How Trans Activism Became So Radical

[UtopiaPlanitia]

I’m reading this essay and thought it might be something others would find interesting. It’s focused on the USA but American culture exported itself here so it’s still applicable.

I’ve included some sections below to give a flavour of the piece.

https://www.persuasion.community/p/how-trans-activism-became-so-radical

How Trans Activism Became So Radical
The trans movement won the lottery. Then they lost it all.

As the backlash to transgender activism went mainstream in the United States, so havepostmortems of the movement. A sharp declinein public support now has large majorities of Americans rejecting policies such as trans women in female sports, which a 2025 New York Times/Ipsos survey found 79% of Americans and 67% of Democrats opposed. In 2025, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Skrmetti that states had the right to ban youth gender medicine. And in 2024, President Donald Trump soared to electoral victory on the wings of his “Kamala is for They/Them” ad campaign, which, according to an analysis by the super PAC Future Forward, shifted the race 2.7 points in his favor among voters who saw it. With progressives’ iron grip on the culture loosened, and trans politics definitively revealed as a losing political issue for Democrats, commentators have fallen over themselves to criticize the counterproductive aspects of trans activism, or to suggest alternative policy approaches. But when writers and talking heads assess “what went wrong,” they usually do so through the lens of “what did the trans movement do that caused such a fierce backlash?” The question that often goes unasked is: “How and why did the trans movement become so radical in the first place?”

The answer is layered and multifactorial, but it also boils down to human nature: trans activists tried to bully their way to progress because they believed they could—there was a moment of opportunity where the movement had the wind at its back and there was a tendency (which proved disastrous) to be as ambitious as possible. Any accurate analysis has to start and end there.

…As so often, politics lies downstream from culture. Once we understand the cultural trends of a particular moment in time, the ruinous decisions of a small number of activists—who could have followed the consensus-building, coalition-expanding playbook of the gay rights movement but instead embraced extremism—begin to make sense.

The first thing to recognize is that trans rights was poised to become a major issue almost no matter what happened within a more narrowly political sphere. Trans visibility in popular culture and in online discourse had been steadily increasing throughout the 2000s andearly 2010s.

…Facile theories that pin the blame for the movement’s radicalization on a shift in resource allocation following Obergefell don’t fully explain the illiberal turn—most of the groups in this space had been decidedly liberal up to that point. But at this moment in the 2010s, social media pushed a more radical turn in the discourse all across the society. And dynamics within the trans movement itself broadened the definition of trans in a way that became purely political—and that had a pronounced radicalizing tendency.

…It’s not difficult to see why many found the view of trans as an identity to be affirmed less demeaning and more uplifting than viewing it as a disorder to be treated or a condition to be managed. In practice, however, this rejection of “gatekeeping” opened a Pandora’s box that dramatically expanded the trans community with an influx of people who were, for lack of a better term, politically trans.

…A tragic irony here is that this eschewal of medicalization did not stop activists from making youth gender medicine integral to their policy agenda

Interesting but flawed the comment by Arty Morty spells out what the author missed.

I agree. So many people seem surprised to find out how long men have been peddling the idea that they can become women 🤷‍♀️

Next on my list is this video discussing just how long this craziness has been going on:
https://www.youtube.com/live/-K7sjH_84IE?si=RiPCVzsTPH74i7u8

I found both the comments far more illuminating than the article, the back ground of the author might explain why they didn't factor in the reaction to the movement from the majority hetro population.

"Many (though not all) of the movement's fundamental objectives were illiberal and unethical right from their dubious foundations, which lay in a kind of gray area between fantasy and reality, and between appeasing mental health disorders and holistically treating them."
From Arty Morty's comment not the article.

Once the 'trans' cause became more visible, the more ordinary people became aware of it and rejected it, because it isn't the new gay. Maybe the 'trans' activists got radical because they knew they were pushing something that was unacceptable on to an unwilling population, and the only way they could win was by bludgeoning people into accepting it.

Arty Morty's comment was unusually insightful. I would add to it the following - what trans activists presented was a civil rights issue. The thesis was that there were a group of people of both sexes who were imprisoned in bodies, and therefore in social roles, of the wrong sex. The movement asked the public to imagine what their lives would be like if they woke up suddenly transformed into the wrong sex.

On its surface that's a powerful appeal - powerful enough in many people's eyes to justify the total reorganisation of society around gender rather than sex. As it turned out, it was also a demonstrably false claim. Every piece of evidence points to the fact that trans people in general and trans women in particular are typifying members of their birth sex. And that their intense desire to be seen as the opposite sex has nothing to do with them being notionally 'women'.

