Classical Liberalism had two sides of the coin. One was that all humans are entitled to basic human rights, like Free Speech, Free Association, etc. The other was that all humans are capable of horrific group behavior, and thus the need for Free Speech etc, limited government, due process, and dispersed power (via myriad competing institutions).
The Woke, AntiRacism, Alphabet-ers, etc have nearly succeeded in shredding all these safeguards.
I have long had this crazy idea that blacks, gays, women, etc etc are—wait for it!—human, and thus as capable of horrific behavior as any other hairless ape. I know I’m right because, after 63 years, I know human nature. The only question in my mind is whether I’ll be proven correct by ever-escalating authoritarian totalitarianism.
Happy to see this. I’ve lost so many “friends” because of my politics that when anyone shows any kind of blatantly gay pride, I take it as a read flag. I’m a trans woman married to a trans woman. 🤷♀️
Now that the radicals are in charge they do not care for free speech. The Biden Administration is strong arming acceptance of the Gender Identity Cult religion in the nation's schools. Does no one notice how the children are being harmed as they are groomed for "gender euphoria"?
"No Free Lunch: Biden Admin Will Pull Meal Funding for Schools That Don’t Comply With Its LGBT Agenda"
"Jonathan Butcher, a fellow in education at the Heritage Foundation, said the Biden administration's interpretation of Title IX would also prohibit schools from informing parents of their child's decision to assume a different gender."
and
"Biden’s Title IX Rewrite Is an Assault on Women’s Rights
The administration’s new draft rules redefine the word ‘sex’ to mean ‘gender’ and ‘gender identity.’
For those interested in a view from the Left.. *Left* not Progbrained.. There's Josh Barro. He has podcast with Jamie Kirchick and a bit about the book that just came out. https://www.joshbarro.com/p/james-kirchick-on-the-secret-city (Dunno. Probably paywalled.)
"Drop the T". Let's return to a "Gay and Lesbian" rights movement.
"Gender" is orthogonal to affectional preference and is not a "gay" issue. Also, the loudest of the "T" activists argue that it's wrong to be able to choose your affectional preference and, for example, gay men who aren't attracted to "transmen" are bigots.
Of course there are real people who can benefit from a sex reassignment -- those born with ambiguous genitals, XXY individuals, and people with AIS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_insensitivity_syndrome). But for the most part today they're people without sexual capital who want to be different. Like the "goths" of a generation ago.
This was an excellent article/opinion piece. The First Amendment is vital, it seems like it’s under attack every day, along with the 2nd. Thanks for publishing this well written piece.
The first amendment guarantees that the government will make no law to infringe free speech. It creates nothing, including free speech. It does not prohibit unwanted speech. It does not prohibit harmful speech.
Virtually every phrase and nearly every word has been taken out of context and twisted by those who try to create or legislate nearly every conceivable human action.
The constitution only prohibits our government from inhibiting them. We do not have a right to not be offended. We do not have a right to protection from having our feelings hurt. Common decency is the only defense we have to those things. Legislators have consistently violated common decency toward each other at least throughout written history. They don't take each other to court over such violations.
My wife and I have several gay couples as friends. It's funny sometimes when we go to meet them, and the bouncer asks, "Are you sure you're in the right place?" We look painfully straight. But really, don't try to alienate possible and actual allies by enforcing totalitarian language codes and trans conversions for minor kids. Tolerance should go both ways.
They are not "gay" they are queer. Easier to be "proud" of being "gay" than being queer I guess otherwise why invent the synonym? Gay is a great word kidnaped by the queers. Queers are people too but they are not gay.
In a way, what's happening in the gay community is a microcosm of what's happening in the two-party, American political system.
The Republican party is increasingly being taken over by the far-right faction of the party (AR-15's for everyone, especially teachers!).
The Democratic party is increasingly being driven by the far-left faction of the party (forgive my $250K student debt to Oberlin!).
The gay community is increasingly being identified as the radicals that march in the Gay Pride Parade, or fight for high-school courses that encourage sex transitioning.
What about the moderates ("normies") -- who are fine with having a rifle to shoot deer but think that automatic weapons are crazy; who busted their butts working their way through state college to graduate without debt; or who just want to live a quiet productive life with their partner?
