Stoking factional animosity is an essential element of the Marxist strategy, which converts grievance into political capital. The purposeful cultivation of collective grievance by the Marxist Left is the primary source of an ever-expanding list of aggrieved identity groups emerging throughout the West in the last few decades.

Marxists have long pandered to collectives defined by race, sex, and socio-economic class. But the proliferation of identity groups defined by sexual identity has exploded only in the past 15 years. We seem to add another letter to the “LGBTQIA+” moniker every month. And, using the language and arguments that resulted in an entire body of law prohibiting racial and sexual discrimination, the Marxist Left is now seeking to codify specially-protected status to each of the ‘identities’ represented by this ever-expanding acronym. Is it valid? Let’s review how we got here.

Until the 70s, most Americans believed heterosexuality to be the default result of healthy personality development and sexual maturation. We assumed, therefore, that homosexuality was the result of something gone wrong; a sexual trauma, an absent or abusive parent, or some pathology. What was the evidence for this “bigotry”? Human physiology informed this view. The basic biology of reproduction being what it is, only heterosexuality assures the continuity of society (or the species, for that matter.) The DSM (diagnostic, statistical manual) defined homosexuality as a disorder at that time. The opinion of the average American was not a product of bigotry, but of observed living and then-accepted medical science on the matter.

In the wake of the 1960s and 70s sexual revolution, activists saw an opportunity to expand the definition of minority demographics to include homosexual orientation. The first federal legislation recognizing sexual orientation as a protected status was passed in 1998 during the Clinton administration. Today most Americans fully embrace the argument that sexual orientation, either homosexual or heterosexual, isn’t a lifestyle choice, but an immutable trait with which a person is born. Seen this way, homosexuality can be considered in the same way as race, eye color, height, etc. And by most, it is treated that way.

The Party of never-enough isn’t happy with this victory, however. Homosexuality being treated equally was never the goal. The goal is perpetual grievance because factional grievance fuels the Marxists’ power generator. So they’ve moved the goalposts.   

Today’s cause is transgender “rights.” The whole of the political Left has joined in the “movement” to inculcate the symptoms of gender dysphoria in as many kids as possible. And they demand the right to brand ever-younger children as trans. Keep in mind that no matter the age at which the trans-activists are permitted by law to begin “affirming” a gender that opposes a child’s physiology, that age will be deemed too restrictive. For the Marxist Left, activism itself is the point. When we’re foolish enough to assent to their demands, they just up the ante and change the demand. That’s been the pattern with every previous “movement” championed by the Left, so we can expect the same with this one.

But the transgender ideology and the political movement advancing it is entirely destructive to the ostensible ‘beneficiaries’ of the movement. Kids are introduced to the idea of gender/body conflict early in grade school. The frightening idea that “I might have been born into the wrong body” is then cultivated via purposely crafted lessons. “Social Transition” is being pursued in schools without parental involvement, knowledge, or consent, a purposeful wedge driven between parent and child. Parents, meanwhile, are also being subjected to a campaign of fear. They are warned that gender confusion in their child marks that child as “trans” and that anything short of immediate, unquestioning transition will result in their child’s suicide.

The truth, of course, is that gender envy, cross-sex fantasies, confusion, and make-believe are fairly common childhood occurrences and nearly always resolve in favor of the child’s physiology during puberty. Any actions taken to “affirm” the gender opposite the child’s physiology will only serve to perpetuate the body/mind conflict. Only by accepting one’s own body can body/mind conflict be resolved. This much is true whether or not the child suffers childhood confusion or actual gender dysphoria.   

A movement that started as a bid for tolerance of people in the painful grip of a profound inner conflict has become a powerful political and social movement to actually promote the disorder. And already, its promoters are “normalizing” the condition.

We’re commanded to consider a life of chronic impersonation involving surgical and biochemical suppression of one’s own body as a perfectly normal state. So, today, most parents can’t even count on pediatricians to offer common-sense guidance. Many docs have been cowed by threats of professional censure and so refuse to refute the claims made by trans ideologues. Rather than allaying parental worry with common sense and the assurance offered by a truthful account of such cases, he or she may just refer the child to one of the many thousands of lucrative “gender clinics” popping up like noxious weeds. Few these days retain the personal character to tell parents and their kids that “transition” is a lie.        

The funny thing about a lie is that it cannot prevail without the truth being suppressed. Lies are not durable enough to survive widely spoken truth. And so this bit of basic biology isn’t being taught… A person’s sex is immutably established at conception by the chromosomal contribution of the sperm. Apparently, teaching this might hurt the feelings of those who were told their “assigned” sex could be changed by a combination of surgery, hormones, clothing, hairstyle, and pronouns.    

In keeping with the Marxist goal of perpetual grievance, the demand today is that we discriminate IN FAVOR OF the aggrieved identity group. “Color-blind is not enough,” say the Marxists. “We now demand cash payment!” And in the case of the transgender movement, favor is taking an even more destructive form, not only for the individuals seduced into futile “transition” but for human society itself. The Marxists are actively inducing a psychiatric disorder in as many as possible. They’re promoting an ideology that denies human nature and, with it, every social accommodation of that nature.

There are laws on the books today that prohibit discrimination by age, race, sex, sexual orientation, religion, etc. We’ll likely see “sexual identity” added to that language soon. But apparently, it’s not good enough that we not discriminate against…