Transgender Rites: How Trans Activism Manipulates Public Opinion

“The notion that gender identity is a matter of self-identification, separate from biological sex, not only flies in the face of science but also leads to circular reasoning.”

Only a small minority of people identify as transgender. In the United States, for example, this group accounts for about 0.6% of the adult population. Yet, in an effort to appease trans activists, there has been an overwhelming push, cloaked in the language of civil rights, to redefine even the most basic categories within our species.

According to trans activists, to assert that the categories of “man” and “woman” relate to biological realities is to invalidate transgender identities. The witch hunt against J. K. Rowling demonstrates how pervasive this idea has become. The Harry Potter author was accused of transphobia for taking issue with the phrase “people who menstruate,” quipping, “I’m sure there used to be a word for those people.” Or, take the case of Meghan Murphy, the feminist journalist who was banned from Twitter for simply pointing out that “Men aren’t women tho.” Even acknowledging that a trans woman used to be a man—or vice versa—has been deemed taboo.

What explains this phenomenon? The narrative that rampant transphobia is threatening the lives of trans people is certainly part of the explanation. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris has declared an “epidemic” of transphobic murders in the United States based on the fact that “at least 37 transgender or gender-nonconforming people [had been] killed” in 2020. This number, however, does not indicate an epidemic. In fact, it reveals that the homicide rate for trans folks is lower than in the general population. Nor is it safe to assume that all murders of trans-identified individuals are transphobic hate crimes.