On Thursday, a bus painted with a large message denying transgender identity was allegedly vandalized while travelers were inside the United Nations. The bus was keyed, hit with a baseball bat, and alleged vandals scribbled “Trans Liberation” and “Trans Rights Now!” over its message.
“It’s Biology: Boys are boys… and always will be. Girls are girls… and always will be. You can’t change sex. Respect all,” the bus’s message reads. At the bottom, it includes an action item: “Sign Now To Defend Freedom of Speech: www.FreeSpeechBus.com.”
That website has a petition sponsored by CitizenGO, encouraging visitors to sign the petition “if you agree with the biological reality that boys are boys and girls are girls.” The petition has received nearly 30,000 signatures, more than halfway toward its goal of 50,000. The bus is scheduled to tour the east coast, starting in New York City and going through New Haven, Conn., Boston, Mass., Philadelphia, Pa., and ending in Washington, D.C. Thursday was the second day of the scheduled trip, which ends on March 31.
“Boys are boys and girls are girls — it’s very simple,” Brian S. Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), which sponsored the bus along with CitizenGo and the International Organization for the Family (IOF), told USA TODAY. “We don’t want men in girl’s restrooms. We don’t want schools and our law attempting to say that people are bigoted simply because they understand that there’s a difference between male and female.”
Protestors try to shut us down at the United Nations but the #freespeechbus rolls on! pic.twitter.com/aPXq5QpuiV
— Brian S. Brown (@briansbrown) March 23, 2017
NOM, CitizenGo, and IOF have branded the bus a “Free Speech Bus,” as it supports the idea that people should have the freedom to say the truth about gender, in the face of LGBT activists who would call anyone opposed to transgender ideology a “bigot.” Of the alleged vandalism, Brown declared that “if they thought that they would silence us, they were totally wrong.”
The New York City Police Department said it took a report on the alleged vandalism and that it is being investigated as an incident of criminal mischief.
The bus did not receive a positive reception in the Big Apple, a city known for its support for LGBT activism. Brown recalled that while the bus was greeted with thumbs up from some people, others presented “some other hand signals.”
LGBT activist groups have attacked the bus as a “Hate Bus.”
“Free speech is a constitutional right, but language has consequences that must be considered,” Jessica Stern, executive director of OutRight Action International, an LGBT activist group based in New York, told USA TODAY. “Trans youth already have an extremely high risk for violence, discrimination and suicide. Broadcasting a message that erases and denies the reality that transgender and intersex children and youth exist is irresponsible, factually misleading, disrespectful and dangerous.”
Gillian Kane, senior policy adviser at Ipas, a pro-abortion group focused on making sure abortion practices are safe, is calling on Mayor Bill de Blasio and the New York City Council to denounce the bus.
Brian Worth, a New York City activist who describes himself as “AntiFa” as in “anti-Fascist,” and as an “Unapologetic Faggot,” shared pictures of the vandalism. “#FreeSpeechBus meets NYT. We don’t play that sh*t here. #TransLiberation #AntiFa #TransLivesMatter.”
https://twitter.com/ScrappyGaGgot/status/845025563819589634
According to CitizenGO, these are hardly the first attacks the bus has received. “Our website was even shut down for about 24 hours after we experienced a Denial of Service attack from an extreme pro-LGBT hacker group,” the petition website reported.
“These hackers attacked us because they are furious that CitizenGO … would dare speak common sense about the biological reality that boys are boys and girls are girls,” the petition website added. “According to the Spanish police, this attack was orchestrated by the well-known hacker group ‘Anonymous.'”
Indeed, Chelsea Clinton (whom Democrats seem convinced is the heir to the throne) attacked the Spanish version of the Free Speech Bus on Twitter. “Please don’t bring these buses to the U.S. (or anywhere).”
Please don't bring these buses to the U.S. (or anywhere). https://t.co/WEvIIptmxf
— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) March 1, 2017
While many might consider the message on the Free Speech Bus hateful or dangerous, there is no evidence that it has inspired attacks on transgender people. Indeed, researchers from Johns Hopkins University have argued that there is no evidence that people are “born gay” or “born transgender.” Many former transgender people have come forth, publicly declaring their regret at the damage and mutilation they did to their bodies in an effort to change their gender. The transgender ideology may have addled some people’s minds, as activists get expensive and physically damaging surgery to become dragons and even aliens.
Although some parents are concerned for the safety of children they fear might be transgender, pediatricians have declared that the idea of raising a biological boy to identify as a girl or vice versa should be considered “child abuse.” Perhaps magazines like National Geographic should think twice before putting transgender children on the cover.
America needs to have a free debate about issues like transgenderism. Is it really healthy to encourage people who think they were “born in the wrong body” to identify as the opposite sex, and to undergo expensive and body-altering surgery in an effort to change it? No matter how successful the surgeries, their DNA will never change.
The Free Speech Bus may be needlessly provocative, but critics of transgenderism need to be recognized as a legitimate part of the debate, not dismissed as “bigots” or “haters.” This vandalism merely reinforces the message that one side of the debate is utterly unwilling to listen to the other.
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