Religion is a Mental Illness

So, Pride Month is finally over. The flags, the rainbow bunting, the corporate drag shows, all of it is being wound down for another year, and many people will be breathing a sigh of relief. Gay people included.

For what began all those decades ago as an annual demonstration against homophobic bigotry held to commemorate The Stonewall riots of 1969, has descended into a month-long orgy of virtue signaling. Far worse than that, due to Pride's embrace of gender ideology, it has helped to fuel a new form of homophobia in faux progressive garb.

The impact of the riots at the Stonewall Inn in June 1969 has often been overblown. Those few summer days when the beleaguered gay community fought back against the police on the streets of New York is rightly considered a milestone in the struggle for equal rights. But gay equality was truly achieved by the activists who persisted in the aftermath, harnessing the energy of the uprising and changing the world forever. Perhaps a more important milestone was the march organized by a handful of campaigners a year later. Veteran gay rights activist Craig Rodwell wanted to hold a yearly commemoration of Stonewall, building on the annual reminder picket events he had been organizing on Independence Day in Philadelphia.

The first New York Pride March, as it was later rebranded, was held on the 28th of June 1970. It was called the Christopher Street Liberation Day and was organized by Rodwell, Fred Sargeant, Linda Rhodes and Ellen Broidy. It was an audacious display. Police hostility to gay people was rife at the time, the local media were overwhelmingly unsympathetic, and there were fears of violent repercussions from observers. Nevertheless, the day passed off peacefully, perhaps because of a general sense of astonishment that thousands of gay people would assemble so openly. At the head of the march, Fred Sergeant carried a bullhorn and called out instructions to the marchers as they made their way from the West Village to Central Park.

Fifty-four years later, and Pride has transformed from an important act of gay and lesbian resistance into an event full of heterosexuals calling themselves "queer" or "non-binary," desperate to identify into an oppressed group. Progress Pride flags flutter from every High Street store. This relatively new design, a kaleidoscopic eyesore that has replaced the traditional six stripe pride flag, is emblazoned on schools, universities, hospitals and civic buildings.

In the city of Arlington in Texas, this year's "family friendly" Pride event included displays of dildos, half- naked drag queens and human dogs in bondage gear. And it was all spon.sored by Lockheed Martin, the world's largest producer of military armaments.

In London, pedestrian crossings have been repainted with the Progress Pride motif. Police horses find walking across the colored stripes confused and disturbing, so the animals had to undergo special training to overcome their fears. After all, it is essential to address the rampant homophobia within the equine community.

What might the thousands who turned out on that summer day in New York in 1970 make of this distorted version of Pride? Those gay men and lesbians who risked social ostracism and physical violence to gather in public have little in common with this garish and unsettling facsimile.

A poll from 2021 determined that almost 40% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 now identify as LGBTQ. And given the vast majority of them identify as "trans," "non-binary" and "queer," this means that gay people are now the minority in this coalition. The early pioneers of gay rights didn't risk so much for their movement to be usurped by fetishistic heterosexuals with a martyr complex.

A recent poll on X asked a simple question: "Do you want Pride anymore?" The response was overwhelmingly negative. But while social media polls are notoriously unreliable, it is surely significant that this one was reposted by Fred Sargeant and that his answer was a resounding "no." That the man who led the first Pride March, bullhorn in hand, should now reject the annual event that he co-created is far from trivial.

Prevent investigates boy, 12, for saying there 'are only two genders'

A 12-year-old schoolboy has been investigated by counter-extremism officers after he declared there 'are only two genders' and 'there's no s

Mail Online

• Boy also made a video in which he stated 'there's no such thing as non-binary'
• School made referral to Prevent amid fears he could be radicalised by far-Right 
• He was accused of unhealthy interest in weapons as he owns a toy crossbow

A 12-year-old schoolboy has been investigated by counter-extremism officers after he declared there 'are only two genders'.

The child made a video, posted online, in which he also stated: 'There's no such thing as non-binary'.

And in response to school bullies who mistakenly believed he supported transgender ideology, he said: '[I'm] gay not queer.'

Originally a homophobic slur, trans activists claim the word 'queer' now describes people who don't adhere to ideas of sex or gender.

But the school told the boy's mother they would refer him to Prevent, the Home Office programme that attempts to stop people becoming terrorists, amid fears he could be at risk of being radicalised by the far-right.

The Mail is aware of the boy's identity but has agreed not to disclose it, and has also viewed the social media posts.

The boy's mother was visited by Prevent and Northumbria Police officers this week, in a meeting she described as 'an interrogation'.

Officers listed a string of allegations to illustrate the boy was at risk of radicalisation.

The boy's mother said: 'We think that he was targeted as the children believe gay people agree with trans ideology.

'He made a video which I uploaded to YouTube where he said there 'are only two genders' and 'I'm gay not queer'.

'The school phoned up and were incensed by it. They said that they would refer him to Prevent for that video.

'They said that he was at risk of radicalisation - not that he had been, but was a risk when he gets to 13 and is entitled to his own social media accounts.

'There was a risk he would fall in with Far Right groups.'

She said counter terror officers - who visited the family home - raised concerns over the fact that her son, who is Jewish, harboured extremist views on account of his response when asked if there were any groups that shouldn't exist. 

She said her son responded that 'Hamas (the Gaza-based terror group) should be wiped out'.

Further fears were raised over comments he made to school bullies, stating he wanted to 'exterminate' them. 

He is said to have made the remark in relation to appalling racist slurs from classmates.

