, who said that the word boy was a “slur,” and he “was not going to listen to transphobia at this table.” The moderator, Abby Phillips, also rebuked Singleton, telling him to “talk about this in a way that is respectful.”…
The tragedy of this subject is that compromise positions are available that would please most voters, and would stop a wider backlash against gender nonconformity that manifests as punitive laws in red states. America is a more open-minded country than its toughest critics believe—the latest research shows that about as many people believe that society has not gone far enough in accepting trans people as think that it has gone too far. Delaware has just elected the first transgender member of Congress, Sarah McBride. But most voters think that biological sex is real, and that it matters in law and policy. Instructing them to believe otherwise, and not to ask any questions, is a doomed strategy. By shedding their most extreme positions, the Democrats will be better placed to defend transgender Americans who want to live their lives in peace.
As Leor Sapir points out – while acknowledging that this is generally "a good and important piece" – that last paragraph misleads with its talk of "a wider backlash against gender nonconformity":
…it's a profound mischaracterization to say that there is a "backlash against gender nonconformity" among Republicans and non-progressive voters. Just the opposite is true. The "backlash" is in favor of gender non-conformity, over and against the rigid stereotyping of "gender identity" theory. Boys who like to play with dolls and dance ballet are not "trans girls." They're effeminate–i.e., gender nonconforming–boys.
This point has been made ad nauseum in the gender culture wars, and I've yet to read a persuasive rebuttal to it. There is no definition of gender identity that isn't either circular or reliant on stereotypes. Typically, it is both. There is no secular ideology more hostile to gender non-conformity in our day than gender identity theory. None.
This is a key point and any effort to understand where Democrats went wrong and what they need to do to fix it must begin from a correct understanding of what critics of gender identity theory actually think and say.
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