“Is Gender Dysphoria a Marxist Weapon Against Judeo-Christian Civilization?” asks man who doesn’t know how anything works

Political discourse on the right today often seems like little more than a battle of the buzzwords, with the victory going to whoever can stuff the most buzzwords into their proclamations, never mind what they might possibly mean.

Recently i found a real winner in this regard on a site called Creative Destruction Media, which managed to work four buzzwords (or, rather, buzz phrases) into a 12-word headline in such a way as to make clear that the headline writer didn’t actually understand half of what they were saying: “Is Gender Dysphoria yet Another Marxist Weapon Against Judeo-Christian Democratic Societies?.”

How exactly a medical condition can be a plot by the evil trans Marxists of the world I’m not sure, and the article never explains it.

The author, a medical doctor who (one hopes) had nothing to so with writing the headline, begins by expressing his anger that we as a society allow young people to make certain decisions about their own bodies and selves at a young age — specifically, decisions about abortions, contraception and, gender. It’s the latter that’s the subject of his rant.

“Perhaps, this is not accidental and in fact by design,” writes John Hughes (not the 80s film director).

Many in the US fear a Marxist inspired takeover of America by subtle and incremental assaults on religion, family structure, parental influences, and even the Constitution.

“Many” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

Legally blocking parents from the decision cycle for abortion, contraception, and transgender protocols and empowering children to make such decisions likely sews chaos that is needed to help destroy American society.

“Sows chaos,” not “sews.”

Interestingly, or not surprisingly, the same children being allowed to make these permanent decisions about their health are not trusted to drink alcohol, rent a car, or purchase firearms.

Frankly, no one should be buying firearms at any age, but that’s a whole other kettle of worms.

[T]he sudden push to allow for children to decide to remove/alter their genitalia and sign up for a lifetime of hormonal treatments is alarming given the paucity of medical knowledge of the long-term implications for children.

Children are not making decisions about “removing” or “altering” their genitalia. This sort of surgery is restricted to those above 18 years old. And no one is signing anything that irrevocably commits them to a “lifetime” of hormone treatments. As a doctor (he’s a doctor), Hughes knows this.

The natural incidence of gender dysphoria is approximately 1/30,000 or 0.003%.

Hughes offers no citation for this figure, but a bit of Googling reveals that this finding has been challenged for being way too low. According to one recent study you can find here:

The prevalence of gender dysphoria is difficult to determine in the general population. Previously, the prevalence in adults was thought to range from 0.005% to 0.014% for people assigned male gender at birth and 0.002% to 0.003% for people assigned female gender at birth. These estimates are based on referrals to surgical gender reassignment clinics, however, and are therefore likely an underestimate.

That’s putting it mildly.

More recent studies suggest that 0.39% to 0.60% of adults identify as transgender, with an increasing prevalence over the past decade. In studies from different jurisdictions using general samples of adolescents, rates were found to be higher among youth than among adults, with 1.2% to 4.1% of adolescents reporting a gender identity different from that assigned at birth. Similar numbers of adolescents were also found to be variant in their gender expression; that is, in the way they communicated about their gender to others — either consciously or unconsciously — through external means such as clothing, personal appearance or mannerisms.

The study goes on to note something else that Hughes should or does know.

Not all children and youth who report gender identities different from their gender assigned at birth will experience persistent gender dysphoria.

Let’s set aside reality for a moment and return to Hughes’ ideological fantasy land:

[S]ocial media and leftist politicians are fanning the flames and the actual number of children claiming to be transgender is rapidly increasing in incidence. Recent data shows that 1.3 million adults (0.5%) identify as transgender and over 300,000 adolescents 13-17 (1.4% identify as transgender).² This exponential rise in gender identity shift has occurred at the same time that social media, mass media, totalitarian teaching organizations, and medical censorship have emerged as formidable forces in our country.

This “gender identity shift” has also emerged in a society more open to trans folks than it used to be, in which people feel more comfortable defining themselves as trans.

In one weird passage, Hughes tries to suggest a parallel between greater medical acceptance of trans people and … the opioid crisis.

The same medical entities advocating for increased transgenderism are the same ones who were less than truthful about the covid vaccines, enabled the opioid epidemic (remember Purdue pharma?), and are largely responsible for failed national drug policies that have led to over 100,000 drug overdose deaths per year.

Then he suggests that the doctors offering “gender affirming care” to young people are driven not by evidence that such care works (he doesn’t think there is any such evidence) but rather by … Marxism.

One thought is that transgenderism itself is not the goal, but the imposition of the theory on society to foster obedience to the state and then allow the state to target religion and parents as threats to society. It is no accident that Marxism despises both religion and parental influences on children. … Perhaps this is how China wants it.

This is Hughes’ rather abrupt ending. These [citation needed] assertions are Hughes’ only attempt to connect trans care to a Marxist attack on “Judeo-Christian Democratic Societies.” Indeed, at no point in the article is there even a single mention of “Judeo-Christian” anything. Or a mention of democracy. And the last sentence contains the only reference to China.

Where is the evidence that doctors are a bunch of secret Marxists? There is none. How exactly does trans care “foster obedience to the state?” Hughes never explains. What does China have to do with any of this? No answer. The only reason to mention such things is to rile up an audience already primed to think the worst about anything trans.

But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that this is the best that Hughes can offer us in the way of a conclusion. This isn’t an attempt to prove a point or two with scientific evidence; rather, it’s an attempt to mobilize prejudices and fears. It’s propaganda, and not even good propaganda at that.

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