The mainstreaming of transgenderism is in some ways a logical extension of the civil-rights and diversity movements that have transformed society for the better. But it is also the story of advocacy run amok, in which a small but militant group of activists has managed to strong-arm well-meaning people into believing that gender is not innate but “assigned,” that those who are “trapped in the wrong body” would be happier with radical hormone treatments and mutilating surgery, and that children as young as one or two should be pushed along a path whose implications they are far too young to understand.

Let’s be clear. People have the right to present themselves any way they want. Transgendered people are entitled to dignity, respect and equal treatment. And some really are happier with hormones and surgery. But transgenderism is also a fad that has been spread by social media and embraced by individuals (and families) as the explanation for their confusion, loneliness and dysfunction.

One skeptic is Camille Paglia, the formidable cultural critic and dissident feminist. “Transgenderism has taken off like a freight train and has become nearly impossible to discuss with the analytic neutrality that honest and ethical scholarship requires,” she said in an interview with FeministTimes. “I am concerned about the current climate, inflamed by half-baked postmodernist gender theory, which convinces young people who may have other unresolved personal or family issues that sex-reassignment surgery is a golden road to happiness and true identity.”