Culture & Identity
Today’s LGBTQ+ Movement Stands for Males in Girls Sports
Plus:
Voters aren’t likely to put up with this much longer:
Relatedly:
And looking, more broadly, on how the movement lost its way:
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Stonewall and Trans Ideology
In “Lies, Myths, and Stonewall,” Martha Shelley, one of the founders of the Gay Liberation Front formed in the aftermath of the Stonewall riots, wrote:
Newspaper accounts at the time, and historians who interviewed hundreds of people, report that the rioters were mostly young white gay men. … Now it seems, however, that a subset of the trans movement has appropriated the history, along with various leftists who want to be seen as allies. About a year ago, Democracy Now! reported that the riots were led by “transwomen of color.” This is so far from actual events that I wrote to them trying to correct the misinformation but never heard back.
The way the legend goes these days is that two transwomen, Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, led the Stonewall rebellion. … Here’s what I know and remember about Rivera and Johnson: First, they called themselves transvestites, not transgender. Few people, if any, identified as transgender in those days. They identified themselves as male or female at different times. Then, as Johnson herself said afterwards, she didn’t arrive at the Stonewall that evening until 2:00 am, long after the rebellion had started. Rivera was uptown all evening and never participated in the riots. I remember, myself, that immediately afterward they were not leaders of or even participants in the movement for gay rights.
Gay history and gay heroes are being erased, and gay people who speak out against this face the wrath of LGBTQ+ lobbies that have replaced what was once the movement for “gay liberation” and lesbian and gay equal rights.
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‘Trans’ Lumps Together Different Conditions
And relatedly, worth repeating:
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When You Control the Words People Can Use, You Can Control Their Thoughts
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.
How the AP Style Guide enforces gender ideology by, for instance, demanding the use of “gender-affirming care” to describe puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and gender-reassignment surgeries. https://t.co/S37u8t3HDP
— CultureWatch (@IndeGayForum) February 18, 2025
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.
Osborne: Trevor Project says "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."<<https://t.co/YtrQWZ2RDF
— CultureWatch (@IndeGayForum) February 18, 2025
And this:
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Should the Military and Federal Agencies Celebrate LGBTQ Pride?
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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Have the Democrats Learned Nothing?
And click through to watch this explanation of the DNC’s voting rules:
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The Sermon (and who is actually putting ‘gay kids’ at risk)
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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Even Most Democrats Oppose Medicalized Conversion Therapy for Minors

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:
The LGBT Courage Coalition: "Protecting children from harmful medical interventions, ensuring fairness in sports, and preserving safety in women’s spaces are critical first steps." https://t.co/uG878G234V
— CultureWatch (@IndeGayForum) January 20, 2025
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.”
— LGB Alliance (@AllianceLGB) December 24, 2019
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A Nomination Based on Merit, Not DEI
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
I’d follow Scott Bessent into war.🫡
— Geiger Capital (@Geiger_Capital) January 22, 2025
“If illegal immigration is good for GDP, just build a road from Tierra del Fuego to the Rio Grande and let everyone in. We could double GDP… but per capita GDP per AMERICAN would drop substantially. It’s about Americans’ standard of living.” pic.twitter.com/M1x9Z03Uwn
Update: