The Transgender Day of Remembrance, if nothing else, was a reminder that the left — and the corporate media in particular — is still completely infatuated with transgender ideology. That assertion may seem completely unrevelatory, but for peace-and-homestead-life-loving conservatives, it’s an essential reminder.
Yes, the right has made tremendous gains on the issue during the Trump Administration 2.0. The International Olympic Committee’s plan to ban male athletes in female sports — under pressure from Trump — is just one example of many. And Trump’s choice to capitalize on Kamala Harris’ pro-trans-procedures-for-illegal-immigrants-in-prison views likely played a critical role in sinking her campaign.
But none of that changes the modern left’s fundamental relationship to transgender ideology. It’s the legitimate child of the sexual revolution, the incarnation of lawless individualism, the apex antagonist of Christian teaching on ethics, sin, and human nature. In other words, it’s a doctrine, a creed, an axiom. The left’s approach to defending that axiom may fluctuate, but the loyalty is unshakeable.
Take, for example, The Washington Post editorial board’s Wednesday response to Health and Human Services releasing an updated version of its report on the treatment of gender dysphoria. Rather than take the typical radical pro-transgenderism approach, WaPo asserted that the report leaves us all stumbling in the dark when it comes to mutilating children, headlining the piece “What we still don’t know about pediatric medical transition.” The paper’s editors can’t help but call into question the study’s obvious conclusion, that “it is not ethical to subject adolescents to hormonal and surgical interventions … even in a research trial, until and unless the state of the evidence suggests a favorable risk/benefit profile for the studied intervention.”
That such a statement could at all be controversial emphasizes just how firmly trans ideology grips the editors at WaPo.
Over at CNN on Thursday, Leah Asmelash was wandering in a similar cloud of pro-trans confounded befuddlement: “The White House wants to eliminate ‘gender ideology’ and ‘trans ideology,’” she wrote. “What does that mean?” What a difficult question. She is lost, bewildered, stumped. After all, “the term ‘gender ideology’ didn’t originate in the US,” and everyone knows how hard it is to comprehend foreign ideas. (Further, Jair Bolsonaro once “decried ‘gender ideology,’” and he’s headed to prison now, so there’s that.)
“‘Transgender ideology,’ a phrase largely used in the US, is, if anything, even more amorphous,” Asmelash said. It is, indeed, a mystery wrapped in an enigma — but only for someone who works for the legacy media. Aside from the fact that her entire article questioning what transgender ideology is is itself transgender ideology, if Asmelash is confused, maybe she should take a look at her own reporting. In 2023 she raved about how Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse‘s Gwen Stacy, who had a “Protect the Kids” transgender flag in her room, may have been trans.
Or she could have turned to CNN’s 19-minute read, published the same day as her piece, memorializing eight trans-identifying individuals (seven men and one woman) who died this year. It’s a study in transgender ideology and propaganda, with each of the men who said they were women presented as angelic divas in lines like these: “Tahiry Broom could show up anywhere — from a seat at a church service to a night club’s pulsing dance floor — armed with her long, painted nails, shimmery eyeshadow and colorful wigs. Then, like magic, the whole place would belong to her.” The article is titled “A ballroom legend, an ‘auntie’ and a young athlete: Here are some of the trans people lost to violence and suicide this year.”
Of course, the article’s trans propaganda would be incomplete without one of the ideology’s most insidious tenets: the assertion that Trump, conservatives, religious people, and all who disapprove of men in women’s sports and fail to use the “correct” pronouns are somehow responsible for these deaths. “For transgender Americans, this year’s memorials will take on particular poignance, as the Trump administration and conservative lawmakers have taken great strides to restrict how they can live publicly and privately,” the authors stated pedantically.
When describing the death of one male who claimed to be female, the writers wrote that “researchers and advocacy groups say Black trans women, like Broom, are disproportionately impacted by violence” — despite providing no evidence that skin color or “identity” played any role in the killing. In fact, aside from suspicions of friends and family members, only in one instance did the CNN writers provide evidence of a death being related to the victim’s trans identification. But the narrative must continue, and the media are there to oblige.
None of this is to say that these individuals don’t deserve to be remembered fondly by those who loved them. Each of these deceased human beings was made in the image of God. They had family members and friends and unfulfilled hopes and dreams — cut short by their deaths and in one case seemingly by the fantasies that captured them. CNN wrote of one mother that she “wishes most of all she could have seen [her son] find ‘actual true love.’ It stings, she said, that she’ll never see her son get married or have children.” In reality, “her son” was her daughter, and the testosterone her daughter took may have already compromised her chances of having children. In any case, a gushing hagiography that places a heavy emphasis on the subjects’ adherence to a destructive ideology does little aside from boosting the self-righteousness of the media ideologues who write it.
Of course, the two CNN articles would be incomplete without some sort of “have your cake and eat it too” contradiction. The first quotes a trans-identifying individual who complains that “we’re 1% of the population and 90% of the conversation. … It’s just so ridiculous.” The latter features an “advocate” who says that “in many ways, in our society, trans people are made to feel invisible.” Ah, well, if only people would use the correct pronouns …
Additional examples of the left’s deep commitment to (and, indeed, worship of) gender ideology are not hard to find. CNN also ran a piece decrying the Trump admin’s “inadvertently” deporting a “transgender woman” (that is, a man) to Mexico. On Tuesday The New York Times ran a lengthy puff piece on “the first American diplomat to come out as transgender,” who has since fled to Kazakhstan to escape imaginary Trump persecutions. Over in the U.K. this week, media outlets lashed out at a “misogynist charter” that aims to preserve women’s spaces. (Apparently, in all the confusion caused by cross-dressing, “misogyny” is really to blame.) Oh, and for good measure, WaPo and the Times both ran glowing pieces on “gay sheep” and the clothing made from their wool.
Regardless of transgenderism’s declining popularity or the rise of transgender violence, Democrat politicians are in perfect step with the media, as evidenced by Abigail Spanberger’s repeated refusal to say that women should have private spaces in a state where a trans-identifying male sexually assaulted multiple females in Loudoun County schools. Democrats’ dutiful Transgender Day of Remembrance posts are mere confirmation of their allegiance to trans ideology. Regardless of how unpopular the ideology becomes, they will continue to make policy decisions in accordance with that allegiance, the same way the Biden administration continued to leave the borders wide open even as illegal immigration became more unpopular, with devastating consequences for the country.
The left’s love affair with transgender ideology has its own devastating consequences. They’ll proliferate whenever and wherever the left holds power.
Joshua Monnington is an assistant editor at The Federalist. He was previously an editor at Regnery Publishing and is a graduate of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
