Pollak: Transgenderism is Dragging Down the Democratic Party

The transgender issue is beginning to split Democrats as they face a reckoning in 2022 and 2024 over a “woke” left-wing that has seized control of the party and the White House, and even the military, but which the country continues to reject.

Many, if not most, Americans are prepared to tolerate biological males and females who want to live as women and men, respectively. And few would object to calling a transgender individual by his or her chosen (singular, at least) pronoun.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2020 in Bostock v. Clayton County that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bars discrimination in the workplace based on sexuality or transgender identity. The majority opinion was written by Justice Neil Gorsuch — a Trump appointee, no less.

Though many conservatives expressed misgivings about Gorsuch’s opinion, there was no political backlash, perhaps because there was almost no impact: the transgender population is very small, and most people simply shrugged.

But the transgender movement has gone far beyond seeking tolerance, or ending discrimination against a small minority. It seeks to redefine what gender itself means to the rest of the population, to convince Americans that there is no link between biological sex and gender at all. It is attempting to do this despite the rather obvious scientific fact of sexual dimorphism, and the anthropological reality that many languages — unlike English — assign gender not just to people, but to inanimate objects.

To remake gender, activists are starting with children. This is not, in most cases, because activists are “grooming” children to engage in sex. Rather, they are trying to indoctrinate them for political reasons. As Abigail Shrier, author of Irreversible Damage, recently noted on Twitter, “I’ve found that most of the activists do not want a sexual relationship with the children. They want to pry the child away from their families and supplant the family’s values with their own. That’s bad enough.”

The transgender movement not only has an ally in the White House: the White House is its vanguard. It was then-Press Secretary Jen Psaki who popularized the phrase “don’t say gay” to describe — and distort — a Florida law that bars instruction on sexuality and gender to children in third grade or below. It was President Joe Biden who signed an Executive Order last week banning “conversion therapy” for children, having already endorsed “gender-affirming” drugs or surgery for minors.

Throughout, the Biden administration has used the phrase “LGBTQI+ kids” or variants thereof, always presuming that “kids” — children — of indeterminate age have some idea of their sexual preference, or that prepubescent thoughts about gender must be taken at face value.

As blogger Andrew Sullivan has noted, this is making life harder, not easier, for gay male teens. And it is provoking outrage among many parents, incensed that their children are being exposed to sexual or explicit ideas.

Democrats who are worried about their party’s ability to win future elections — after the ongoing electoral uprisings in San Francisco and among Latino voters — are sounding the alarm bells.

Former party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has suggested that the party is risking its fortunes by following the transgender movement down a radical path that ensures its defeat. Her statement is striking, given that in 2008 she was seen as more pro-LGBT than then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL).

Thus far, few are listening. The party’s talking points after the recall of San Francisco D.A. Chesa Boudin earlier this month were that “progressive” cities don’t have a crime problem; rather, it’s Republican states that have a “red state murder” problem.

But defeat in congressional races in 2022 could force Democrats to take a hard look at their indulgence of a radical movement whose fundamental ideological orientation is at odds with the voters and the country its candidates wish to serve.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.