In a letter to the school in South Tyneside - seen by the Mail - his mother detailed how he was subjected to vile verbal abuse and Nazi salutes.

Prevent officers also suggested the boy had an unhealthy interest in weapons on account of another online video - again uploaded by his mother - which showed him demonstrating a toy crossbow bought from English Heritage, she said.

English Heritage describes the 'best seller' item as 'completely harmless but lots of fun'.

The mother said the school and Prevent officers were guilty of double standards, claiming anti-Semitic incidents at the school were not dealt with in the same way.

She said: 'We sat down with the Prevent officers and there was an interrogation - they had an attitude of 'we'll ask the questions'.

'We were asked if we monitored his social media and what songs he listens to.

'They said there was a whole series of things he had been accused of.'

The police response was criticised by free speech campaigners who rebuked officers for 'wilfully missing the target'.

Harry Miller, chief exec of Fair Cop, said: 'His views on gender are as far away from terrorism that it's possible to be. 

'They are views that are held by the majority of people in Britain and don't even get into the foothills of terrorism.

'You couldn't call it criminality, let alone terrorism. There is a difference between bad behaviour and terrorism.

'This is another instance of the police wilfully missing the target because hunting down school children is easier than confronting actual terrorists.

'Fair Cop will continue to stand between these idiots and the public until they stop behaving like the woke, cowardly Stasi they have become.

'The Home Office needs to get a grip. Sack every complicit Chief Constable.'

Kate Barker, chief exec of LGB Alliance, said: 'If it's a sign of radicalisation to say you don't like being called 'queer' then according to our research, 94 per cent of LGB people can expect a knock on the door from counter-terrorism officers.

'We applaud this young boy for standing up for his beliefs, and we condemn the teachers and police who think it's wrong to abhor this horrible slur.'

The Prevent strategy was introduced by the Government in 2011 as part of a bid to tackle terrorism through early intervention.

According to the latest Home Office data there were 6,817 referrals to Prevent in the year ending 31 March, 2023 - the figure was up 6.4 per cent on the previous year.

A joint statement from Northumbria Police and Counter Terrorism Policing North East read: 'We are unable to discuss individual cases, or identify anyone who may or may not be the subject of a Prevent referral.

'All referrals are treated in the strictest confidence and will always prioritise the safety and welfare of those concerned.

'Prevent is a multi-agency approach to safeguarding and supporting those most at risk of radicalisation through early intervention. 

'It seeks to protect young and vulnerable people against all forms of extremist activity, regardless of ideology.'

South Tyneside Council declined to comment.

It’s time for gay people to turn our backs on Pride

This month-long orgy of virtue-signalling, fetishism and gender ideology is taking gay rights backwards.

spiked-online.com

The impact of the riots at the Stonewall Inn in June 1969 has often been overblown. Those few summer days when the beleaguered gay community fought back against the police on the streets of New York City are rightly considered a milestone in the struggle for equal rights in the West. But endless arguments about ‘who threw the first brick?’ have obscured the truth that gay equality was achieved by the activists who persisted in the aftermath, harnessing that energy and changing the world forever.

Perhaps a more important milestone was the march organised by a handful of campaigners a year after Stonewall. Craig Rodwell’s idea had been to make this a yearly commemoration that would supersede the ‘Annual Reminder’ picket events that he had been holding every Independence Day in Philadelphia since 1965. It would be known as the ‘Christopher Street Liberation Day’ – later retrospectively rebranded as the first New York ‘Pride’ march – and it was orchestrated chiefly by Rodwell, Fred Sargeant, Linda Rhodes and Ellen Broidy.

The march took place on 28 June 1970, and it was an audacious display. Police hostility to gay people was rife, the local media were overwhelmingly unsympathetic and there were fears of violent repercussions from observers. The day passed off peacefully, perhaps because of a general sense of astonishment that thousands of gay people would assemble so openly. A reporter for the Village Voice wrote that ‘no one could quite believe it, eyes rolled back in heads, Sunday tourists traded incredulous looks, wondrous faces poked out of air-conditioned cars’. At the head of the march, Fred Sargeant carried a bullhorn and called out instructions to the marchers as they made their way from the West Village to Central Park.

Fifty-four years later, and Pride has transformed from an important act of resistance into a month-long orgy of corporatism and virtue-signalling, full of heterosexuals desperate to identify themselves into an oppressed group with the help of trans ideology. ‘Progress Pride’ flags flutter from every high-street store. This relatively new design – a kaleidoscopic eyesore that has replaced the traditional six-stripe Pride flag – is emblazoned on schools, universities, hospitals, civic buildings. In the city of Arlington in Texas, this year’s family friendly Pride event included displays of dildos, half-naked drag queens and human dogs in bondage gear, all co-spon.sored by Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest producer of armaments. In London, numerous pedestrian crossings have been repainted with the ‘Progress Pride’ motif. Police horses find walking across the coloured stripes confusing and disturbing, so the animals have undergone special training to overcome their fears. After all, it is essential to address the rampant homophobia within the equine community.

What might the thousands who turned out on that summer day in New York in 1970 make of this distorted version of Pride? Those gay men and lesbians who risked social ostracism and physical violence to gather in public have little in common with this garish and unsettling facsimile. A poll from 2021 determined that almost 40 per cent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 now identify as LGBTQ. Given the vast majority identifying as such do so as ‘trans’, ‘nonbinary’ and ‘queer’, this means it is statistically certain that gay people are now the minority in this coalition. The early pioneers of gay rights didn’t risk so much for their movement to be usurped by fetishistic heterosexuals with a martyr complex.