Agree. When I wrote AR I meant ArmaLite Rifle, AKA a normal semi-automatic (or in some models just a bolt-action but really everyone assumes AR in reference to model 15) rifle that apparently looks scary to anyone unfamiliar with guns. I liken them to pit bulls and the fear and paranoia wave that surrounded that breed. Sure, an infinitesimally small percentage were used by criminals to commit crimes, but the vast majority were owned by responsible people with zero issue. Their looks attract bad actors. ARs, like pitbulls are not to blame for their owners’ misdeeds.
I don’t see what you suggest about a far right taking over the Republican party. What is your definition of “far right”? And who wants AR-15s for everyone? That is just wrong.
Republicans would like to see the return of social norms and values, strengthen the family, so people like Ramos don’t develop in the first place.
I think part of the problem is that progressives want to keep “progressing” and conservatives want to conserve. I think conversations about logical solutions could stand a fighting chance if anyone knew where the progressive goalpost is. In other words, where is the point in any given topic where progressives will feel like “well, this is good. We’ve achieved our goals”?
Many people on the right are unwilling to give an inch for fear of the snowball effect - today you want to take the ARs and tomorrow it will be handguns and 10 years from now it will be all guns. Yesterday it was gay rights, today it is trans rights, and whatever comes tomorrow is terrifying. In the moment the Left chalks these fears up to conspiracy theories but there are excellent examples over time of this very real phenomenon. We can look to Canada at their progression of gun control - first came the handgun registries in 1934, then license requirements in the mid 90s, then a ban on certain semi-autos, and now just a day ago a new law was introduced to ban (“freeze”) handgun sales and permanently alter existing rifle magazines to hold no more than 5 rounds. I think many people on the right’s question is “where does it end?” and without any clear commitment to long-term compromise, why would anyone give an inch?
Contrary to this article's narrative, homosexuality didn't win acceptance openly and honestly. It conflated criticism with criminalization, using the specter of the latter to ban the former. It was the original movement that defined all disagreement as "phobia" ("transphobia" is just downstream of "homophobia"). The gay movement lied and abused discourse to get its way, and in so doing it paved the road for more of the same from the later letters of the acronym.
Now the gays are stuck. They don't want to admit their responsibility for where the movement has gone, and they certainly don't want to give up their own ill-gotten gains.
I keep wondering this myself. They have almost nothing in common anymore. Would LOVE to see this explored in more depth. Everyone I know that's LGB tells me they don't want to be associated with the new craziness but also just want to live their lives and not be hassled, canceled, fired etc.
Diane Ehrenshaft (the doctor who said if a girl has "top surgery" regrets she can have new breasts made - no big deal) was part of a previous craze - satanic abuse. She wrote learned articles about Satanic Ritual child abuse back during that craze - Presideo Preschool, SF. Now she has a thriving new scam. Why are these people not in jail already?
"Diane Ehrensaft, Ph.D. is a developmental and clinical psychologist, adjunct associate professor of Pediatrics at the University of California San Francisco, and Director of Mental Health of the Child and Adolescent Gender Center, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital. She has a private practice in Oakland, California, where she provides psychological services to both children and adults. She specializes in research, clinical work, training, and consultation related to gender-expansive children, and publishes and lectures both nationally and internationally on this topic. She also has expertise in parenting and in family building through assisted reproductive technology. Ehrensaft is presently co-investigator in a four-site NIH grant studying the effects of puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormones in gender expansive and transgender youth and principal investigator in a companion four-site grant studying the psychological experiences of prepubertal gender expansive children."
Yes, that's her. "Puberty blockers" are cancer drugs being used off label. "Gender-affirming" hormones are cross sex hormones. Testosterone is very destructive to girls. These "transgender youth" are victims. Psychology Today is all in with the cult as is most media and our current administration. For a long time the only critical source was 4thwavenow which published this on her in 2016:
"Gender-affirmative therapist: Baby who hates barrettes = trans boy; questioning sterilization of 11-year olds same as denying cancer treatment"
I founded a gay democratic club in Dallas, Texas in the mid-90s. The old non-partisan gay political clubs were dying or already dead and I thought there’d be interest in something definitively democratic given the popularity of Log Cabin Dallas. There was.
