Did you know that the US State Department has a “U.S. Special Envoy to Advance the Human Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender,
Queer and Intersex (LGBTQI+) Persons?”

I sure didn’t, but in Joe Biden’s America I shouldn’t be surprised. Dismayed. Appalled. Disgusted. Worried. Angry.  But not surprised. There is no idiocy that this crew will not embrace.

As the Daily Signal reports members of the Republican Study Committee in Congress have accused the State Department of engaging in “radical gender imperialism.” The State Department is implementing new policies aimed at bullying foreign countries into adopting the same insane transgender ideology practiced here in the US.

Republican lawmakers are accusing the State Department of “radical gender imperialism” and of seeking to push other nations to “normalize and encourage transgenderism among youth.”

In a letter first obtained by The Daily Signal, members of the Republican Study Committee point to a leaked memo reportedly circulated by Secretary of State Antony Blinken indicating that the Biden administration may begin pushing other countries to endorse youthful “gender affirming care”—a euphemism used by the media, activists, and Democrats to describe the more grisly-sounding transgender surgeries, hormones, and puberty blockers.

Most members of Congress are too squeamish to take on the transgender zealots and their allies in the Biden Administration. They cower in fear of being labeled haters, bigots, “-ists,” and “-phobes.” Insert whatever noun before the “-ist” and “-phobe” you like. They are changing who is the protected class from moment to moment. “Furryphobe?” “Tranalien-aromantic-incel-phobe? “Phone-phobia?” Accuse people of being “-phobes” and too many people crumple into whimpering balls begging for mercy.

It’s pathetic how easily intimidated most people are.

It’s heartening to see a few Congressmen grow a backbone. Maybe others will join them as the movement to prevent genital mutilation of children gains momentum. As it is the pro-mutilation forces are winning the battle.

The letter lays it all on the line. No punches pulled. No sugarcoating what is at stake:

First and foremost, normalizing and encouraging transgenderism among children has no place in American society, especially when it is done by the federal government. Children in America and abroad shouldn’t be exploited to advance a radical agenda. The State Department’s memo defines conversion therapy as any effort to “suppress or change an individual’s…gender identity.” This definition implies that counselling minors against gender transition is akin to electrically shocking minors to “cure” same-sex attraction. It also condemns all potential treatments for youth suffering from gender dysphoria aside from the two most extreme and irreversible options: transition surgery and hormone therapy. This ignores the fact there is no strong empirical evidence to support the idea that gender transition surgery helps patients lead happier, better, healthier, or more fulfilled lives. However, there are many reports of transgender individuals feeling physiologically damaged post-transition.

City Journal did a terrific job of laying out the US policy of bullying other countries into pushing transgender “affirming care” onto children. I won’t repeat the outstanding work they did, so go read the article if you didn’t know how radical our policies are. Here is just a snippet:

Is the U.S. State Department about to classify Sweden, Finland, and the U.K. as human rights abusers? According to an internal memo from Secretary Antony Blinken (leaked to me by an officer in the department’s Foreign Service) and circulated among employees last week, the answer might be yes.

The memo represents an effort by Secretary Blinken to carry out President Biden’s Executive Order 14075 from last June. That order instructs agencies of the federal government to do what they can to stop “conversion therapy” for “LGBTQI+” people. Following its release, Biden appointed Jessica Stern as Special Envoy to Advance the Human Rights of LGBTQI+ Persons, a position created by the Obama administration but left unfilled under Donald Trump. Stern, who goes by “all pronouns,” had previously served as executive director at OutRight Action International, an advocacy organization with a permanent presence at United Nations headquarters in New York. OutRight has borrowed arguments against “conversion therapy” for sexual orientation (where the evidence against the practice is strong) and applied them, unscientifically, to “gender identity” (where studies have consistently shown that cross-gender identification in children is, for the vast majority of those who experience it, a passing phase).

You read that right. The US is threatening to label Sweden, Finland, and UK as human rights abusers because they don’t use radical hormone and surgical treatments as first-line therapies for children who express discomfort with their bodies as teens. What teen going through puberty doesn’t experience discomfort and confusion about their bodily changes?

Back to the Congressional letter:

The State Department’s memo is a form of radical gender imperialism that threatens our relationships with other nations and harms our standing in the world. The memo directs U.S. embassies to “submit robust information on ‘conversion therapy’ practices” of host countries “as part of the annual Human Rights Reports.”

