In the 1960s, a few far-left Marxist radicals laid out a plan where they would enter academia to spread their beliefs to the next generation of students. The idea was that from there they could spread their influence to government and corporations until society was completely transformed. They knew that it would take decades, but their plan appears to be working.
The playbook of the Marxist left is to create controversy where none existed before. It is a divide-and-conquer strategy. Countries are held together by shared beliefs, like the idea that the United States is a force for good in the world. Half the country no longer believes this and thinks that the United States is founded on evil and is rotten to the core.
This kind of radicalism can create a strong backlash. People like me feel that we no longer live in the same country we were born in. I consider it my birthright as an American to live in a free society, but I'm not sure that I do.
Rod Dreher is a religious conservative. Nevertheless, his comments about totalitarianism are spot on. He sees Gender Ideology as a form of oppression, but that wouldn't necessarily be the case. Whether Gender Ideology is a form of authoritarianism depends on if it is imposed on people against their will.
We live in a society where you can be harmed for having the wrong beliefs. You can lose your job, and many people have, especially in higher education. The actress Gina Carano refused to use certain pronouns on Twitter, which led to a several-month-long campaign to get her fired from Disney that ultimately succeeded. The show she was going to star in, and I was looking forward to watching, was canceled, and the talent agency responsible for her career stopped representing her.
It is worse in other countries. In England, the police just warned people that they could be arrested for posting wrong ideas on social media. Anything anti-mass-immigration falls under this category. In Canada, the famous psychologist and political commentator Jordan Peterson was told that he would have to attend reeducation, a form of sensitivity training, or lose his license. This is not the first time he has had to defend his views. He became famous for opposing mandatory speech (pronoun) codes.
There are a few people who are so uncomfortable with their sex that they take drastic measures to appear as a different sex. In a free society, people should be able to make these decisions, but it doesn't make a man a woman or vice-versa. A male is an organism that produces gametes called sperm, and a female is an organism that produces gametes called ova, or eggs.
Some people believe that sex is defined by mental state. This is getting hung up on definitions, but it would appear to deny reality in favor of desire. If I wanted to be a dog, no amount of surgery or drugs could make me into a dog. Furthermore, surgery and drugs have considerable risks and long-term consequences. Reality has a way of biting people in the ass, and some people have experienced problems after mutilating their bodies.
It only becomes a problem when people try to mandate what you say or what opinion you can have. I am never going to use female pronouns for a man. That would be a lie, but I have been told that I should lie to protect the feelings of others. Around a certain person, I have to tiptoe with my language and not use any pronouns for fear of causing controversy.
I find it grating to hear "they" used as a definite singular pronoun, as a substitute for "he" or "she", because the meaning becomes very confusing. I have seen this usage on several TV shows. The word "they" is only singular as an indefinite pronoun, when we don't who the person is. i.e. "If a person wants to apply for the job then they need to go to the human resources office." The pronouns "he" and "she" refer to specific people and therefore are definite pronouns. Some grammarians are now endorsing this change, giving into the political ideology, but I find this usage of "they" confusing and unpleasant.
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