In addition to promoting gay people in the party, I really saw it as carrying the party’s liberal message to gay and lesbian people in answer to Log Cabin libertarianism. Little did I imagine a quarter of a century later that liberalism would collapse along with the gay movement and replaced by identity politics.
In 2000, I just happened to be in Washington D.C. during the ‘Millennium March.’ What a difference 20 years made since the first national march in 79’. I remember three things: a stage festooned with corporate logos featuring Huey Long impersonators; a ‘breast milking pavilion’ restricted to women back when there was such a thing; and a cyclone-fenced vendor area having all the charm of the Warsaw Ghetto where $10 was charged to get in.
By 2000, the gay movement had morphed into a corporate sponsored fashion statement. LGBTQIA+ is today nothing more than a branded politicized consumer product. The ‘Castro Clone’ of the 70s was a collective ideological assertion of gay masculinity over and against fem stereotype. Today it’s been replaced by a metastasizing legion of personal brands like “trans” or “queer” optimized for the social media market. A big part of those brands is the pretension to being an “activist” which explains much of the histrionic anti-democratic idiocy that so many gay people seem fond of today.
Classical Liberalism had two sides of the coin. One was that all humans are entitled to basic human rights, like Free Speech, Free Association, etc. The other was that all humans are capable of horrific group behavior, and thus the need for Free Speech etc, limited government, due process, and dispersed power (via myriad competing institutions).
The Woke, AntiRacism, Alphabet-ers, etc have nearly succeeded in shredding all these safeguards.
I have long had this crazy idea that blacks, gays, women, etc etc are—wait for it!—human, and thus as capable of horrific behavior as any other hairless ape. I know I’m right because, after 63 years, I know human nature. The only question in my mind is whether I’ll be proven correct by ever-escalating authoritarian totalitarianism.
Happy to see this. I’ve lost so many “friends” because of my politics that when anyone shows any kind of blatantly gay pride, I take it as a read flag. I’m a trans woman married to a trans woman. 🤷♀️
Well done James!
Now that the radicals are in charge they do not care for free speech. The Biden Administration is strong arming acceptance of the Gender Identity Cult religion in the nation's schools. Does no one notice how the children are being harmed as they are groomed for "gender euphoria"?
"No Free Lunch: Biden Admin Will Pull Meal Funding for Schools That Don’t Comply With Its LGBT Agenda"
https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/no-free-lunch-biden-admin-will-pull-meal-funding-for-schools-that-dont-comply-with-its-lgbt-agenda/
"Jonathan Butcher, a fellow in education at the Heritage Foundation, said the Biden administration's interpretation of Title IX would also prohibit schools from informing parents of their child's decision to assume a different gender."
and
"Biden’s Title IX Rewrite Is an Assault on Women’s Rights
The administration’s new draft rules redefine the word ‘sex’ to mean ‘gender’ and ‘gender identity.’
https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidens-title-ix-rewrite-is-an-assault-on-womens-rights-schools-protected-speech-education-harassment-11654114281?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1
For those interested in a view from the Left.. *Left* not Progbrained.. There's Josh Barro. He has podcast with Jamie Kirchick and a bit about the book that just came out. https://www.joshbarro.com/p/james-kirchick-on-the-secret-city (Dunno. Probably paywalled.)
"Drop the T". Let's return to a "Gay and Lesbian" rights movement.
"Gender" is orthogonal to affectional preference and is not a "gay" issue. Also, the loudest of the "T" activists argue that it's wrong to be able to choose your affectional preference and, for example, gay men who aren't attracted to "transmen" are bigots.
Of course there are real people who can benefit from a sex reassignment -- those born with ambiguous genitals, XXY individuals, and people with AIS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_insensitivity_syndrome). But for the most part today they're people without sexual capital who want to be different. Like the "goths" of a generation ago.
Spot on
This was an excellent article/opinion piece. The First Amendment is vital, it seems like it’s under attack every day, along with the 2nd. Thanks for publishing this well written piece.