It would be interesting to see polling data on how many gay people support Pride in its new ‘trans-inclusive’ incarnation. One recent poll on X asked a simple question: ‘Do you want Pride anymore?’ And although 93.5 per cent of respondents replied in the negative, social-media polls are notoriously useless and we would be unwise to draw any conclusions from them. Still, it is surely significant that this poll was reposted by Fred Sargeant, and that his answer was a resounding ‘No’. That the man who led the first Pride march, bullhorn in hand, should now reject the annual event that he co-created because of its embrace of gender ideology is far from trivial. Nor is it trivial that while handing out pamphlets critical of the trans movement at a Pride event in Vermont in 2022, Sargeant was physically attacked by trans activists.

He is not alone. Many gay people have expressed dismay at the metamorphosis of Pride and feel that it no longer represents them. This can be confusing for those who have not been paying attention to its ongoing political evolution, but there is a very good reason why groups of gay men and lesbians are now holding alternative Pride rallies this year. In August 2022, police insisted that lesbians leave a Pride parade because their banners, proclaiming that ‘lesbians don’t like penises’ and ‘trans activism erases lesbians’, were causing consternation. When gay people are being escorted away from Pride marches by the police, we can safely say that the movement has fallen.

Some might argue that the LGBTQIA+ explosion is an example of what happens when liberalism goes unchecked, that it is the natural consequence of an excess of tolerance and the rise of identity politics. Yet while identity politics in its current intersectional form has proven to be deeply illiberal and regressive, there have been sound reasons throughout history for people with shared characteristics to organise and resist. Unlike the various campaigns for imaginary victimhood that dominate today’s ‘social justice’ causes, being openly gay in the 1970s came at a huge cost. At the time of the first Pride parade, every state in the US with the exception of Illinois criminalised gay sex. In services and employment, discrimination against gay people was permitted, and even most progressives assumed that homosexuality was a mental illness. This is a world away from the exaggerated or fabricated grievances of the diversity, equity and inclusion industry today.

Now that gay people have complete equal rights under the law, the protest element of Pride has been appropriated by those with an apparent craving for oppression. Asexual activists, for instance, have taken centre stage at certain Pride events, even though nobody in the history of humankind has ever been burned at the stake for not wanting to have sex. It isn’t the case that those who identify as asexual are facing discrimination; it’s that nobody cares about what they don’t get up to in the bedroom. But of course, for those of a narcissistic temperament, there can be nothing more devastating than being ignored.

Many of those who call themselves ‘nonbinary’ are similarly vocal, but there is no serious comparison to be made between the historical persecution of homosexuals and experiencing some pushback when you demand that others refer to you as ‘they’ or ‘them’. Coming out as gay in 1970 increased the risk of being violently assaulted; coming out as ‘nonbinary’ today only increases one’s chances of being employed at the BBC.

Of course, all of this must be symptomatic of the developing cult of victimhood in the Western world. Ironically, there is now power in being the victim. Those who claim to be ‘marginalised’ are able to get people fired, drive them from public life, and harass and bully them in the name of ‘progress’. Who would have thought there was so much clout in being oppressed?

Far from being a collective gesture of unity, Pride is now widely interpreted as a celebration of homophobia. This is because it has become infected with gender ideology, which seeks to eliminate gay people from their own history. Although trans-identified individuals were rarely seen at activist meetings and events in the early decades of the gay movement, revisionists are now insisting that gay people owe their rights to the hard work of trans campaigners. We are told that a black trans woman, Marsha P Johnson, was the key figure at the Stonewall riots. This is wrong on many counts. The riots were overwhelmingly dominated by young gay men. Although Johnson took part in the demonstrations, he wasn’t present when the rioting began. Most significantly, by his own admission, he was a transvestite who didn’t identify as female.

Fred Sargeant has been much vilified for exposing the truth of what took place in these early years of the gay rights’ movement, and he is now a thorn in the side of activists whose worldview depends on a narrative that runs contrary to the truth. Recently he posted a link to the Digital Transgender Archive on the Third International Conference on Transgender Law and Employment Policy, which explicitly outlines how gay and trans movements in the 20th century were completely separate. The conflation of the LGB and T is an invention as recent as 2015. As the document explains, while the gay-rights movement in the US began in the 1920s, ‘the existence of a transgendered community that seeks reforms did not come into existence until the 1990s’.

The historical revisionism doesn’t end at Stonewall. Activists have attempted to claim that certain gay historical figures were mistaking their true trans identity for homosexuality. Just as Mormon priests have been known to baptise the dead and thereby convert them unwillingly to their cause, trans activists have been busy harvesting the annals of history for potential recruits. Those falsely claimed as trans include George Eliot, Dr James Barry, Radclyffe Hall and Joan of Arc. People who were gay and gender nonconforming are particularly vulnerable to this kind of retrospective ‘transing’. It’s very convenient for activists that the dead can’t complain.

While many trans campaigners consider themselves supportive of gay rights, overt homophobia is nonetheless often tolerated and encouraged within their circles. There are innumerable examples online of trans activists claiming that homosexuality is a form of transphobia and that only bigots have ‘genital preferences’. ‘If you’re a cis gay man’, writes one, ‘and your sexuality revolves around you not liking female genitalia I hope you die and I will spit on your grave’. A video recently went viral featuring an activist explaining to gay men why they should transition to female and that ‘maybe being gay is an outdated concept’. An online influencer called Davey Wavey uploaded his attempt at gay conversion therapy in a video entitled ‘How To Eat Pussy – For Gay Men’. One can imagine it being shown to young men at an evangelical Christian retreat for those who wish to find a ‘cure’ for their immoral urges.

