Gender ideology is rooted in a worldview called expressive individualism, which Carl Trueman brilliantly expounds in his recent work, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. (As an aside, this book is a must-read for anyone who wants to meaningfully engage our culture today.) According to Trueman, expressive individualism holds that human identity, which is primarily sexual, is rooted in a person's own psychological and subjective view of oneself. Once this identity is discovered, the person must live out this identity to the world, i.e., express that identity outwardly through dress, speech, pronoun usage, associations, etc. To do otherwise is to live a lie; to live under the yoke of oppression. Therefore, anything external to the individual that threatens or fails to affirm that identity — whether objective truth claims, biology, societal norms, laws, even the Creator Himself — is deemed oppressive and must be opposed and canceled. This is the worldview of expressive individualism, and it answers the deepest questions of life, including about human nature, the problem with the world, the solution to that problem, how we know something as truth, and where ultimate authority lies.
Whether expressive individualism and its outworking of gender ideology is "real" is beside the point. That is a political question left to the people and elected representatives of Florida. Judge Hinkle, as a judge bound by the law as written, has no authority to impose this worldview through judicial fiat. As the U.S. Supreme Court stated in 1943 (in a different context that is no less applicable here): "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein."
If we take this logic to the extreme, we should be required to affirm child molesters or else those people are being oppressed, as if people's sexual desire takes precedence over societal norms. Maybe this is a bad example because it is about behavior instead of belief. However, we are gradually headed in this direction. There doesn't seem to be a limit to how far identity politics will go.
So instead, if a person believes that they are a dog, should we be required to affirm this identity to support that person's freedom? However, we have freedom too, so we should not be coerced to accept insanity as normal.
There is a much deeper agenda here that is the true motive of the far left, which can be found in the book "1984". If you can be forced to believe that there is no objective truth, i.e. everything is subjective, then the only real truth is the official narrative propagated by the state. If the state can force you to accept a lie, and then force you to give lip service to that lie, then you are completely under their control
You can see this reasoning in Climate Alarmism. If you don't accept the so called consensus, which is in reality anything but, then you are a heretic and must be excoriated. (Reportedly, scientific funding has been taken over by the left and there are multiple climate scientists who said privately that they want to speak out but don't do so because they are afraid that they will lose their funding. This is the nature of oppression.)
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