Activist groups that claim to support lesbians and gays appear to be spending more of their time these days protecting the transgender industry that has grown up around the new progressive wish list item of eradicating identification by biological sex.
Some lesbians and even transgender cultural commentators are calling out groups like GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) for attempting to create the narrative that individuals who claim discomfort with their biological sex are yet another group of victims of wholesale injustice and bigotry.
“Why is the progressive left lying to us and what motive is behind it?” asked lesbian YouTube creator Arielle Scarcella in a recent video series. “Political? Financial?”
Scarcella takes to task, for example, activist groups GLAAD and HRC for “keeping a tally of any and all transgender people killed on a yearly basis.”
She states in the video that she and some trans friends have researched these lists “and we can see that something just isn’t right” in terms of the claims the murdered individuals were indeed killed solely because they were trans.
Scarcella quotes from transgender writer Sophia Narwitz: “There is no trans murder epidemic. But someone is using trans deaths for political gain in America.”
Narwitz observed at RT Wednesday the distinction between traditional progressives and “the new left”:
It sounds insane to say, but the party that once rallied against gay conversion therapy is coming shockingly close to promoting it themselves. All under the guise of supporting the trans community.
[…]
Growing up as a gay youth, I always aligned with the left in regards to their fight against conversion therapy and their belief that sexuality isn’t a choice. Today I still maintain those views. What gender and genitals someone is attracted to is just what someone is attracted to, it simply will not be forcefully changed. But to the new left, sexuality is akin to bigotry, and one must be open to all genders lest they be seen as hateful.
The clash comes as Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling has also expressed significant concern on Twitter and elsewhere that the push for cross-sex hormones and surgical interventions, such as elective double mastectomies, is actually “a new kind of conversion therapy for young gay people, who are being set on a lifelong path of medicalisation that may result in the loss of their fertility and/or full sexual function.”
LGBT activist groups have lobbied state legislatures throughout the United States to ban “conversion therapy,” which, they claim, attempts to change the sexual orientation or gender identities of LGBT young people. Some 20 state legislatures have caved to these activists, and allowed themselves to approve government control over the private clinical conversations between therapists and patients who may wish to explore their discomfort with their sexual orientation or gender issues.
Lambda Legal responded to Rowling, stating, “Stop spreading misinformation.”
“Conversion therapy is a heinous, abusive practice perpetrated on children that can lead to lifelong trauma, if not worse,” the group continued. “Trans kids having access to health care under the supervision of an affirming provider is…not.”
GLAAD also condemned Rowling’s concerns about transgender medical interventions for young people:
Rowling and other progressives, however, are challenging this authoritarian culture that has developed around the concept of canceling biological sex. Many have signed onto a letter at Harper’s Magazine that calls for “open debate and freedom of thought and speech,” as the celebrated author said in her tweet:
HRC has responded to what the activist group claims are “J.K. Rowling’s transphobic comments,” by asserting they are “unacceptable” and “harmful.” The “LGBT” rights organization created a petition to ensure she gets the message:
Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling recently doubled down on her harmful transphobic views and used her platform to spread anti-trans propaganda that is as factless as it is shameful. Her comments hurt millions of fans who grew up loving the wizarding world she built and did real harm to the trans and non-binary community … and she did so after ignoring all outreach efforts from LGBTQ groups like the Human Rights Campaign on the matter.
“Let’s be clear here: Trans women are women, and Rowling’s attempt to hide behind the mantle of trans-exclusive feminism hurts both the trans and feminist communities,” HRC added. “That’s unacceptable.”
But Narwitz is challenging the authoritarianism of the “new left.”
“Nobody wants to be called a bigot, more so if they’re, well… not bigoted, and labeling gay or straight people as transphobic because of genital preferences is simply going to create actual bigots as people begin to look down on trans people and avoid any association with them,” the writer observed.
Narwitz continued the “new left” has created a situation in which “everything within this universe has somehow been labeled as transphobic”:
Missing a space between the words “trans” and “woman” so that it reads transwoman? That’s transphobic. An “ed” at the end of “transgender” so that it says “transgendered?” Yup, that’s transphobic now too. Actors doing their jobs and taking on roles in which they have to act? Uh huh, that’s transphobic as well. Just ask Halle Berry.
“The left has taken horseshoe theory to its limit, and now if someone doesn’t want to guzzle my you know what, well then they’re transphobic too,” Narwitz continued. “If I was on the outside looking in, I wouldn’t want to associate with people like me either.”