This isn’t simply a case of a handful of lunatics on the fringe – this idea has also been normalised in mainstream gay culture. Australia’s Human Rights Commission prohibits lesbians from holding female-only events on the grounds that it discriminates against men who identify as female. Sall Grover, the founder of women’s app Giggle, is currently in a legal battle in Australia because she refused to allow a man to join. Stonewall has even redefined ‘homosexuality’ on its website as ‘same-gender attracted’. Its former CEO, Nancy Kelley, once suggested that women who don’t wish to date trans people are ‘sexual racists’. No, Nancy, they’re just gay.

We have seen all this before. In the 1980s, it was a common trope for gay men to be told that they ‘just haven’t found the right girl yet’ and to suggest to lesbians that they ‘just need the right dick’. The rights of homosexuals depend upon a recognition that a minority of people are attracted to their own sex. Once sex is eliminated from the equation, gay rights are no longer tenable.

The most obvious example of how gay rights have been threatened by trans ideology is that young gay people are disproportionately at risk of surgical ‘correction’. Given that between 80 and 90 per cent of adolescents referred to the NHS Tavistock Clinic were orientated towards their own sex, it is clear that in many cases homosexuality was being treated as gender dysphoria. I am usually mistrustful of accusations of various ‘phobias’ which can be used as a rhetorical technique to discourage disagreement. But if medicalising people for being same-sex attracted doesn’t qualify as homophobic, I’m not sure that anything does.

And so Pride and its accoutrements have come to represent an ideology that seeks not only to erase the foundations of gay rights, but also to re-conceptualise same-sex attraction as a condition that requires medical treatment. When police officers decorate their cars with the Pride colours, when NHS workers display the rainbow lanyard, when schools decorate their halls with bunting in solidarity, they are almost certainly doing so with the noble intention of promoting equal rights. But they are inadvertently promoting a movement whose end goal is the eradication of homosexuality.

This is not to deny that the ‘Progress Pride’ flag and all it represents have been embraced by many gay people. It is clearly the case that a majority have not realised the extent to which the flag has been hijacked for a cause that actively works against their interests. The situation has hardly been helped by prominent celebrities, often now referred to as ‘Vichy gays’, who have cheered on this sinister development. Homosexuals are not immune to the condition of useful idiocy.

Given that Pride has become so divisive, and given that so many lesbians, bisexuals and gay men now consider it to be an essentially hostile enterprise, it would be prudent for corporations and government bodies to stop pretending that there is a consensus on this issue. Ignorance is no longer an excuse. By flying the ‘Progress Pride’ flag, they are taking a side in a highly contentious cultural debate, one that alienates as many gay people as it attracts. Those who are serious about gay rights need to distance themselves from Pride once and for all.

Why I Left the Left

Not your typical red pill narrative

freeblackthought.substack.com

Not your typical red pill narrative

There are so many “why I left the left” stories, but I promise you this isn’t your typical red pill narrative. I didn't go from a Democrat to a Republican or a woke leftist to a conservative. This false dichotomy—this idea that there's only left and right—is how I got into this mess in the first place. I want to discuss how I ended up on the left, why I left the left, and where I stand now as someone disappointed by both political options we are presented with today.

As a Gen Z individual, I witnessed social media indoctrinating many people my age into wokeness. For me, it was through school. My home culture played a part, especially the heavy emphasis on identity politics, where being black was supposed to determine my decisions, particularly political ones. But the full woke hierarchy—the idea that every aspect of your identity has to be categorized as either oppressed or oppressor—was introduced to me through my school’s DEI program. Affinity groups at school, separated by race to discuss oppression, introduced me to the privilege-oppressed hierarchy, or what could be called the “whose-feelings-matter-more hierarchy.”

I learned that white people were more privileged than non-white people, men more privileged than women, straight people more privileged than gay people, Christians more privileged than Muslims, and so on. This was supposed to determine a person's morality—judging people not by their actions or words but by these arbitrary labels of “oppressed” or “privileged” based on group identity.

At first, I didn’t buy into the DEI identity politics because it contradicted what I saw with my own eyes. I had friends of all races. I had friends that were men. I had friends that I was being told were more “privileged” than I was, but I never felt oppressed or harmed by them. However, my views changed in 2016 when Trump was nominated for president. As a high school senior in Texas, I didn’t know much about his politics (I wasn’t following any of his speeches), but I heard from teachers that if Trump were elected, America would become a post-apocalyptic hellscape where my rights would be violated, and I would be enslaved or put into a concentration camp because I was a black woman.

Living in a predominantly Republican area, many of my friends supported Trump. I never questioned their support of Trump’s policies; I simply assumed my friends—my white friends, my male friends—were voting for someone who wanted to harm me because they were privileged. That was what I was being told and taught in school.

The next year, I went to MIT in Boston—one of the bluest cities in one of the bluest states—where the DEI and identity politics culture was even more intense. Everyone was paranoid about offending someone due to the serious social and academic repercussions. The DEI department at MIT was super intense, and you could get in serious trouble for offending someone with “hate speech,” a loosely defined term that pretty much meant asking, (1) Did you offend someone?, (2) How badly were their feelings hurt?, (3) And where are they relative to you in the hierarchy? The answers would determine what repercussions you’d face.

