Opinion

Liberals, Please Grow A Spine And Say No To Child Gender Transition

   DailyWire.com
3D gender symbols connected together.
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Yesterday, senators in Alabama voted 23-4 in favor of a bill that would outlaw gender transition surgery for persons under 18. The bill also includes a provision requiring school staff to notify parents if “a minor’s perception” of “his or her gender is inconsistent with his or her sex.”

The bill has been heavily criticized by progressive groups as “anti-science” and contrary to “prevailing standards of treatment” (more on that later), according to a statement from the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama. 

The bill, HB1/SB10, is the first of its kind, but it won’t be the last. On the issue of trans kids, the battle lines have been drawn: it’s medical transition or bust. 

As the issue of gender transition for children gains prominence, many reticent liberals will find themselves between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, they can side with the sensibilities of a super majority of Alabaman senators and voters, and support legislation that could result in them being lambasted as “anti-gay” or “anti-choice” (this may feel, to some, like the “pigs-flying” option). Or, alternatively, they can swallow whatever concerns they have about child medical transition and oppose the measure, ensuring their status as “ally” to the “woke” pro-LGBTQ community.

Given the two choices, most liberals will choose the latter. 

Caught in the riptide of perceived in-group consensus, many on the Left will simply quash their concerns in a harried effort to keep up with the morality Joneses. It’s hard to blame them. They’re disoriented by the breakneck speed of the progressive herd which leaves stragglers immortalized forever as “bigots,” caught flat-footed “on the wrong side of history.” The pressure to be an early adopter of progressive moral norms is immense. Luckily, a pressure valve exists.

The easy escape for many liberals hesitant to fall in line with the modern day embrace of the Left’s ideas on transgenderism is to recline into the virtuous posture of criticizing their own conscience as wrong. According to critical theory ideology, our moral compasses are informed by the oppressive dominant culture so, we are told, they should be treated as suspicious and tainted if they conflict with the higher wisdom handed down from approved elite. Lean on the approved experts, we’re told. As they put it, questioning yourself is “part of the work” and the resistance you’re feeling is “part of the oppressive structure that must be dismantled.”

 The self doubt cuts deep, and those who buy into critical theory most heavily feel it the most deeply. 

“My doubts are shameful and wrong because they are programmed by the heteronormative culture I live in.”

“Everyone I respect seems to support it, and the people we don’t respect are the ones who don’t support it.” 

“If it makes me uncomfortable that just means I don’t understand it. I should seek to ‘educate’ myself until it makes sense.” 

Some liberals may experience these thoughts and embrace them. After all, it’s the easy route. 

Others, however, aren’t able to recline into woke absolution so easily. They can’t quite kick the feeling that something really is wrong. The brainwashing isn’t strong enough for these hardy folks. 

To those liberals, I say this: stay strong. You are not crazy. And no, your reservations do not automatically make you a conservative. They make you prudent. 

As if this even needs be stated, it is completely reasonable to have reservations about pediatric medical transition. Children under 18 are not capable of comprehending major medical decisions, period. Despite the assurances from trans lobby groups that medical transition is safe and reversible, the medical literature includes growing evidence that this is patently untrue

It feels like just yesterday that liberals were fretting about hormones in non-organic milk causing precocious puberty in girls. They weren’t crazy. Hormones are powerful even in small doses, and kids’ bodies are fragile. The fact we are even considering the use of hormones in high enough doses to alter the normal healthy growth of children is stunning. It is not “right-wing” to feel stunned. 

I know this for a fact. 

As an openly conservative woman in a largely left-wing social sphere, I am the recipient of many secret confessions. People admit opinions to me that they don’t have the nerve to share publicly, or in some cases even with their spouse. With the possible exception of critical race theory, there is no progressive issue that alarms the liberals I’ve spoken to more than the encroachment of transgender ideology into K-12 schools. So rest assured, if you are a liberal who has concerns, you are far from alone. 

So speak up. Easier said than done, I know, but if there ever was a time to pump the brakes and demand a thorough discussion, this is it. And if there was ever a time when the crowd was really with you, this is it. 

Oh, and in ten or twenty years, after the class action lawsuits have rolled in, you will find yourself on the right side of history. 

The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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