Only transgender extremism will do.

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE

D
onald Trump has always been what the Left would call an “ally” to gay people.

“If two people dig each other, they dig each other,” Trump wrote in 2005, wishing the best to Elton John and David Furnish on their civil partnership. In 2000, he told the gay magazine The Advocate that “it’s only fair” to update the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include a ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation. (Earlier this year, his Supreme Court pick Neil Gorsuch did exactly that in Bostock v. Clayton County, throwing in “gender identity” as well for good measure.) Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, Trump donated significant sums to AIDS charities.

You Might Like

In fact, so golden is Trump’s liberal record on gay rights that in the 2016 Republican primaries, the New York Times even noted how “[Trump] has nurtured long friendships with gay people, employed gay workers in prominent positions, and moved with ease in industries where gays have long exerted influence, like entertainment.” The Washington Post, meanwhile, ran an op-ed with the title, “Donald Trump is teaching the GOP a different way to embrace gay rights.”

Since taking office, he hasn’t so much as touched the precepts of Obergefell. At the United Nations, he pledged to fight for global decriminalization of homosexuality. He doesn’t share Joe Biden’s embarrassing voting record — the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 or withholding federal funds from pro-gay schools. He hasn’t said, as Joe Biden did in 1972, that his “gut reaction is that they [homosexuals in the military] are security risks.”

So how is it that Trump — the only pro-same-sex-marriage president to enter the White House — is now being painted by progressives as an enemy of sexual minorities, while Joe “marriage is between a man and a woman” Biden is their greatest champion? In a letter, T.

Because the gay-rights movement succeeded far more quickly than anyone had imagined, lobbyists had to reinvent themselves in order to preserve relevance. The gay-rights movement is now the “LGBT” movement and is almost wholly focused on redefining biological sex under the pretext of transgender rights. In truth, the only reason that transgenderism, a niche issue that affects a tiny proportion of Americans, is now a culture-war issue is because progressives have insisted on making it one.

In April 2016, when asked about a North Carolina bill restricting bathroom use to an individual’s biological sex, Trump remarked:

North Carolina did something that was very strong and they’re paying a big price. There’s a lot of problems. You leave it the way it is. There have been very few complaints the way it is. People go, they use the bathroom they feel is appropriate, there has been so little trouble.

Back then, this “just leave it alone” approach to transgenderism was interpreted as leaning in favor of transgender rights. No longer.

LGBTQ activists allege that the Trump administration has taken aggressive action against trans people in order to pander to religious extremists. But all the administration has really done with regard to transgender policy is to sort out the mess left by the previous administration. In 2016, the Obama administration’s Department of Justice and Department of Education sent out “guidance” to schools and colleges, urging them to allow students to use the facilities and sports teams that corresponded with their gender identity. But that was not the departments’ decision to make. If Congress seeks to redefine sex — as with the Equality Act — then let them do so. Until then, sex means biology.

At the Democratic National Convention’s (DNC) LGBTQ Caucus, Representative Mark Pocan (D., Wis.) claimed that “the Trump administration has been anti-equality at every turn from military service, right to discrimination laws.” But again, in June 2016, it was the Obama administration which set about removing the military ban for persons with gender dysphoria, which the Trump administration merely reinstated. As I’ve noted previously:

The [Trump] administration has clarified that a self-identified transgender person, who does not require special accommodations, “should be permitted to serve.” As for why gender dysphoria constitutes “special accommodations” (and is therefore disqualifying), Department of Defense data gives an idea. Between October 1, 2015, and October 3, 2017, the 994 active-duty service members diagnosed with gender dysphoria account for 30,000 mental health visits. Service members with gender dysphoria are eight times more likely to attempt suicide than service members as a whole.

Representative Mark Takano (D., Calif.) also said that Trump “wants to discriminate against gay couples, LGBT couples in adoption. He wants to allow medical practitioners to be able to discriminate, to decide who they’re going to treat or not treat.” Presumably what this refers to is the Trump administration’s recognition of the constitutional right of Catholic charities to operate according to their beliefs. The dispute here is not about “who” doctors at Catholic hospitals are “going to treat,” but rather which medical services they are willing to offer — as with abortion and contraception, sex-change surgeries are incompatible with the religious principles of the institution.

The idea, as summarized by the president of the Human Rights Campaign, one of the most bloated and aggressive lobby groups in America, is that “Democrats are leading [on LGBT issues] with unity, inclusivity and diversity while Republicans are leading with ignorance, divisiveness and bigotry.” In truth, the current administration’s approach to LGBT issues has been one of liberalism and pragmatism, consistent with biological reality and the live-and-let-live values of the American public. A Biden–Harris administration would be the opposite in every respect.