Progressives must retreat back to basics before they can quietly advance the cause of transgenderism, says one of the early advocates for government support of the revolutionary movement.
“We must continue to grow and expand the coalition of Americans who see dignity and equal protection for trans people as paramount,” says a March 19 advocacy article by Mara Keisling, a progressive who founded the National Center for Transgender Equality in 2003.
This strategy shift recognizes that progressives’ support for transgenderism has damaged progressives’ many other causes, most obviously by helping President Donald Trump win the 2024 election.
Keisling admitted:
This means shifting our primary focus to education while continuing to try to enshrine core civil rights protections into statute. On issues such as sports participation and kids’ access to health care, we should accept that we have more work to do to win hearts and minds, and focus on pursuing the smartest possible approach to bring more Americans over to our side.
Elected leaders and candidates should focus their efforts on how to protect and defend trans people, not using the issue for messaging purposes or purity tests. Instead of contemplating message bills, they should focus on keeping pernicious anti-trans policy riders out of must-pass legislation and building a broader coalition for locking in key non-discrimination protections.
However, it is not clear that progressives can retreat from the lost cause of transgenderism without first being directed to a replacement target for their promiscuous empathy.
Many progressives are pro-transgender zealots or use transgenderism to display their claims of moral superiority over what they regard as simplistic conservatives in President Donald Trump’s GOP. This desire is often triggered by Democrats seeking to motivate progressives during primaries, so giving the GOP candidate a talking point in the election.
Also, the establishment GOP has learned what conservatives felt: You can win elections by showing Democrats as people whose paramount cause is putting men into girls’ sports, bathrooms, and private lives.
Transgenderism is both revolutionary and totalitarian. It demands that the government enforce each individual’s claim to have a male or female feeling — dubbed “gender identity” — regardless of the reality that two biological sexes are fixed, equal, different, and complementary.
In practice, this ideology demands that any man be escorted by the FBI into women’s societies — changing rooms or sports teams, for example — whenever he wishes. That government-enabled power would allow a tiny minority to destroy the authority of both sexes to build institutions tailored for their benefit and preferences.
Keisling’s call for retreat cites a recent poll by the left-wing Searchlight Institute, which showed decent sympathy for the freedom of transgender adults, deep concern for children who are swayed by transgender claims, plus a broad, non-consensus dislike of the transgender ideology.
For example, the poll showed that 70 percent of respondents — including 55 percent of Trump’s 2024 voters — say “transgender people should be able to live their lives free from discrimination and bullying.”
But this widespread sympathy does not translate into support for transgenderism. The poll showed that roughly 50 percent of the respondents prioritize “safety” for people who insist they are transgender. But half of the 50 percent also said, “You can protect transgender people by acknowledging their gender identity.”
Just 32 percent of the pro-safety group said that “ensuring safety for transgender people means supporting their gender identity.”
The poll tried to maximize apparent support for people who claim to be transgender — but failed in nearly every question.
Single-sex sports are backed by 59 percent to 20 percent, and single-sex K-12 bathrooms are backed by 59 percent to 23 percent. Just 26 percent said school should hide “child questions about their gender identity at school,” while 55 percent said parents should be informed.
Gender-related surgery for minors is opposed 74 percent to 8 percent, while non-surgical interventions are opposed by 67 percent to 12 percent.
The number flipped when the poll asked about adults. Sixty-eight percent support “gender transition services” for adults, while just 17 percent oppose the option.
People who claim to be transgender get significantly stronger support from women than from men. For example, when asked to rate the importance of safety for “transgender adults,” 50 percent of men but 67 percent of women rate safety as “very important.” Overall, just 12 percent rate safety as “not at all important.”
Unsurprisingly, many polls show that transgender advocates have lost public support since 2016, amid full-throated support by most journalists.
The Searchlight Institute polled a sample of 1,526 likely voters from February 18-19, with a margin of error of 3.7 percent.
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