When You Control the Words People Can Use, You Can Control Their Thoughts

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How the AP Style Guide enforces gender ideology (via Breitbart):

ONE: Warns against “all views” in transgender coverage: The guide says to “avoid false balance [by] giving a platform to unqualified claims or sources in the guise of balancing a story by including all views.” “Do not use the term ‘transgenderism,’ which frames transgender identity as an ideology,” the guide demands.
TWO: Demands the use of “gender-affirming care”: The guide says to use the term to describe puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and gender-reassignment surgeries.
THREE: Opposes describing people by their biological sex: “Use the term sex assigned at birth instead of biological sex, birth gender, was identified at birth as, born a girl and the like,” the style guide states. “Avoid references to a transgender person being born a boy or girl, or phrasing like birth gender. Sex assigned at birth is the accurate terminology.”
“Since not all people fall under one of two categories for sex or gender — as in the cases of nonbinary and intersex people — avoid references to both, either or opposite sexes or genders,” according to the guide.


Relatedly, via Matt Osborne:

To tell a boy that he should put on pants is exactly the same as saying that he ought to un-alive himself: this is what the Trevor Project means by “trans rights.” … According to the Trevor Project, telling a lesbian girl she was born in the right body is “conversion therapy,” a “dangerous and discredited practice,” whereas the surgical mutilation and biochemical harms of gender quacks are life-saving settled science etcetera.


And this:

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Should the Military and Federal Agencies Celebrate LGBTQ Pride?

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Reposted from my Substack, why ending (or “pausing”) identity-focused celebrations is not an attack on our “rights”:

Lately, I have been seeing a lot of discussions in LGBTQ online groups decrying the ending of LGBTQ Pride commemorations and Pride Month celebrations in the military and federal government offices, and the State Department’s ordering that only the U.S. flag be flown and U.S. embassies and consulates around the world.

For example, “Going forward, DoD Components and Military Departments will not use official resources, to include man-hours, to host celebrations or events related to cultural awareness months,” the Department of Defense announced on Jan. 31. “Service members and civilians remain permitted to attend these events in an unofficial capacity outside of duty hours. Installations, units, and offices are encouraged to celebrate the valor and success of military heroes of all races, genders, and backgrounds.”

These developments are being described in somber tones as a rollback of LGBTQ “rights.”

In truth, what we as gays and lesbians sought in the pre- and post-Stonewall fight for legal equality was the “right” to be treated the same as our heterosexual peers, not to have the government require that our sexual orientation be celebrated by others.

The Trump administration’s “pausing for review” all identity-focused commemorations and celebrations is a statement that military service, especially, and the federal government, generally, should focus on what unites us as Americans. In our own community spheres, we can choose to celebrate our particular identities, whether based on race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or other defining factors. But that is not the role and constitutional mandate of the government.

Returning to that principle, while at the same time making clear that government must ensure equal opportunity and merit-based hiring and promotion, is what America is about at its best.

While the previous administration’s obsessive focus on DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) was overly broad to the point of self-parody, the current administration could by over-reacting by cancelling all recognition of our “strength through diversity.” But corrective action was needed, so at least for the immediate future jettisoning Pride Month in the military and federal agencies isn’t a lamentable loss; it’s a return to the proper role of government in a democratic republic.

In short, it is not the role of government to celebrate anyone’s sexual orientation. How did we come to think that it was?

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Trump Halts Sterilizing Minors and the ‘Rogues Gallery’ Response

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Adam Lehrer and Park MacDougald write in Tablet’s Daily Scroll (link below):

[After] Trump’s executive order halting “gender-affirming care” for minors, … New York City hospital NYU Langone canceled appointments for some children…. Trump’s executive order isn’t particularly reactionary but places our gender-affirming care practices in line with those of our allies; the United Kingdom, for example, banned puberty blockers for children under 18 last year.
Nevertheless, on Monday night, hundreds of people gathered in a park near NYU Langone’s before marching toward the hospital’s entrance to protest the cancellations. The rally was headed by speakers organized by local chapters of the Democratic Socialists of America and included a rogues’ gallery of New York’s left-wing political figures, including City Council member Tiffany Cában and actress and former candidate for governor Cynthia Nixon, whose son received transgender care from NYU Langone.


Added: On the IGF Facebook page, a commenter asked: “Do you understand the difference between Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity? It appears that you do not.”

I replied: “I don’t think a 9-year-old boy knows the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity. I do know that peer-reviewed studies overwhelming show that almost all kids with gender confusion or symptoms of gender dysphoria outgrew the sense they are “wrongly sexed” after puberty (and by their early 20s), and that of this cohort most turn out to be gay — if they weren’t put on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones that leave them permanently sterilized and unable to experience orgasm.”


And this!

Also: “[Dr. Erica Li] said there are signs many children who claim to be transgender or profess some other similar gender identity are victims of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, a situation in which a person of influence makes up fake symptoms or is the cause of real symptoms in a child, in order for the adult to receive social approval.”

