fbpx
Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

Onward Transgender Soldiers

What mainstreaming transgenderism is doing to society
shutterstock_249129607

Yesterday I sat in a doctor’s waiting room and saw on TV Harry Connick Jr. interviewing the transgender star Laverne Cox. It was a happy-go-lucky interview, about what you would expect from blandoid daytime television. This is how you know transgenderism is mainstream.

But here’s a side of transgenderism that we rarely see:

It didn’t take long for the inaugural scientific conference of the U.S. Professional Association for Transgender Health (USPATH) to descend into an ugly display of intolerance and identity politics, with gender-confused kids as ideological pawns.

When the dust finally settled, trans bullies and their medical allies had colluded to kick a dissenting expert (Kenneth Zucker) off the program, justified their censorship by indirectly blaming President Trump (the “direct threat” to trans people from the “new political climate”), and declared victory.

The conference was designed to be emphatically and politically pro-trans:

Sponsored by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the conference debuted the newly formed “USPATH,” ostensibly to serve WPATH’s U.S. members, who account for 75 percent of WPATH’s membership. However, according to USPATH Conference Chair Dan Karasic and Co-Chair Jamison Green, the conference served a political purpose as well: “USPATH LA 2017 will stand as a strong statement of support for continuing the rapid developments in trans health in America, and for the community of health providers, researchers, and advocates who are advancing that care.”

But not all health care experts are welcome. Kenneth Zucker, a psychologist with years of experience treating gender confusion, was slated to speak on several panels at the conference. He was a token, actually, a voice representing politically disfavored but scientifically weighty research that cautions against labeling gender-confused children as “transgender,” in part because the majority of these children later “desist” from cross-gender identification.

You might remember Dr. Zucker from Jesse Singal’s account a year ago about how militant trans activist got him fired from a Canadian institution, even though he’s one of the top experts in the field of transgender health. Zucker’s crime? He says that doctors should not be so quick to label children who manifest gender dysphoria as transgender, given that statistics show that most of them will resolve their dysphoria as the mature.

Trans activists showed up at the USPATH conference and disrupted the panel on which Dr. Zucker was speaking. More:

During the meeting, trans activists denounced the invitation to Zucker, whom they described as a champion of “reparative therapy,” and accused WPATH of being “grounded in cis-normativity and trans-exclusion” and prioritizing “white and cis-gendered clinicians and researchers” without input from the trans community (especially trans women of color).

They also charged WPATH with inflicting “violence and inaccessibility” on the trans community because hotel security was called to keep protesters from disrupting the talk. Activists also complained that WPATH “continues to pathologize our experiences” by supporting the DSM–5 classification of gender dysphoria as a mental health issue. To get a sense of how unhinged all this is, realize that trans activists are leveling these charges against their friends—the professional organization that has done its best to legitimize trans identities.

You know how people on the left consider themselves to be defenders of Science against the benighted right-wing conspiracy? Well, it depends on which science we’re talking about. The doctors’ organization capitulated to the trans protesters:

Karasic admitted that WPATH “made a mistake” in allowing Zucker to speak. In fact, Karasic volunteered, in hindsight he should have overridden the competitive process by which WPATH’s scientific committee selected papers to ensure that Zucker was rejected. Ironically, according to Karasic, the scientific committee that approved Zucker’s presentations included several professionals who are also transgender.

In a blatant admission of his willingness to censor scientific research in the future, Karasic apologized to the trans activists, saying, “even if it [Zucker’s proposal] was getting a high enough score, I don’t think we should have let him present,” and WPATH/USPATH would not make that mistake in the future.

That wasn’t enough for the protesters. They demanded under threat of violence that Zucker not be allowed to speak at the conference, because it made them feel unsafe. The gutless organizers caved.

Read the whole thing.  There are more shocking details. Again, this is how they treat their friends. And this is how actual real-life doctors surrender any sense of professional responsibility and yield to a mob. It’s monstrous. If a militant mob of Creationists had done this to a biological or anthropological conference, it would have been front-page news. If they had invaded and intimidated a pro-Creationist conference because the conference organizers had invited an evolution supporter to offer a dissenting view, well, can you imagine?

But this? Silence. Because it suits the Narrative.

Meanwhile, a reader sends in a newspaper report of a lawsuit filed by a “gender nonconforming” Ithaca, NY, cop against her department.  Details:

An Ithaca police officer has filed a federal lawsuit against the Ithaca Police Department, alleging she has been discriminated against based on her gender non-conformity and sexual orientation. The officer is seeking millions in damages, as well as policy changes.

Sarah Crews, the officer who filed the lawsuit, has been an officer for more than 15 years and has worked at the Ithaca Police Department since 2007. Crews is openly gay and gender non-conforming, which means Crews does not conform to society’s expectations of gender expression.

Because the Ithaca Police Department identifies Crews as female, Crews has had to transport and physically search female prisoners. Doing this, Crews said in the lawsuit, has put her job at risk because female prisoners recognize that Crews is openly gay and female prisoners have allegedly threatened false sexual abuse allegations against Crews.

The Ithaca Police Department’s policies require Crews to transport, search and monitor female prisoners. The policy states that a female prisoner will be searched by an on-duty female police officer, or other qualified female person when possible. If there is not a qualified female available, the shift commander will be notified to make arrangements and provide one.

The IPD’s policies rely on hetero-normative ideology, the complaint states, in which Crews does not fit because Crews is gender non-conforming. Despite Crews’ objections, the IPD has continued to force Crews to transport, jail and physically search female prisoners more than her heterosexual male peers who are also on duty because of what the lawsuit calls “outdated, stereotypical and inherently discriminatory” polices at the IPD.

If I’m reading the story correctly, Crews is a masculinized female lesbian who does not denies that she is female, but doesn’t claim to be male either. She’s “gender-nonconforming.” And because the police department doesn’t behave towards someone who claims indeterminable gender status the way she wants to behave, but rather treats her according to the sex that she actually is, according to basic biology and her birth certificate, she’s filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against her town of 30,000 people.

How are police supposed to deal with these highly subjective categories in the workplace? How is anybody? If Crews was being made fun of or harassed, then she definitely should have some relief. But how are people in the workplace to understand how to conform themselves to the rarefied mental state of a coworker, at the risk of being sued for discrimination? I personally know of a case in which a female identifies as “genderfluid,” and chooses to present as either a male or a female depending on how she feels when she wakes up that morning. Nobody she interacts with knows whether she wishes to be addressed as “she” or “he” until and unless she tells them. And she is quick to take offense over being “misgendered.”

Madness. I accept that gender dysphoria is a real thing. But the lengths to which this society is going to accommodate the demands of the gender-ideology militants are frightening — and unsustainable. It’s the LGBT version of Lysenkoism, which forces science to come to politically correct conclusions.

Advertisement

Comments

Want to join the conversation?

Subscribe for as little as $5/mo to start commenting on Rod’s blog.

Join Now