioners, all of whom were once vulnerable children with gender dysphoria, and who are no longer afraid to appear “unclever” as they work to expose the nakedness of transgender ideology’s promises.