I don’t want to pretend this had everything to do with the people around me. There was no one putting a gun to my head and telling me I had to accept these crazy ideas. No one forced me to believe that you had to validate everyone’s pronouns and identities or else you were harming them. No one forced me to believe that you couldn’t wear certain makeup or hairstyles or you were harming them. No one forced me to believe that you couldn’t state certain factual truths about history or the world, or else you were harming people. All of these were ideas that I accepted willingly.

One of the craziest things that I believed during that time was that I was non-binary. For one thing, I wasn’t a very stereotypical girly girl, and I had (and still have) some traditionally masculine traits. I tend to prefer leadership positions, and I was told that if I didn’t identify as non-binary, I would be invalidating the people who did because I shared similarities with them in the way that I acted and behaved. But honestly, there was a second, subconscious reason: I knew, on some level, that if I identified as non-binary, I would gain more oppression points in the hierarchy. I wouldn’t feel so paranoid about my words offending people.

This paranoia (of offending people) was so intense—at least for me, and I would assume for others—that I was willing to accept something or to claim that I was something that wasn’t true. By the end of my first semester in college, I was at my most woke. I was paranoid about offending people, sensitive to being offended, and aggressive in policing others’ actions and words. I even reported people to the DEI department for being offensive. (I was a menace!)

But things changed when I got sick and was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder. At 18, I ended up in the hospital with half of my body paralyzed, the youngest person in the adult ward of the hospital, in need of 24/7 care.

Even though I identified as non-binary, I was still biologically female. Needing a female nurse for my safety and personal comfort conflicted with my identity as non-binary and the fear of offending someone. To ask for a female nurse—to acknowledge a difference between male and female—meant invalidating my own non-binary identity. More importantly, I wondered about the hospital’s definition of “female.” What if I got a nurse who identified as a woman but wasn’t what I was asking for? In that case, I’d have to clarify what I meant by “female” or “woman,” which might offend someone. Offending someone (I thought at the time) meant harming them, which was the worst thing I could do.

So I’m sitting in the hospital, and I’m weighing these two alternatives: Either (1) I prioritize my safety, which means I have to give up everything that I think is moral, or (2) I do what I think is right, but that means putting myself potentially in a more dangerous situation. I decided to put my safety first. I asked for a female nurse. I was ready to specify what I wanted, but I was in Texas at the time, and this was 2018, so it was not an issue. Gender ideology wasn’t very widespread; they knew exactly what I was talking about, and I ended up with a nurse who was a woman.

But this led to a moral crisis. What I believed to be moral and what I believed to be true were at odds. And it wasn’t just this dilemma—I’d discovered a serious flaw in my entire path of thinking, a deeper philosophical issue. Were reality and morality incompatible? Surely, that couldn’t be right.

Returning to school, I had a lot of questions: Is it true that hurting someone’s feelings is the worst thing that we can do and is actually the equivalent of physically harming someone? We are pretending that “man” and “woman” don’t have definitions, but this conflicts with biological reality. Why are we doing this? Is it healthy to constantly live in fear and be paranoid about being a bad person when nothing that you’re doing or saying has any bad intent?

These questions led to a lot of pushback. Some people seemed nervous that I was asking questions, and they would either quickly change the topic or whisper something like, “Oh, of course, these ideas are true. Why are you even asking? We don’t ask if these ideas are true. It’s just obvious.” Some got angry: “Why are you asking questions?! Trump supporters ask these types of questions! Fox News right-wing conspiracy theorists ask these types of questions! Are you a Trump-supporting, Fox News-watching, right-wing conspiracy theorist?—because that means that you’re against us! Either you’re with us, or you’re against us, and if you’re asking these questions, you’re siding with the people who are trying to enslave you and put you in concentration camps and doing all of these evil things!” These reactions were, in retrospect, a very obvious red flag, and I wish that at this point I’d realized I was in a kind of cult, but unfortunately, I didn’t.

If it’s not obvious, everything that I believed at this time was something somebody else said that I blindly followed as if it were true. I didn’t have the self-esteem to think through these ideas and consider whether they made sense. My peers, family members, friends, and mentors accepted these ideas, so I had no legitimate reason to question or challenge them. I fell back into accepting these beliefs, or at least that’s how I made it appear. While I reverted to calling myself non-binary, policing other people’s language, and reporting people to the DEI department, I secretly struggled with the idea that this was all wrong.

I began to realize there were so many cracks, inconsistencies, and illogical aspects to what I believed that I couldn’t put my head back in the sand and pretend they weren’t there. This was a really hard time in my life. I became depressed because I believed that asking these questions and searching for the truth made me a bad person.

Then the COVID pandemic came along, which surprisingly saved my life. During lockdowns, I was forced to sit with my thoughts and acknowledge the doubts and confusions that I had without any of the external influences that kept me trapped in this mindset. After thinking things through, I concluded that almost everything I believed was bullshit. But I still needed an extra push to fully trust my brain.

I was struggling with that self-esteem bit when I coincidentally had a conversation with my brother, who was not a Trump supporter, didn’t watch Fox News, wasn’t a right-wing conspiracy theorist, and had no interest in politics at all. Out of nowhere, he asked me, “Have you met these people in Boston who are crazy? They can’t define what a woman is. They’re offended by everything. They think facts don’t matter if they hurt people’s feelings.” Hearing this from my non-political brother made me realize I wasn’t the only person asking these questions. It was the nudge I needed to accept that it’s okay to ask questions and to explore alternatives to the woke nonsense I’d been taught. I started to pay attention to what was happening around me and think through what people were saying, what they believed, and why.