By the State Department’s definition “conversion therapy” is anything that doesn’t push children seeking gender counseling onto the path to self-mutilation.

The comparison to imperialism in this case is apt. The US is using its status as an economic and military superpower to force other countries, including our closest allies, into adopting practices that endanger the physical, psychological, and social well-being of vulnerable children. It attacks the religious and moral principles held dear by billions of people, and slanders each and every one of those people and the countries they live in. It the US that is adopting radical and immoral policies, not our allies.

The first consequence of this policy is to undermine our allies’ regard for the United States’ moral authority on human rights issues. Many countries in Europe, including the United Kingdom, Finland, and Sweden, employ either ‘last line of defense’ policies on “gender affirming care,” or have banned gender surgeries for youth altogether.4 These more restrictive policies now risk making Western European nations “human rights abusers” in the eyes of the State Department, putting them on similar footing as the People Republic of China (PRC), which has committed genocide of the Uyghurs or the Maduro regime, which has utilized arbitrary detentions and torture against regime dissidents in Venezuela.

The initiative also threatens the relationships the United States enjoys with countries in which, unlike parts of America and Western Europe, transgenderism does not enjoy government support. In Africa, the Middle East and much of the developing world, for example, where the U.S. enjoys key strategic relationships, this initiative could prove disastrous.

The Republican Study Committee’s members aren’t idly sitting by, or merely criticizing the dangerous idiocy of the State Department’s initiative. As members of Congress–even minority members–they have some power to compel the State Department to provide information on their semi-secret policies.

As members of the Republican Study Committee, we are committed to providing oversight of this radical proposal. Please provide a copy of the aforementioned memo no later than October 7, and preserve all other documents relevant to the initiative to promote transgenderism among global youth. Given your use of the State Department to promote radical, divisive, and destructive cultural policies, we also request that you answer the following questions no later than October 7:

• 1. What is the exact purpose of this initiative?
• 2. How does this initiative strengthen relations with foreign countries, especially those in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere in the developing world?
• 3. How does the initiative incentivize certain strategically important countries to side with the U.S. sphere against China and Russia, like those mentioned in question two?
• 4. How does the State Department countenance this initiative and its professed commitment to religious liberty?
• 5. Why should Americans support an initiative abroad that is so culturally divisive in America?
• 6. Who in the Biden administration approved of this initiative?
• 7. Was this initiative solely the product of State Department officials? Or did any outside Non-Government Organizations provide a guiding hand? 8. Did the Department of Health and Human Services help draft the memo?
• 9. If any NGOs were involved, which ones?
• 10. Does the State Department intend to use financial pressure to push public health regulators in Sweden, Finland, the U.K. towards endorsing “gender affirming care?”
• 11. How will the Biden administration punish countries that allow nonsurgical and nonhormonal treatment of youth gender dysphoria? 1
• 2. By what metric(s) will the State Department deem the Stern initiative successful?
• 13. Will economic and cultural cooperation between the U.S. and other nations be made contingent on these countries demonstrating that a sufficient number of youth every year have “transitioned”

All great questions. Something tells me that the State Department will slow walk the answers. But with a likely Republican takeover of Congress it will be hard for the State Department to completely hide the ball. At least I hope so.

I focus a lot of my writing on transgender ideology for a reason, and it’s not that I have a particular problem with people who genuinely suffer from gender dysphoria. As with all people who suffer from mental illness and/or psychological distress we should treat them with as much love and compassion as we can muster. As a Christian it is my duty, and as a decent human being it is my sincere desire to help people in distress when I can.

As long as people with gender dysphoria mind their own business, we should mind ours. We can have opinions about them and their behaviors in private, but any form of cruelty directed at another human being is just plain wrong.

But the transgender ideologues are not minding their own business. They are recruiting children. They are attacking society as a whole. They are demanding rights that are afforded nobody else. And they openly proclaim their intent to remake society in their twisted image of humanity. We can criticize and fight their attack on us as vigorously as the law and morality allow. 

I will fight this until my last breath, and you should too.

It’s good to see that after too long being quiescent some brave souls in Congress are standing up to the radicals. It’s not enough, but it is a start.