To resist gender-transitioning of kids, be willing to lose friends, activists say
WASHINGTON — Radical feminists, a former trans-identified male and a lesbian who was kicked off the Baltimore mayor's LGBTQ commission are urging people to scrap social media conversation and start speaking to people face-to-face about the dangers of transgender ideology.
Assembled before hundreds gathered at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, a panel of exclusively leftist, feminist, and lesbian voices urged those in attendance on Monday to speak out against the threat of gender identity legislation, particularly given the Equality Act, now being considered in Congress.
The proposed bill is an update to the 1964 Civil Rights Act — regarded by many as the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. — and would add "gender identity" as a protected legal category in civil rights law even though, the activists say, no one has ever defined that phrase or knows what it means. Radical feminists maintain the entire concept is a grave threat to hard-won rights they have fought for on the basis of biological sex.
Among the speakers was Hacsi Horvath, who once identified as transgender and presented as a woman for several years and is an adjunct lecturer in the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco.
"Don't play along with it. I don't play along," Horvath said when asked by The Christian Post about how people on the political right and left might respond effectively together to the rapid spread of gender identity ideology in a polarized political climate.
"I don't say transwoman, I don't say she, her [when speaking about a male]. I don't care if it hurts their feelings. This is reality and it gaslights everybody else. And it gaslights yourself, and you begin to internalize it."
Jennifer Chavez, an attorney and a board member of the radical feminist group Women's Liberation Front, read stories from parents, who remained nameless, about how they lost their children to gender identity, how the health of their kids was wrecked by puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, and how some children no longer speak to their parents.
"Everyone who is here has a reason to be concerned that we will be attacked in our jobs or in our personal lives, lose friends, lose family even. I think we all have to start trying to give cover to each other and make room for there to be questioning [of trans ideology]," said Chavez.
"And there has to be that kind of making room within the medical profession, where more and more people need to just speak up and create space for the questioning so that every time that happens that person isn't just slammed down."
As The Christian Post reported in December, Dr. Michael Laidlaw, a Rocklin, California-based endocrinologist, indicated that a culture of fear shrouds the medical community and concerned physicians are reluctant to speak against administering puberty blockers to children.
"I have been told by a Kaiser doctor: 'Well, I can't say anything about this or I may lose my job. I have a family to feed,'" Laidlaw told CP.
"There have been few physicians willing to stand up and say, 'We need to question this, there is something wrong here."
Kara Dansky, also an attorney and WoLF board member, concurred with Chavez, cautioning against Republican assumptions that gender identity legislation is so ridiculous that it will never become law. Many believe that the Equality Act will pass the Democratic-controlled House this year but will be stopped in the Senate where Republicans have a majority.
"Republicans in general, do not understand what we are all up against here," Dansky stressed, pointing to her colleagues. "Feminists understand the unbelievable power and the money behind the movement to promote gender identity. It is massive. And we need to be prepared for a major fight."
Julia Beck, a lesbian who during the panel explained how transactivists engineered her being kicked off the Baltimore city mayor's LGBTQ commission, urged people to forego social media and converse with people about the issue offline.
"One thing we can do just as people and individuals is meet with each other. Talk to your neighbors, talk to your family," Beck said.
"You're going to lose friends. It's going to happen. But that is a risk we should be willing to take. And I would also advise to move away from the internet. Get off Facebook, get off Twitter. That's not where great discussions happen. Great discussions happen when we get face to face. So meet with people in person."
The panel of leftists spoke at the conservative Heritage Foundation because no organization on the left was interested in hosting them, it was explained.