Radical LGBTQI Policies Are on the Upswing

LGBTQI policies are aimed at destroying traditional American values

Jessica Stern, U.S. special envoy for LGBTQI+ rights, speaks at the 2022 ILGA World Conference (the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association World Conference) in Long Beach, Calif., on May 2, 2022. Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images

Commentary

Did the advancement of the radical LGBTQI agenda happen by accident or by design?

In just a few short years, the American left and their political instruments in the Democratic Party have moved from the highly controversial issue of homosexual marriage to government support for transgender surgery, while the normalization of such affronts to God and Man as polyandry, polygamy, and pedophilia is no longer out of the question.

Some of the most outrageous advances of this cultural Marxist agenda have occurred in the two years since Joe Biden signed his “Executive Order on Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation” on his first day as president. This was a clear indication of his domestic priorities, which are—like most of his policies—clearly at odds with the vast majority of Americans. The EO directed all federal agencies to end sexual discrimination on the basis of “gender identity” or sexual orientation—in short, to codify what was previously understood to be sexual dysphoria and mental disorders.

As if inflicting the subsequent social chaos and divisiveness on America wasn’t enough for Biden and his Marxists (after all, federal rules tend to flow down through American society over time), he proceeded to direct the U.S. government to export radical LGBTQI policies to the rest of the world, too.

On Feb. 4, 2021, Biden signed the “Presidential Memorandum on Advancing the Human Rights of LGBTQI+ Persons Around the World.” The key operative words in this little-known memorandum are these (emphasis added): “That memorandum, for the first time, directed executive departments and agencies (agencies) engaged abroad to ensure that United States diplomacy and foreign assistance promote and protect the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons everywhere.”

Yes, yes, by two strokes of the pen, the president has set a precedent for substituting the verb “condone” for the verb “tolerate” while wiping out over 4,000 years of Judeo-Christian history, morals, and beliefs—that is, the moral and legal underpinnings of Western civilization.

And that is exactly what has transpired over the past 21 months: the changing of rules throughout U.S. institutions to nurture and expand LGBTQI behavior, especially through grooming of children in public education and Disney theme parks, as well as the radicalization of content by Hollywood (Netflix being an exemplar in that regard). And then there is the virtue-signaling by corporate America to ensure advertising and messaging contain LGBTQI-friendly content.

There has been an explosion of LGBTQI-related topics that are cavalierly discussed in the Democrat media complex.

Lowering the Age of Consent

The fringe group North American Man/Boy Love Association has been pushing to lower the age of consent for decades. But even respected people, like retired Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz, have also supported doing just that. One wonders why all of Jeffrey Epstein’s “clients” have been protected and shielded up to this point, too. It’s all about normalizing pedophilia.

Polyandry

The slippery slope toward polyandry (the practice of a woman having more than one husband at a time) continues. On Oct. 8, the New York Post reported that a New York Civil Court judge “concluded that polyamorous relationships are entitled to the same sort of legal protection given to two-person relationships.”

Also reported in the article: “The New York State Court of Appeals became the first American appellate court to recognize that a non-traditional, two-person, same-sex, committed family-like relationship is entitled to legal recognition.”

And just like that, leftist lawfare set a precedent for other states to enable polyandry over time.

Gender-Affirming Surgery

The left has a penchant for covering up controversial practices with flowery labels (for example, “pro-choice” for the murder of infants comes immediately to mind), but this phrase is as diabolical as it is insane. These life-changing and irreversible practices—such as mastectomies, castrations, and hysterectomies—are being performed by ostensibly reputable medical institutions on minor children and adults in the United States.

It should be noted that similar mutilations/experiments performed by Nazi doctors were once-upon-a-time roundly condemned by the world. Today, however, nonprofit organizations such as the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) advocate for so-called “gender clinics” in hospitals under the guise of “[assisting] transsexual, transgender, and gender nonconforming people with safe and effective pathways to achieving lasting personal comfort with their gendered selves.”

That is more flowery language that camouflages the reality of the medical procedures performed on people suffering from gender dysphoria in many of those clinics, including amputation, sterilization, and chemical and surgical castration.

To illustrate the insanity, in 2007, Boston Children’s Hospital opened the Gender Multispecialty Service, which was the first clinic dedicated to “gender-affirming surgeries” for children. Their website advertises that the clinic has “treated” over 1,000 families to date. Fox News reported that a psychologist there was captured on video claiming that “a good portion” of the children she has seen know their gender identities “from the womb.”

That is flat-out lunacy masquerading as science! Heightened public scrutiny on such clinics has caused Vanderbilt University “to pause all gender transition surgeries on minors,” as reported by The Daily Wire. Public pressure does work wonders.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., is pictured on July 16, 2013. Mark Humphrey/AP Photo

Abuse of Puberty Blockers

The Mayo Clinic describes puberty blockers this way: “[Puberty blockers] suppress the body’s release of sex hormones, including testosterone and estrogen, during puberty [to relieve the] intense distress for many gender-nonconforming adolescents.”

