That “Cruel to be Kind” editorial from the Critic is absolutely spot on.
liberalism is the wrong arsenal in which to search for the weapons needed for the intellectual fight to come. Indeed, it helped create the problem. The beating heart of the liberalism that Mill helped establish was the individual: each of us must be sovereign and self-regulating, even self-reliant in the libertarian offshoot of liberalism.
There is a lot to be said for treating people as individuals, but it is folly to pretend that is all we are. Each individual belongs to something more than themselves: groups which overlap and overlay one another. Families; clubs; communities; societies, nations. When the individual is wholly severed from these structures, true alienation must follow.
This is the root of demands for transgender rights, and it grows from liberal soil. Simply, transgenderism is the ultimate expression of self-indulgent ultra-subjective individualism. It demands that a person who wants to be something they are not can become that thing just by saying they want it
I’ve said occasionally that Gender Ideology flows from US-Libertarian ideas. Ayn Rand etc. And got some pushback from some people. But that article absolutely nails it. It’s individualism at the expense of everything else that makes society function.