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How Trump’s Transgender-Military Ban Might Have Been Defensible

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The executive order would be more defensible if rather than veering into whether transitioning ones gender identity is dishonorable and untruthful, not to mention selfish, the administration had instead focused on practical issues. A point made in passing that should have been central is the reference to “the hormonal and surgical medical interventions involved.”
An argument certainly could be made (but wasn’t) that just as insulin-dependent diabetics are barred from enlisting — as insulin can’t be guaranteed to deployed troops — so, too, it would seem reasonable to bar transgender personnel dependent on the lifelong use of cross-sex hormones, as people who have physically transitioned typically are. https://stephenhenrymiller.substack.com/p/how-trumps-transgender-military-ban


Added:

Along similar lines, The Scroll’s Adam Lehrer reports:

Rob Smith, an openly gay combat veteran, argues that the removal of trans people from the military is the right move because, he says, transgender service members are non-deployable, meaning that while their treatments are covered by Veterans Affairs, they effectively can’t serve the military primarily because they require ongoing medical treatments that are not compatible with military readiness. So, while some are criticizing the removal of 8,000 service members from the military, Smith and others assert that the executive orders remove 8,000 non-deployable service members and replace them with 8,000 deployable members.

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The Sermon (and who is actually putting ‘gay kids’ at risk)

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Ben Appel writes about the Inaugural prayer service sermon that LGBTQ+ activists and progressive media have been celebrating:

By now, you may have heard about the sermon that Bishop of Washington Mariann Edgar Budde delivered during the inaugural prayer service…. Near the end of her sermon, Budde addressed President Trump directly. “In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now,” she said. “There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and Independent families, some who fear for their lives.” …
I hadn’t planned to write about this topic until I came across a New York Times headline on Wednesday, which appeared to take a page right out of a Democratic strategist’s playbook. “Bishop Asks Trump to ‘Have Mercy’ on Immigrants and Gay Children,” the headline read. Yes, Budde did mention gay and lesbian kids as well as trans kids. But let’s not pretend that that’s the population the Democrats, the mainstream media, and LGBTQ activist organizations are constantly fretting about “protecting”: gay kids. …
We need to be very clear: President Trump’s executive order on “gender ideology extremism,” just like the Florida legislation before it, is a direct result of the total capture of our institutions by the pseudoscientific religious belief of gender ideology. If blue-haired radicals hadn’t entered schools and told kids that sex is “assigned” rather than simply observed, that the sex they feel like inside supersedes the material reality of their bodies, and that some kids don’t have a sex at all, then these measures wouldn’t even be a figment in the GOP’s imagination. …
For years now, gay people like me have been pleading with Democrats, mainstream news outlets, and activist organizations to consider the implications of affirming feminine boys and masculine girls as “transgender,” when the research (not to mention our own experiences) tells us that nearly all of these gender-dysphoric/gender-nonconforming/whatever-the-hell-you-want-to-call-them kids, if not socially transitioned, will grow up to be gay and choose not to medically transition. …


And this, a welcomed development:

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More Americans Oppose Female-Identifying Males in Women’s Sports

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Added: The LGB Alliance USA praises President Trump’s executive order. It’s arguable if the order goes too far by not recognizing adults who transition, but there’s no question that the ludicrous over-reach by transactivists, especially regarding putting gender-nonconforming kids on the trans train and obviously bio males in women’s locker rooms and sports teams, led to this.

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Even Most Democrats Oppose Medicalized Conversion Therapy for Minors

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Just-released results from a New York Times/Ipsos poll show that 71% of Americans (including 54% of Democrats) believe…

Posted by IGF CultureWatch on Sunday, January 19, 2025


Ben Appel makes clear why big-money LGBTQ+ groups are so wrong:


And an Inauguration Day post from the LGBT Courage Coalition:


A thought from the LGB Alliance: “Some people believe girls who like football need puberty blockers and a double mastectomy. We believe they need football boots.”

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A Nomination Based on Merit, Not DEI

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America and the GOP have come a long way since the days when George W. Bush tried to ban same-sex marriage.

At his confirmation hearing for Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent thanked “my spouse, John Freeman” and their two children, Cole and Caroline. His family sat behind him.

Posted by IGF CultureWatch on Friday, January 17, 2025


Bessent was not nominated because of his sexual orientation in order to check an identity group box. He was nominated regardless of his sexual orientation, which is how it should be.

Scott Bessent explains how his dream of attending the U.S. Naval Academy and, later, his effort to join the foreign…

Posted by IGF CultureWatch on Saturday, January 18, 2025


Could the silence from progressive LGBTQ+ activist groups be because his appointment was based solely on merit and not mandated by DEI identity-group hierarchies?

Chuck Ross at the Washington Free Beacon reports: >>President-elect Donald Trump's pick for Treasury secretary, Scott…

Posted by IGF CultureWatch on Tuesday, December 17, 2024


Update:


Here’s Roll Calls breakdown of the confirmation vote.

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