Rich Lowry: Payback for trans madness

Rich Lowry

Syndicated Columnist

There was a time when Republican elected officials and candidates avoided talking about trans issues.

They didn’t want to seem extreme or intolerant. Why get into a complex cultural issue when there are so many other things to talk about? Turning to “medics” or “experts” seemed like an easy way out.

But now the Republicans have decisively found their voice.

Across the political landscape, GOP Senate candidates are attacking their Democratic opponents for their trans radicalism and sending them running, while the Trump campaign is attacking Kamala Harris on the issue in perhaps the most prominent ad of this election cycle.

The chickens have come home to roost, and apparently they’re all cisgender. For a long time, Democrats have accepted the ever-evolving trans-orthodoxy established by the cultural left. Existing in a bubble, they assumed that doubters might be isolated or confused, and did not realize how out of touch they had become.

It’s one thing to say that people should be tolerant of the choices of consenting adults; It is quite another to argue that minors should have access to life-changing so-called “gender-affirming” treatments. It is one thing to say that everyone should live and let live; Another thing is that biological males should participate in female sports, no matter how obviously unfair this is to girls and women.

Democrats should have paid attention to the many flashing red lights.

A Washington Post poll last year found that 57% of people say gender is determined at birth.

About two-thirds of people said biological males should not compete in girls’ and women’s sports. 68% opposed giving children aged 10–14 years access to puberty blocking drugs, and 58% opposed access to hormonal treatment for adolescents aged 15–17 years.

It’s only now that they’re being chastised for this that Democrats are coming out and saying, essentially, that they’ve favored the gender binary all along.

Fending off a challenge from Democratic Rep. Colin Allred, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz attacked the congressman for his opposition to a bill called the Protecting Women and Girls in Sports Act. In a sign that the attack was working, Allred responded in his ad: “I don’t want boys playing girls’ sports or whatever funny thing Ted Cruz says.”

This led to Allred being denounced by the left. According to LGBT publication The Advocate, he “used far-right language about gender identity in a new ad” – the offensive words allegedly included “boys” and “girls.” Similar ads have been aired throughout the competitive Senate race, many created by Mitch McConnell’s campaign, the Senate Leadership Fund.

In Ohio, incumbent Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown also responded with an ad calling the idea that he supports men competing against women in sports “a complete lie.” The video notes that Ohio has already banned such intrusions. But in an interview with the aforementioned Advocate last year, Brown sharply denounced such laws.

“I think what this all shows is that there is still so much hatred in this country,” he said, “and as a result, hatred in politics. The politicians who introduce and support these restrictive bills should be ashamed of themselves, and I hope their constituents see through these ugly efforts.”

Brown wants us to believe that he has made a sudden—and, of course, instantly reversible if he survives—conversion.

For his part, Donald Trump has been airing ads during football games that highlight, as Kamala Harris said in 2019, her support for a government-funded transition operation for prisoners and detained illegal immigrants. As the ad notes, it’s hard to believe that anyone seriously aspiring to public office would advocate such a thing.

Now, in the final weeks of a highly contested election, Harris and her fellow Democrats are being held accountable for their ideological excesses. They may fight, but they brought it on themselves.

Rich Lowery is editor of National Review.