The first amendment guarantees that the government will make no law to infringe free speech. It creates nothing, including free speech. It does not prohibit unwanted speech. It does not prohibit harmful speech.
Virtually every phrase and nearly every word has been taken out of context and twisted by those who try to create or legislate nearly every conceivable human action.
The constitution only prohibits our government from inhibiting them. We do not have a right to not be offended. We do not have a right to protection from having our feelings hurt. Common decency is the only defense we have to those things. Legislators have consistently violated common decency toward each other at least throughout written history. They don't take each other to court over such violations.
My wife and I have several gay couples as friends. It's funny sometimes when we go to meet them, and the bouncer asks, "Are you sure you're in the right place?" We look painfully straight. But really, don't try to alienate possible and actual allies by enforcing totalitarian language codes and trans conversions for minor kids. Tolerance should go both ways.
They are not "gay" they are queer. Easier to be "proud" of being "gay" than being queer I guess otherwise why invent the synonym? Gay is a great word kidnaped by the queers. Queers are people too but they are not gay.
In a way, what's happening in the gay community is a microcosm of what's happening in the two-party, American political system.
The Republican party is increasingly being taken over by the far-right faction of the party (AR-15's for everyone, especially teachers!).
The Democratic party is increasingly being driven by the far-left faction of the party (forgive my $250K student debt to Oberlin!).
The gay community is increasingly being identified as the radicals that march in the Gay Pride Parade, or fight for high-school courses that encourage sex transitioning.
What about the moderates ("normies") -- who are fine with having a rifle to shoot deer but think that automatic weapons are crazy; who busted their butts working their way through state college to graduate without debt; or who just want to live a quiet productive life with their partner?
You can’t buy an automatic weapon. It would be nice if everyone used the same proper terms.
Automatic weapons, assault weapons are just extremist leftist fear language.
Agree. When I wrote AR I meant ArmaLite Rifle, AKA a normal semi-automatic (or in some models just a bolt-action but really everyone assumes AR in reference to model 15) rifle that apparently looks scary to anyone unfamiliar with guns. I liken them to pit bulls and the fear and paranoia wave that surrounded that breed. Sure, an infinitesimally small percentage were used by criminals to commit crimes, but the vast majority were owned by responsible people with zero issue. Their looks attract bad actors. ARs, like pitbulls are not to blame for their owners’ misdeeds.
I don’t see what you suggest about a far right taking over the Republican party. What is your definition of “far right”? And who wants AR-15s for everyone? That is just wrong.
Republicans would like to see the return of social norms and values, strengthen the family, so people like Ramos don’t develop in the first place.
I think part of the problem is that progressives want to keep “progressing” and conservatives want to conserve. I think conversations about logical solutions could stand a fighting chance if anyone knew where the progressive goalpost is. In other words, where is the point in any given topic where progressives will feel like “well, this is good. We’ve achieved our goals”?
Many people on the right are unwilling to give an inch for fear of the snowball effect - today you want to take the ARs and tomorrow it will be handguns and 10 years from now it will be all guns. Yesterday it was gay rights, today it is trans rights, and whatever comes tomorrow is terrifying. In the moment the Left chalks these fears up to conspiracy theories but there are excellent examples over time of this very real phenomenon. We can look to Canada at their progression of gun control - first came the handgun registries in 1934, then license requirements in the mid 90s, then a ban on certain semi-autos, and now just a day ago a new law was introduced to ban (“freeze”) handgun sales and permanently alter existing rifle magazines to hold no more than 5 rounds. I think many people on the right’s question is “where does it end?” and without any clear commitment to long-term compromise, why would anyone give an inch?
Perfectly stated sc_out.
This ^^^
“Where does it end”? For the left, nothing less than the destruction of America and the imposition of NeoMarxism.
And that's just the beginning. A wonderful new world. (gag)
I would like to see a full throated denunciation of the trans crazies by the gay and lesbian communities. Why do them let them tag on?
Because of their common roots.
Contrary to this article's narrative, homosexuality didn't win acceptance openly and honestly. It conflated criticism with criminalization, using the specter of the latter to ban the former. It was the original movement that defined all disagreement as "phobia" ("transphobia" is just downstream of "homophobia"). The gay movement lied and abused discourse to get its way, and in so doing it paved the road for more of the same from the later letters of the acronym.
