Can Democrats escape the corner they painted themselves into on gender ideology?
Survey says: “No!” At least not until the paint dries out completely, and this is slow-drying paint.
That reality was demonstrated again on Wednesday, when the Supreme Court ruled that states have the power to ban “gender affirming care” (sterilizing and mutilating) procedures on children in the case U.S. v. Skrmetti.
Americans are tolerant when it comes to sexual nonconformity, and there is a long history of tolerance for drag shows and transvesticism among adults, within reason. Drag shows are harmless when children are excluded from watching them, and have been a part of burlesque for decades. One of the more popular TV shows features drag queens. Gay marriage is legal, and hostility to homosexuality is relatively low, although hardly nonexistent.
When asked by Dylan Mulvaney what politicians can do to advocate for trans people, specifically trans women of color, President Biden said politicians should accomplish this by being seen with people like Mulvaney, and that once people see Mulvaney they will change their minds. pic.twitter.com/Tu8zYN3WaR
— boysvswomen.com (@boysvswomen) October 24, 2022
But compared to, say, Democrats’ hostility to MAGA, it barely registers. Leftists hate Jews far more than anybody hates homosexuals, and you can’t find any conservatives bashing gays as harshly as MSNBC hosts regularly bash Republicans.
THIS! This is the Oregon House of Representatives. What an absolute circus! They’re 100% serious. Clown show. pic.twitter.com/ftkyq0NQKx
— Chad Prather (@WatchChad) June 18, 2025
But Democrats can’t accept victory on this issue, because for them victory is transing the kids. So when the Supreme Court ruled that transing the kids could be banned by states under their police powers, the left has gone absolutely insane. Alphabet ideology has become a core component of the left’s worldview, and the left sets the agenda for the Democratic Party.
Look how hard the democrats want to trans children. They want it SO BADLY. How could anyone ever pull the lever for one of these ppl? https://t.co/tyyqLCxFgH
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) June 19, 2025
A lot of Democrats are quite aware that the American people don’t share their love of mutilating children, but the issue has become a key pillar of their ideology. It is not in the same category as tax policy, the size of the welfare state, or even whether it is right to support or oppose Israel. On those issues, to varying degrees, disagreement is allowed.
Trans kids suffer when they don’t get medically-necessary care. This is a brazen political decision by the Supreme Court.
My heart is with trans kids and their loved ones. I won’t stop fighting to make sure they can be exactly who they are. https://t.co/XnvM0MMVlA
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) June 18, 2025
Alphabet ideology is non-negotiable. Every deviation from the chanting points is harshly punished. Seth Moulton tried to break out of the ideological box and was swatted down. Gavin Newsom dabbled a bit with moderating on the issue, but he is now changing the subject and moving hard left again.
Only one study has ever directly assessed whether prescribing cross-sex hormones to youths with gender dysphoria is associated with a statistically significant, independent difference in the suicide death rate among them. The study found no such association. Therefore claims such… pic.twitter.com/OFQg1f3jet
— Benjamin Ryan (@benryanwriter) June 18, 2025
Alphabet ideology is a key part of the larger civil religion of Critical Theory that forms the ideological foundation of the modern left. Critical Theory is a mutation of communism that arose as the “inevitable” proletarian revolution failed to materialize. Critical consciousness replaced economic necessity as the means to create a revolution, and the revolutionary class was to be found in, oddly enough, in the bourgeoisie instead of the working class. The working class had “false consciousness,” but Critical Theory could replace bourgeois values with Marxism if the correct cultural conditions could be created.
This is just lunacy. It’s lunacy legally. And it’s lunacy on the merits. The Democratic Party is thoroughly captured on this question. https://t.co/KXrJVohOw6
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) June 19, 2025
The modern left has created such a class, and they are called “liberals,” or at least a subset of them. The so-called “woke,” to be exact.
Gee, quite a puzzle that the American people haven’t embraced the claims of transgender ideologues. “A penis is not a male body part. It’s just an unusual body part for a woman.” pic.twitter.com/ltuOI4oYQS
— Ed Whelan (@EdWhelanEPPC) June 19, 2025
Politicians in heavily “Blue” states or districts can’t deviate from the Critical Theory scripture, even if they intellectually understand that their positions are political poison with normies. Democrats are in a terrible bind on this issue; some actually believe this dangerous nonsense, and others are forced to mouth the mantras lest true believers replace them.
Bob here is apparently into seeing little boys and girls have their genitals chopped off and be sterilized before they’re even sexually active. Nice job Washington State! https://t.co/pKciFEYV7H
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) June 19, 2025
There likely would never have been a major political issue if “transgender rights” activists hadn’t gone after our kids. The transgender flags in schools, men entering women’s sports, “sanctuary states,” the vast push to propagandize for and create clinics to “transition” kids, and the tuck bathing suits at Target all raised the issue to national importance.
MN Governor Tim Walz signs a “gender-affirming” executive order to safeguard transgender procedures.
By his side at the photo op, he placed a 12-year-old transgender child, a young boy, and a little girl holding a stuffed animal. pic.twitter.com/BT0Cc9edhQ
— Clarity (@covid_clarity) March 9, 2023
By adopting the transing of kids as the “civil rights issue of our time,” Democrats not only divorced themselves from Americans’ common sense on the issue, they also made retreat especially difficult. How do you compare an issue to slavery and segregation one day and then drop it the next?
It’s a conundrum, on the same level as the Democrats’ adopting the cause of MS 13 and Tren de Aragua deportations as a moral atrocity? Democrats are so far out on these ideological limbs that it’s hard to see how they climb back down the tree. Over time, they could remain silent, I suppose, and try to drop the issue, but they created a band of ideological shock troops who could turn their fire on the Democrats if they do so.
Corporate America, after a long time, has finally realized that this issue is toxic. Even Target, as woke a mainstream company as exists, is giving up on Pride and transgenderism.
Democrats face the same problem the Labour Party in Great Britain faced in the late 70s. They are so far outside the mainstream–for similar reasons–that it may take well over a decade to recalibrate and a new generation of politicians to do it.
It can be done–see Tony Blair, or Bill Clinton in the United States–but it takes a long time for the paint to dry.
