There is a gender jihad in America. The latest victims are six dead in Nashville, including three nine-year-old children, slain by a transgender shooter whose actions fit an emerging pattern that deserves our attention.
The Colorado Springs shooter identified as non binary.
The Denver shooter identified as trans.
The Aberdeen shooter identified as trans.
The Nashville shooter identified as trans.
One thing is VERY clear: the modern trans movement is radicalizing activists into terrorists.
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) March 27, 2023
Americans professing to be transgender made up a whopping 0.7% of the population in 2021. Yet we’ve seen them disproportionately represented among perpetrators of shooting rampages. Why is that?
At the time of this writing, while the deeper motives of the Nashville shooter have not been disclosed, we know she directly targeted a private Christian school.
In an interview with NBC News on Monday, [Nashville Police Chief John] Drake said investigators don’t know what drove Hale but believe the shooter had “some resentment for having to go to that school.”
One need not tread out on much of a limb to predict what her manifesto will eventually reveal. Regardless, we can see that the dominant culture among the trans community proves as illiberal as the Jihadists who threatened the West early this century.
What do I mean by illiberal? Consider: There was a point in our history when relatively minor differences in deeply held religious beliefs were cause for war. Today, we think of multiculturalism as Somali Muslims living alongside Norwegian Christians. Not that long ago, religious conflict was just as inflammatory between Catholics and Protestants within the same ethnic group. We used to take our differences a lot more seriously. But we eventually settled on a social contract rooted in classical liberalism, the notion that neighbors should be able to peacefully co-exist without demanding renunciation of sacred belief.
The transgender community has not received that memo. Despite individual exceptions, the general rule among the dominant trans culture is an illiberal insistence upon affirmation. It’s not enough for them to believe that “transgender women are women.” You must believe it too. You must confess it with your mouth upon every social interaction. You must call a guy cosmetically altered to appear as a woman “she,” or you will be found guilty of heresy and summarily convicted in the court of public opinion. At the very least, your sentence will be social censure and condemnation. More likely, you will lose your job or face other grave consequences that hobble your capacity to live.
Related: Here’s a Smattering of the Usual Love and Compassion From the Left After a Tragic School Shooting
I stepped right up to the edge of that cliff last week when I rose in opposition to a bill before the Minnesota legislature authored by “transgender woman” Rep. Leigh Finke (D–St. Paul). The “trans refuge” bill stands as an act of secession, defying the full faith and credit clause of the United States Constitution, to effectively nullify parental custody laws in other states. If you live in Iowa, and your child finds his way to Minnesota, under this law, he needs only claim to be seeking “gender-affirming care” and your parental rights will be canceled.
That’s bad enough. But it doesn’t stop there. “Gender-affirming care” includes puberty-blockers, which medically intervene in the natural development of human beings, and surgical mutilation in order to “align the patient’s appearance or physical body with the patient’s gender identity.”
Rep. Finke justified this bill with a moral premise. Finke claimed that poisoning and mutilating children may be “medically necessary” and even “life-saving.” One cannot let such a claim stand and successfully argue against the bill. If it is “medically necessary” and “life-saving” to block puberty and chop pieces out of a girl’s arm to craft a fake penis, then how can we reasonably object? The only way to contend with Finke’s claim was to go after the fundamental worldview upon which it was premised.
So that’s what I did.
Fixed video. pic.twitter.com/5LPnaRUH0v
— Walter Hudson (@WalterHudson) March 24, 2023
In my remarks on the House floor, I took an axe to the root of transgender ideology and stood defiantly against its demands. I told Finke and those of like mind that I would not surrender my perception of reality to their arbitrary whims. Their “identity” does not define my reality.
For this, I have endured no shortage of condemnation and rage. I have also been encouraged by a vast majority who have thanked me for saying what they could not. It’s the latter half of that experience, hearing from the folks who feel they can’t say what they believe, that reveals the moral dynamic in play.
The dominant trans culture has successfully employed a repressive cultural strategy of social censure and unearned indignation to enforce a code of conduct that “affirms” their beliefs. Of course, it amounts to gaslighting. No one believes that the man cosmetically altered to appear as a woman has become a woman. But you’re expected to “affirm” that lie with every use of a “preferred pronoun” as an act of fealty and submission. It’s enforced with severe social censure for violations of trans decorum, which typically involves being treated as beneath contempt. We saw that from Nebraska state Sen. Megan Hunt as she declared her Republican colleagues unworthy of basic social acknowledgment.
If you wonder why I don't take your complaints about my alleged "rudeness" seriously, look in this mirror. https://t.co/7hiMl2TM36
— Walter Hudson (@WalterHudson) March 26, 2023
This utter contempt for those unwilling to affirm a belief stands as a definition of intolerance. Action taken as a result of that contempt rises to the level of inquisition and jihad. Consider: What other movement could get away with plotting a “Day of Vengeance?” And why would anyone even use such language? It’s because they regard themselves as entitled to affirmation. Like their Jihadi precursors, the modern trans activists believe they have the right to submission. And they’re willing to wield force to ensure it.
This morning, I spoke with @JonJustice about the emergent #GenderJihad brought into focus by the tragedy in Nashville. We spoke of the illiberal posture of the dominant trans culture.
I had not yet seen this.
I hate being right all the time. https://t.co/DBPuoM2jNH
— Walter Hudson (@WalterHudson) March 28, 2023
The good news is we have a tried and true way to defeat this gender jihad, just as we have largely defeated the Islamic variety. It’s been some time since we saw a prominent display of Islamic terror in the West. That is because we took a classically liberal approach to defeating it. We engaged the moderates within the Islamic community and invited them to come with us if they want to live and join the Western social contract and agree to disagree on issues of sacred belief. The same can be achieved within the trans community. But we have to be bold in our condemnation of the current illiberalism and welcoming of those transgender individuals who wish to live alongside us in peace.
That’s the Western compromise, and it’s well worth it. Integration will prove more difficult than usual because of the unique nature of transgenderism. As long as “preferred pronouns” are wielded as weapons of inquisition, there will be justified reluctance to abide by them. If, however, the trans community adopts a classically liberal non-confrontational stance, if they join the broader social contract and develop a sense of humor and camaraderie rather than intolerance and confrontation, there will be peace.
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