COVID may have been the catalyst for me to reassess my beliefs, but it also hit me particularly hard. Living with an autoimmune disorder, I was one of the individuals the government claimed their policies around lockdowns, mask requirements, vaccine mandates, and other measures were intended to protect. Unfortunately, they did the opposite. I know how to take care of my health. I’ve been doing it for years. I know when to wear a mask, but the government mask mandate—in Boston, you had to wear masks in public spaces—caused the price of masks to skyrocket and, in many places, created a shortage. Getting a mask under those policies was much harder for me.

Further, I needed to go to my specialist for treatment, but I had to travel to get there. The government required vaccines to fly, but my disorder makes certain vaccines riskier. I faced a dilemma: Should I risk my health by getting the vaccine or by not getting it? Not getting it would mean that I couldn’t travel to see the one specialist who could treat my rare condition. The shutdowns were another challenge. I preferred staying home to avoid crowded grocery stores, but when they closed all “non-essential” businesses, the remaining “essential” ones became overwhelmed. This, again, led to shortages of necessities like food and medical supplies (not to mention toilet paper!), and since delivery services were also suspended, I was forced to venture out for supplies that were often out of stock. None of these policies improved my life in any way.

I remember confiding to some of my friends (who happened to be woke leftists), “Hey, I have an autoimmune disorder, and these policies are not helping me, I don’t think I support them.” Their unsympathetic response was, “Are you listening to Trump supporters? Are you watching Fox News? Are you suddenly a right-wing conspiracy theorist?!”

Not long after, the BLM riots happened, and I had friends who couldn’t leave their houses because they were under curfew. It became apparent that these riots stemmed from non-factual beliefs about a police shooting. I remember asking questions like, “Do you really think that burning down buildings and businesses is going to get you what you want in this situation, which is policy change?” And the response that I got back was (can you guess?) that I must be a Trump-supporting, Fox News-watching, right-wing conspiracy theorist. There were no facts or logic behind their beliefs, just parroting what they heard, believing it made them good people.

Many had their “red pill” moment in 2020, leaving the Democrats and embracing conservatism. And let me be honest: when I left the left, I first called myself a conservative, not because I believed everything conservatives said, but because I saw it as the lesser of two evils. When I took the time to explore the full range of ideas out there—because there’s more than just woke or conservative, there’s more than just Democrat or Republican—I realized that I didn’t have to call myself a conservative or woke. Neither label applied. I realized I could reject both, and I did.

The conservative movement has almost all of the same flaws as wokeness. Many conservatives are easily offended, valuing faith and feelings over facts. They might get upset when they see a man wearing a dress, a woman expressing her choice not to marry or have children, or someone speaking Spanish (rather than English) at the grocery store. Many conservatives are religious, and like wokeness, their beliefs often lack a factual or evidentiary basis. Christianity, like gender ideology, relies heavily on subjective belief. I was briefly labeled a conspiracy theorist for expressing some ideas associated with conservatives, and I even joked about it. But there’s truth to the stereotype. Many conservatives blindly accept claims from sources like Fox News or personalities like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens without demanding evidence.

Conservatives often engage in identity politics as well. It’s common to see individuals on social media disparage the achievements of black people, attributing their success to affirmative action or DEI policies without evidence or consideration of the individual’s merits. They make assumptions based solely on race, mirroring the flawed privileged-oppressed hierarchy often associated with the left. This is the point where some will say, “Oh okay, well you’re not an ‘extremist,’ you don’t believe in the extreme left or the extreme right, so therefore you’re a ‘centrist,’ you’re somewhere in the middle—you believe in a mix of both.” Frankly, that’s absurd. I don’t think of myself as halfway between crazy and crazy. Rational thinking is not on a spectrum with crazy at each pole; consequently, I reject this left-right dichotomy altogether. It’s illogical to place conservatives on one end of a spectrum and woke people on the other. I don’t identify as woke, conservative, or a centrist. So, what am I?

First, I am a rational thinker. I value logic, facts, and evidence. I think for myself. You won’t hear me deferring to anybody else to determine my views. I will never say, “Oh yeah, so-and-so thinks this is true, or so-and-so has these credentials, therefore, everything they say is right.” That’s not how I think. I also will never claim morality should be based on people’s feelings regardless of facts; morality and reality are not opposed. Second, I consider myself an individualist. I completely reject the idea that someone’s race, sex, sexual orientation, nationality, or any of these unchosen characteristics determine what somebody should say or do, how they should think, or how they should be judged. I have my brain, as everybody else on the planet does, so I will judge each person based on their beliefs and actions in their unique circumstances, not based on some unchosen group they’re part of. Third, I’m a capitalist without apology. I believe in the individual’s capacity for rational thought. Every person should be allowed to live according to what they know best suits their circumstances.

I don’t believe that either the Democrats or the Republicans truly embody these ideals. They fail to grasp that people have their own minds and require the freedom to make decisions for their own lives. This lack of understanding is reflected in their policies. Someone will inevitably say, “Well, you must be a libertarian.” No, I don’t identify as a libertarian, and the reason behind that deserves its own dedicated story (perhaps I’ll share one if there’s enough interest).

Despite the abundance of “why I left the left” stories out there, my motivation for sharing this testimonial stems from the realization that many people find themselves in a situation similar to mine. They are abandoning the left, recognizing the presence of an incredibly bizarre and cultish ideology that’s reaching a boiling point. Yet, they’re simultaneously dissatisfied with what they observe in the conservative movement, leaving them feeling lost and unsure where to turn. Like me, they feel politically homeless.