One of the reasons I continue to think that Joyce's Trans is the best work on the subject is because she expertly dismantle that central argument and shows that without it no other claims of the trans movement are sustainable and that there is no way to make a coherent argument that a woman can be trapped in a man's body from birth: not sociologically, not physiologically, not psychologically. Logic and empirical evidence points away from it. So the trans movement was always one built on trying to manufacture consensus upon bogus evidence shaped by bullying, institutional capture and censorship. The more it succeeded the more it's fundamental premise was shown to be false.

Any activism that starts with #Nodebate, didn't become radical, it was already there.

The author accurately identifies that trans ideology "embraced extremism". It's extremism to argue that women have no rights to boundaries, to enforce mixed sex undressing, to coerce children into believing that sex change is an option for them and countless other illiberal, anti democratic, anti safeguarding demands.

Arty's spot on when he says:
"Many (though not all) of the movement's fundamental objectives were illiberal and unethical right from their dubious foundations, which lay in a kind of gray area between fantasy and reality, and between appeasing mental health disorders and holistically treating them".

Society is moving towards understanding this as the insane demands escalate. But until the lanyard classes reject the authoritarian demands, trans extremism still has too much influence in our society.

My criticism of the article would be nowhere does the author address the question: where have the transvestites gone? Which is part of the broader issue that there are three main groups, the transsexuals, the paraphilic men, and the confused young people. Missing out the middle group, and particularly their enthusiam for the last group to undergo medical transition, creates a massive gap in the analysis.

Also there isn't really an examination of why the ground was so fertile for the accumulation of power by trans activism. That's to do with how on the progressive side everything has turned into identity with the identities having become more niche and recondite as time has moved on. With paradoxically, the more strange they've become they more they've been applauded.

Also - the charity sector was infected. The charity sector is the new church in society. Infallible and all encompassing.

wow, I'm surprised my post was deleting. Kind of proves my point! I was reiterating what was said in the comment on that article.

All of the above, women here nailing it.

There was a window where it was fresh and new, everyone was innocent and interested, and prepared to be happily welcoming as with gay rights and all other social movements, and that included me and many other women here. That window closed and that good will has gone directly as a consequence of the behaviour of the political movement and the people involved. Saying that the public has become 'less tolerant' is like accusing a woman who leaves an abusive partner of becoming 'less tolerant' and 'hateful' about his beating her.

To understand this political movement you have to understand the psychology of those men driving it, and the women mindlessly indulging and enabling- and it does repeatedly come down to playing on those people's beliefs that men are valuable in ways that women are not, and that men have a right to use women's bodies to meet their needs that should not be limited by womens' consent. As well as an enjoyment of virtue signalling and passionate righteousness regardless of what the actual religion is at the time. This political movement holds a belief that it is better for a raped woman to have no services than to fail to submit to and enable a man of this particular group - thank God NAMALT. It is not just selfish or thoughtless, it is pathological and specific to this political movement. It holds a desire to punish and control women, it was never interested in love or kindness, merely using those words as leverage to control the well intentioned and kind. It was a marketing movement that sought to change society in ways that harm women and LGB people as well as children, and has no more conscience than any other corporate hardnosed money making and power seeking machine.

It was doomed from the start because it relied on people not realising until it was too late. It openly set out to achieve things set in law before people realised and had time to stop it: hence Terf Island where women saw through it fast and shared information widely. It intended to capture decision and policy makers, and to train up the younger generation away from those with more life experience who were less gullible who would thwart it by opening their eyes to the other side of the story and the hidden information. Had it been a movement that only wanted access and equality in their own resources and spaces and services it would have been fine, but it never wanted that.

Meanwhile the far-right (see image)....

IMO it's very shitty of Farage to spew his pro everyone-needs-guns-just-like-USA rant on the Dunblane massacre anniversary.

I think that for the writer of the essay, and seemingly for a lot of other people, they can't get their heads around erotic crossdressing and AGP. They seem determined to believe that all of these men have some sort of tortured inner soul-related reason for doing what they do and that if society is kind enough to them it will make them behave in a more mannerly and well-adjusted way.

As I've grown older, I've realised that kindness doesn't fix problems inflicted on society by disordered or anti-social or entitled people but firm boundaries and properly enforced rules with consequences does.

“They seem determined to believe that all of these men have some sort of tortured inner soul-related reason for doing what they do and that if society is kind enough to them it will make them behave in a more mannerly and well-adjusted way.”

That determination is demonstrated in ways that are beyond bizarre.

Excusing men threatening rape and death on women, on the grounds “the women deserve it for being rude to the men,” is shocking to me.

We’re back to creating a sacred caste of men, who can get away with anything.

I feel like the argument in the article lacks the insight of many of the women here. The backlash did not occur because transactivism moved too fast and the wrong people took over. The original transactivists, working under the radar, always intended the current extremism. They were simply canny enough to recognize they couldn’t introduce it openly. Their plan went awry in the UK because UK women spotted what was happening before the final nail was inserted into the coffin they were building: the coffin that was meant to carry the end women’s rights and the death of the very words women use to define ourselves.