In short, the “treatment” involves using prescription drugs with considerable side effects to interfere with a child’s normal biological progression through puberty. Mayo Clinic prescribes puberty blockers to children aged 10-11 (with parental consent) to alleviate gender dysphoria, which they define as “the feeling of discomfort or distress that might accompany a difference between experienced or expressed gender and sex assigned at birth.”

Who Is on the LGBTQI Bandwagon?

Lots of people and institutions! The woke among us, for lack of a better description of the LGBTQI groupies.

The Federal Government

The transgender Dr. “Rachel” Levine, an assistant secretary in the Department of Health and Human Services, has been spearheading the federal government’s LGBTQI outreach under Biden’s executive order, claiming without evidence in an interview with Reuters that “gender-affirming care for transgender youth is essential and can be life-saving.”

Levine even told NPR that “there is no argument among medical professionals—pediatricians, pediatric endocrinologists, adolescent medicine physicians, adolescent psychiatrists, psychologists, et cetera—about the value and the importance of gender-affirming care.”

And, of course, the Biden administration dangles taxpayer dollars to push its agendas, and LGBTQI policies are no different. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) spent $85 million on a grant program requiring public schools to implement student-led clubs supporting LGBT youth.

Meanwhile, the Department of Agriculture is withholding federal school lunch money from schools that refuse to implement federal guidelines for “gender bathrooms.” So much for local control of public schools!

The last poke-in-the-eye from Washington was the establishment of June as “LGBTQ Pride Month” and October as “LGBTQ History Month.” Two solid months of “celebration” for a demographic that UCLA identifies as 3.8 percent of Americans? This is the result of unchecked radical LGBTQI political activism.

The ACLU Shows Its True Colors

At the forefront of undermining traditional values in the United States, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) recently filed a complaint with the Department of Education and Department of Justice against the Central Bucks School District in Pennsylvania, demanding that the district “better affirm and support its LGBTQ+ students, one example being to use the child’s preferred pronouns.”

This should be no surprise, as the ACLU’s founders in 1920 included communists. One of those founders, Roger Baldwin, publicly stated, “Communism is the goal.”

The ACLU has moved steadily leftward in recent years in supporting trendy left-wing causes, including abortion on demand, abandonment of due process rights, and blocking of victims’ rights bills. Backing the radical LGBTQI is just the latest cause célèbre for the communists at the ACLU, who seek to undermine traditional American institutions and society in general.

Perversion of Science

The crackpot opinion of the Boston Children’s Hospital psychologist on a child in the womb “knowing its gender” was already discussed above. Likewise, the Mayo Clinic’s use of the phrase “gender and sex assigned at birth” is unscientific nonsense. There are only two sexes clearly identified by X and Y chromosomes (before birth in many instances!).

Furthermore, only in recent years (and due to left-wing political pressure) has the psychiatric community revised its longstanding position that sexual dysphoria is a mental disorder. Now, the condition is considered treatable through puberty blockers and life-changing and irreversible radical surgeries (as well as life-long therapy—a money-maker for psychiatrists and psychologists!).

With the rise of “gender-affirming surgeries,” the medical community (especially the American Medical Association) seems to be condoning and advocating human experimentation on par with the outrageous experiments of the Nazi era because no one knows the long-term effects of those surgeries on people.

Celebrity Support

Hollywood celebrities and others can’t help themselves in their virtue-signaling. Comedian Jon Stewart now “passionately defends medicalized transitioning of young children,” as reported by the Post Millennial. He is not alone, as other celebrities support children undergoing gender-affirming surgery.

Philanthropists

The World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) was mentioned above. Some big names in the world of philanthropy also invest big money in pushing LGBTQI policies. One of those is Paul Singer, who has supported LGBTQ issues for over a decade. He has provided millions of dollars to various pro-LGBTQI organizations, including the American Unity Fund, American Unity PAC, Freedom for All Americans, LGBT University, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Fund, and Paul E. Singer Foundation.

Concluding Thoughts

Many Americans are aghast at the explosion of in-your-face LGBTQI agenda throughout society and public and private institutions. The Biden administration is leading the charge largely through a stealth carrot-and-stick campaign, and virtue-signalers and sycophants everywhere seem to be falling in line. However, various groups (such as Mama Grizzly) are pushing back on the LGBTQI agenda, particularly those that involve grooming children, advocating pedophilia and lowering the age of consent, and so-called “gender-affirming surgery” for minors.

Were all of these LGBTQI promotional policies on the ballot in 2020? Apparently so, although Biden certainly didn’t campaign on them. Regardless, the result has been further division and chaos in American society—just as planned.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.