I understand that this sense of political homelessness can be isolating, but I want to assure anyone experiencing these feelings that you are not alone. Countless individuals share our perspective, and I am committed to creating content that challenges the false dichotomy that you must be either left or right, Republican or Democrat, conservative or woke. This notion is fundamentally flawed and simply untrue.

There are many ways of thinking, and I want to explore them on my YouTube channel and in other forums, including the Journal of Free Black Thought. You can be your own person. Build trust in yourself, use your brain, and come to your own conclusions about things. How do you describe your political philosophy or orientation? Do you consider yourself left or right, woke or conservative, Democrat or Republican, or libertarian? Or are you politically homeless like me?

Kiyah Willis is a fellow at Objective Standard Institute focusing on cultural trends and their causes and consequences. A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Kiyah worked as a data analyst before transitioning to philosophy. You can find her advocating reason, individualism, and liberty on Twitter and TikTok and on her Substack, Growing to Truth.

Editors’ note: This essay is a lightly edited transcript of a YouTube monolog. The video is linked below, in the body of the essay.

Eurovision and the rise of the “non-binaries”

Authoritarianism now comes with catchy tunes and trashy outfits.

andrewdoyle.substack.com

“I’m so proud of Nemo winning. I’m so proud that all of us are in the top ten that have been fighting for this shit behind the scenes because it has been so hard and it’s been so horrible for us. And I’m so proud of us. And I just want to say, we are what the Eurovision is. The EBU [European Broadcasting Union] is not what the Eurovision is. Fuck the EBU. I don’t even care anymore. Fuck them. The thing that makes this is the contestants, the community behind it, the love and the power and the support of all of us is what is making change. And the world has spoken. The queers are coming. Non-binaries for the fucking win.”

And [We had sent] Lot when he said to his people, "Do you commit such immorality as no one has preceded you with from among the worlds? Indeed, you approach men with desire, instead of women. Rather, you are a transgressing people." But the answer of his people was only that they said, "Evict them from your city! Indeed, they are men who keep themselves pure." So We saved him and his family, except for his wife; she was of those who remained [with the evildoers].

Do you approach males among the worlds And leave what your Lord has created for you as mates? But you are a people transgressing." They said, "If you do not desist, O Lot, you will surely be of those evicted." He said, "Indeed, I am, toward your deed, of those who detest [it]. My Lord, save me and my family from [the consequence of] what they do." So We saved him and his family, all, Except an old woman among those who remained behind. Then We destroyed the others. And We rained upon them a rain [of stones], and evil was the rain of those who were warned.

And [mention] Lot, when he said to his people, "Indeed, you commit such immorality as no one has preceded you with from among the worlds. Indeed, you approach men and obstruct the road and commit in your meetings [every] evil." And the answer of his people was not but they said, "Bring us the punishment of Allah, if you should be of the truthful." He said, "My Lord, support me against the corrupting people." And when Our messengers came to Abraham with the good tidings, they said, "Indeed, we will destroy the people of that Lot's city. Indeed, its people have been wrongdoers."

Narrated Ibn `Abbas: The Prophet (ﷺ) cursed effeminate men (those men who are in the similitude (assume the manners of women) and those women who assume the manners of men, and he said, "Turn them out of your houses." The Prophet (ﷺ) turned out such-and-such man, and `Umar turned out such-and-such woman.

Narrated Abdullah ibn Abbas: The Prophet (ﷺ) said: If you find anyone doing as Lot's people did, kill the one who does it, and the one to whom it is done. Abu Dawud said: A similar tradition has also been transmitted by Sulaiman b. Bilal from 'Amr b. Abi 'Umar. And 'Abbad b. Mansur transmitted it from 'Ikrimah on the authority of Ibn 'Abbas who transmitted it from the Prophet (ﷺ). It has also been transmitted by Ibn Juraij from Ibrahim from Dawud b. Al-Husain from 'Ikrimah on the authority of Ibn 'Abbas who transmitted it from the Prophet (ﷺ).

Narrated Abdullah ibn Abbas: If a man who is not married is seized committing sodomy, he will be stoned to death. Abu Dawud said: The tradition of 'Asim proved the tradition of 'Amir b. Abi 'Amr as weak.

Narrated AbuSa'id al-Khudri: The Prophet (ﷺ) said: A man should not look at the private parts of another man, and a woman should not look at the private parts of another woman. A man should not lie with another man without wearing lower garment under one cover; and a woman should not be lie with another woman without wearing lower garment under one cover.

Barbarism in the Name of Equality

An Austin-based doctor performs “non-binary” genital surgeries.

City Journal

The debate about transgender medicine is shifting. Legislators in 20 states have recently passed bills to restrict transgender medical interventions, such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and genital surgeries, for minors. And the tide of public opinion appears to be moving against “gender-affirming care,” a euphemism for child sex-change procedures not supported by the evidence and that often cause devastating consequences. Preventing such procedures for patients under age 18 has to be the baseline.

But opponents of gender medicine should not celebrate prematurely—the battle is far from won. And while restrictions on such procedures for minors are essential, more scrutiny should be focused on a lesser-known practice: “non-binary” surgeries for adults.

Curtis Crane is one of the doctors leading this movement. Crane is a University of Iowa and Dartmouth College-trained urologist and plastic surgeon who specializes in transgender medical interventions, including experimental non-binary surgeries. 

In 2015, Crane received a flurry of publicity as an innovator in vaginoplasty, which involves castrating and creating an artificial vagina for “male-to-female” patients, and phalloplasty, which involves creating and installing an artificial penis for “female-to-male” patients. He boasted of a one- to two-year waitlist and claimed to have one of the highest volumes of transgender surgeries in the United States.