Now the gays are stuck. They don't want to admit their responsibility for where the movement has gone, and they certainly don't want to give up their own ill-gotten gains.
So they quietly hope the problem will go away...
I keep wondering this myself. They have almost nothing in common anymore. Would LOVE to see this explored in more depth. Everyone I know that's LGB tells me they don't want to be associated with the new craziness but also just want to live their lives and not be hassled, canceled, fired etc.
Diane Ehrenshaft (the doctor who said if a girl has "top surgery" regrets she can have new breasts made - no big deal) was part of a previous craze - satanic abuse. She wrote learned articles about Satanic Ritual child abuse back during that craze - Presideo Preschool, SF. Now she has a thriving new scam. Why are these people not in jail already?
From Psychology Today:
"Diane Ehrensaft, Ph.D. is a developmental and clinical psychologist, adjunct associate professor of Pediatrics at the University of California San Francisco, and Director of Mental Health of the Child and Adolescent Gender Center, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital. She has a private practice in Oakland, California, where she provides psychological services to both children and adults. She specializes in research, clinical work, training, and consultation related to gender-expansive children, and publishes and lectures both nationally and internationally on this topic. She also has expertise in parenting and in family building through assisted reproductive technology. Ehrensaft is presently co-investigator in a four-site NIH grant studying the effects of puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormones in gender expansive and transgender youth and principal investigator in a companion four-site grant studying the psychological experiences of prepubertal gender expansive children."
Yes, that's her. "Puberty blockers" are cancer drugs being used off label. "Gender-affirming" hormones are cross sex hormones. Testosterone is very destructive to girls. These "transgender youth" are victims. Psychology Today is all in with the cult as is most media and our current administration. For a long time the only critical source was 4thwavenow which published this on her in 2016:
"Gender-affirmative therapist: Baby who hates barrettes = trans boy; questioning sterilization of 11-year olds same as denying cancer treatment"
https://4thwavenow.com/2016/09/29/gender-affirmative-therapist-baby-who-hates-barrettes-trans-boy-questioning-sterilization-of-11-year-olds-same-as-denying-cancer-treatment/
Her Satanic Panic history:
"Preschool Child Sex Abuse: The Aftermath of the Presidio Case" https://archive.org/details/ehrensaft-1992
"Diane Ehrensaft - from satanic panic to gender ideology. Episode 1"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CpvzUwE7mc
A recent NYPost article with some good history beginning with the mom who started 4thwavenow:
"Anguished parents of trans kids fight back against ‘gender cult’ trying to silence them"
https://nypost.com/2022/05/11/meet-the-parents-of-trans-kids-fighting-gender-cult/
Ann......their radical far-left ideology trumps (no pun intended) their common sense.
I founded a gay democratic club in Dallas, Texas in the mid-90s. The old non-partisan gay political clubs were dying or already dead and I thought there’d be interest in something definitively democratic given the popularity of Log Cabin Dallas. There was.
In addition to promoting gay people in the party, I really saw it as carrying the party’s liberal message to gay and lesbian people in answer to Log Cabin libertarianism. Little did I imagine a quarter of a century later that liberalism would collapse along with the gay movement and replaced by identity politics.
In 2000, I just happened to be in Washington D.C. during the ‘Millennium March.’ What a difference 20 years made since the first national march in 79’. I remember three things: a stage festooned with corporate logos featuring Huey Long impersonators; a ‘breast milking pavilion’ restricted to women back when there was such a thing; and a cyclone-fenced vendor area having all the charm of the Warsaw Ghetto where $10 was charged to get in.
By 2000, the gay movement had morphed into a corporate sponsored fashion statement. LGBTQIA+ is today nothing more than a branded politicized consumer product. The ‘Castro Clone’ of the 70s was a collective ideological assertion of gay masculinity over and against fem stereotype. Today it’s been replaced by a metastasizing legion of personal brands like “trans” or “queer” optimized for the social media market. A big part of those brands is the pretension to being an “activist” which explains much of the histrionic anti-democratic idiocy that so many gay people seem fond of today.