"As I've grown older, I've realised that kindness doesn't fix problems inflicted on society by disordered or anti-social or entitled people but firm boundaries and properly enforced rules with consequences does".

Indeed. The power these disordered adults have had to upturn the social contract, dismantle safeguarding for children and relentlessly promote their porn soaked version of the world has been depressing to see.

Thank heavens the media are now on to them and the times of silencing, threats and intimidation are coming to an end.

And now that women are regaining our voices about all this, we won't be silenced any longer.

One of the major changes in all of this is that the original trans sexuals made a huge effort to pass as the sex that they were trying to emulate, and did so in a quitet apologetic way.

This has been lost by the TRAs and one of the main goals of being trans is not to pass to be look as trans as possible and force everyone to accept them as there new gender.

I agree with you somewhat on the passing attempts in the past but over the years (decades ago in some cases) I’ve watched lots of interviews with these men and that determined, iron-willed command to women that, ‘you WILL accept I’m a woman’, is plain to see in all of them. It’s there behind the cod philosophy and the thinly-disguised homophobia and the brazen attempts to lift it out of the realm of sex & fetish into a rights campaign.

They’re apologetic towards men but have always been commandeering towards women.

Some discussion on TwiX with the essay writer:

https://x.com/jbvconnor/status/2032933388357873860?s=20

For those without accounts:
https://nitter.net/AmericnDreaming/status/2032543089928138883#m

"As I've grown older, I've realised that kindness doesn't fix problems inflicted on society by disordered or anti-social or entitled people but firm boundaries and properly enforced rules with consequences does".

Very well put, and absolutely right. The next big step in administration of services and maintaining their affordability, not to mention dealing with the serious issues in safeguarding, has needed for about the last decade to be to arm people to deal with vexatious complainants and those who are meeting their own needs through them. Systems based upon good will don't cope well with those who see it as weakness to exploit.

Who would want anyone to have to live 'apologetically'? The LGB movement as I knew it before Stonewall lost their marbles was all about pride in being yourself, in being safe to be openly yourself. That is not the same thing as silencing and oppressing others, mugging them for their needed resources, attempting to remove their legal rights, access and equality.

Use the third spaces and be men who identify with different genders ffs, have a lovely time, and leave everyone else alone. Had that been the mission there'd be no problem at all. But these wreckers have damaged gay rights and women's rights and children's safeguarding in this world of Me Myself and I, and it has been anything but honest or about equality.

Thank you for sharing the links. An astute comment from there:

What changed was that the public, who earlier lacked focus, began to pay attention. What they saw they did not like. Not only was what was being sold highly implausible, it had all the markings of a dangerous cult that had become embedded into every institution in society. The trans phenomenon turned from a voter side issue to, for many, the most important issue of our time. When Malcolm Gladwell says it is the singular issue of over 50% of voters, he is right.

What solidified it was that the public’s legitimate questions were met with accusations of transphobia, authoritarian efforts to muzzle speech, and politicians willing to take away the rights of women, children, parents, families, gays and lesbians. Trans activism has also sought to rewrite reality, science, medicine, language, and law.

A lot of it is the authoritarianism. Another significant part is that to get the desired power and control they're going after kids. Who are needed as human shields.

And the power being sought is over women.

The elephant in the room is still the heavy links to incellism, the sewer of explicitly sexually violent threats and ideation towards women that pours forth at the drop of a hat, and the fetishes, paraphilias, exhibitionism, indecent exposure and involving non consenting others in sexual experiences. It's open knowledge but mostly people are still too polite to say that possibly most significant aspect out loud. Which helpfully offers a great deal of cover to crack on with it.

Thanks for the nitter

"Gender dysphoria is a sort of cognitive dissonance created by excessive rumination on trans identities. It drives people to undertake harmful behaviours, such as the pathological desire to change one’s body. Trans has infected society. It will only be cured when the gender affirming model is gone and people are treated for their actual pain."

I agree with this, we need to take all of the millions and millions the governments are putting into this battshitery and create a proper Mental Health Service.

I reckon I know what is adding to the drop in support though, Utopia.

Exhibit A: A self published video from Alexandra Billings here.
https://x.com/gaynotqueer1/status/2032811484271817092?s=46

Exhibit B: Another self published video from Alexandra Billings.
https://x.com/Gaynotqueer1/status/2032463863724052885?s=20

Exhibit C: Amy Sousa pointing out the sheer menace of this man.
https://x.com/knownheretic/status/2032639781658833142?s=46

This a celebrity too, not just a random tiktokker.

If this doesn't start to change the constant declaration of 'but if they pass / are post operative / are just minding their own business I am happy to share with them'.

There’s that iron-willed determination to get his own way

Thanks for the links.