Since then, business has boomed. Crane operates clinics in San Francisco, California, and Austin, Texas, employs a team of five doctors, and conducts procedures on more than 1,000 patients per year. As part of this caseload, his practice has veered into the disturbing new territory of non-binary surgery, which includes castration, eunuch, and nullification procedures, which Crane describes as the process of “removing all external genitalia to create a smooth transition from the abdomen to the groin.” Crane has also designed and performed hundreds of non-binary surgeries in which he fashions together both male and female genitalia for a single individual. That is, he creates an artificial penis for a woman, while retaining her vagina; or creates an artificial vagina for a man, while retaining his penis.

Crane recounted the story of performing his first non-binary genital surgery in a question-and-answer session for potential patients. “In the beginning of my practice, within the first year, I’d say, I had a trans man come to me, and he wanted a phalloplasty, but he wanted to keep his vagina,” Crane recalled. After a process of “soul searching,” he concluded that, if gender was not binary, his surgeries did not need to conform to a typical male-female pattern. “[The patient] wanted to keep his vagina because he got sexual gratification out of having a vagina. And I thought it’s kind of assault to make a patient remove an organ that they’re enjoying. Let’s keep it.”

How are these physically unnecessary surgeries justified? Through the politics of “equality” and “recognition.” Last year, in a keynote speech for the Equality Alliance, Crane laid out his philosophy of transgender medicine. “Our history has been riddled with inequalities,” he said, and the West, in particular, has propped up a false gender binary—that of man and woman—that denies the basic right to recognition of individuals self-identifying as transgender, non-binary, gender-nonconforming, genderqueer, and gender fluid.

Crane proposed two solutions. First, the social-utopian solution: to reeducate all of society to accept that biological sex is not binary—“XX is not always female and XY is not always male”—and “humanize this predicament,” with the end goal of “acceptance” of anti-normative sexual identity. Second, the technical-constructivist solution: to remove, alter, fabricate, and reorganize human genitalia so that transgender patients can “become the people they were always meant to be.”

The doctor’s surgical practice represents the strange metaphysics of transgender medicine, which would like simultaneously to sever the link between sex and biology, erase the primordial distinctions between man and woman, and transcend the limitations of nature through the application of medical technology—all in pursuit of therapeutic, left-liberal notions of authenticity, identity, equality, and acceptance.

There is, however, a dark side to this philosophy. If biology, human nature, and traditional ethics are seen as impediments, rather than as guides, then rational restraints no longer remain on what can be done; the only real limitation is the imagination. And the human mind, untethered from moral limits, can conjure up nightmares. The surgeon, armed with a scalpel and a genital-nullification robot, becomes the new arbiter of human nature.

Crane styles himself as a champion of science and equality, but he more closely resembles Dr. Frankenstein. A reckoning might be coming. In 2018, the feminist writers at 4thWaveNow discovered that a large number of transgender patients had sued Crane for medical malpractice. An anonymous “detransitioner” came forward with accusations that Crane had needlessly removed her breasts while she was a minor. All of the former patients described barbaric surgeries and gruesome complications. The cases were dismissed in court, potentially as the result of settlements.

To stop the radical experiments performed by surgeons such as Crane, society will need to impose limits. Medical associations, which have been captured by gender ideologues, do not seem capable of resisting the temptation of “trans-affirming medicine.” Outside pressure will be needed, including intervention by legislators, to ensure reform within the medical system and to prohibit medically perverse practices, such as the male-female hybrid genitalia procedure.

Human beings, especially those who suffer from serious emotional disturbances, should not be subjected to experiments of this kind. Crane appeals to “equality” to justify deeply inhuman medical practices; he appeals to “acceptance” to justify the rejection of human nature itself. Both appeals are based on a lie. Our society does not have to recognize as equal those ideologies that violate natural law and does not have to accept medical practices that fail to meet the discipline’s most basic test: “First, do no harm.”

I Pretended To Be ‘Nonbinary’ To Expose a Medical Scandal at Kaiser Permanente

Kaiser gender specialists were eager to approve hormones and surgeries, which would all be covered by insurance as “medically necessary.”

realityslaststand.com

I’m just wondering if my feelings, or perseverating, or feeling like these breasts make me really unhappy and I just don’t want them anymore!...I’m just not sure if that’s a similar feeling to body dysmorphia? How do you decide which one is gender dysphoria and general body dysmorphia, and just not liking something about your body? Feeling uncomfortable with your body? And I did have an eating disorder all through college. I was a distance runner in college so I had bulimia and anorexia, you know. So I don’t know if that’s related to gender dysphoria?

I don’t own a single dress or a skirt and haven't in 20 years. I think for me it’s been just dressing the way that’s comfortable for me, which is just wearing, jeans and sweatshirts and I have a lot of flannel shirts and, and I wear boots all the time instead of other kinds of shoes. So I think it’s been nice being able to dress, especially because I work from home now most of the time that just a feeling of clothing being one of the ways that I can feel more non-binary in my everyday life.

But what I really wanted was to have bottom surgery. So this way when I have my top surgery, which sounds like it could be very soon, that I’ll be aligned, that I won’t have this sense of dysphoria with one part of my body and the other part feeling like it matched who I am. So yeah. So I just did a little bit more research into that. And I looked at the resources on the Kaiser page for the MST clinic and I think I know what I want, which is the hysterectomy and then at the same time or soon after to be able to have a phalloplasty.