In an age obsessed with feelings over facts, the modern left has transformed empathy from a personal virtue into a political weapon. What may have begun as a sincere desire to alleviate suffering has metastasized into woke brain rot. Gender ideology[1] demands that we deny biological reality, mutilate healthy bodies, and silence dissent in the name of kindness. Nowhere is this more evident than in the transgender movement, where the left’s cult of empathy has produced “gender-affirming care” that affirms delusion rather than treating it. This is not compassion; it is cruelty dressed in rainbow flags. Science and basic common sense demand we reject it.
Virtue Signaling and Social Condemnation
The left has long elevated empathy as the ultimate moral good. Above truth, above reason, and above the hard-won lessons of biology and evolution. For the left, sympathizing with someone else’s pain is proof of moral superiority. This is why progressive lawns sprout yard signs declaring “Everybody Welcome Here” or “Hate Has No Home Here”. These are not invitations to dialogue; they are moral billboards advertising the homeowner’s superior compassion. The message is clear: we are the empathetic ones. You, by contrast, are the bigot.
This appeal to emotion is devastatingly effective at social manipulation. Disagree with the left’s latest orthodoxy on race, sex, immigration, or gender, and you are instantly branded “hateful.” No evidence required. No debate permitted. The accusation itself becomes the argument. Parents who balk at schools secretly transitioning[2-3] their children? Hateful. Doctors who cite the Cass Review[4] or the Swedish, Finnish, and UK medical authorities’ retreat from youth puberty blockers? Hateful. Scientists who note that sex is binary in humans, determined by gametes and chromosomes? Hateful. The left does not need to win on facts when it can win by making disagreement feel socially radioactive.
The Victim Class Worldview
At the root of this strategy lies a Marxist reframing of human relations: oppressor versus oppressed. Classical Marxism[5] divided the world by class. Modern woke ideology divides it by identity – black versus white, gay versus straight, women versus men, and now “trans” versus “cis.” Every favored group is elevated to sacred victim status. Thus, blacks must be celebrated, gays exalted, women (biological ones, at least) protected – until the hierarchy shifts and trans ideology demands biological women surrender sports, prisons, and locker rooms. The victim group du jour is always right. Questioning it is oppression.
Enter the transgender movement. Gender dysphoria[6] has been recast as an identity to be celebrated, rather than a mental health issue to be compassionately treated. The left insists we must “affirm” the dysphoria. Puberty blockers for children. Cross-sex hormones. Surgical removal of healthy breasts and genitals. All of it has been rebranded as “gender-affirming care,” because to do otherwise would be to withhold the empathy owed to the victim class. Biological reality is secondary. The child’s future fertility, bone density, sexual function, and mental health are secondary. What matters is the emotional performance of compassion and elevating the victim class.
The Affirmation Lie
This is not empathy. It is ideological capture. We do not “affirm” anorexics by agreeing they are fat and scheduling liposuction. We do not affirm schizophrenics by validating their delusions of persecution. We treat the underlying disorder because real compassion requires truth. The same standard should apply to gender dysphoria. Multiple European health authorities have reviewed the evidence and concluded that the “affirmative” model lacks rigorous support, especially for minors. The Cass Review[4] in Britain found weak evidence for puberty blockers and warned of social contagion. Yet in America, dissent is shouted down as transphobia while clinics rake in profits and ideologues pat themselves on the back for their kindness.
Telling the truth is not hateful. Biology is not bigotry. Sex is real, immutable, and binary for humans. Acknowledging this does not make someone hateful any more than acknowledging that the sky is blue makes someone anti-atmosphere. When we prioritize “nice” over true, we do children a grotesque disservice. We tell confused adolescents – many of whom are struggling with autism, past trauma, same-sex attraction, or ordinary puberty – that their discomfort means they were “born in the wrong body.” We sterilize them. We set them on a path of lifelong medicalization. Then, when detransitioners emerge broken and betrayed, the same left that celebrated their “journey” abandons them as inconvenient.
The woke empathy cult has poisoned discourse, medicine, and education. It has turned compassion into coercion and kindness into complicity. The transgender movement was never about helping dysphoric individuals; it was about wielding empathy as a club to enforce ideological conformity and power a political movement.
A Turning Tide
Americans may have had enough. What was a rising cultural force, fully embraced and promoted by the Democratic Party, has begun to lose steam. The outcome of the 2024 presidential election, with Trump winning all 7 swing states and the popular vote,[7] was due in part to a growing backlash against the gender mania[8-14] that swept the nation during the Biden presidency. Normal people who didn’t pay much attention to politics began to see men competing in women’s sports[15] and men entering women’s private spaces, including locker rooms and bathrooms.[16] Young children were being taught gender ideology in public schools.[17-19] Kamala Harris even supported the idea of using taxpayer funds to pay for gender transition surgeries for migrants.[20] These issues were the straw that broke the camel’s back for rational, everyday Americans who didn’t like where the culture was heading.
The medical community in the United States seems to be turning a corner too. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) issued a position statement[21] recommending that gender surgeries be delayed until patients are at least 19 years old. The American Medical Association (AMA) also stated[22] that surgical interventions for children and teens should be deferred until adulthood. A woman recently won a malpractice lawsuit over the "gender affirming care" surgery she had as a minor.[23] This recent turn of events demonstrates that, at the very least, we must all recognize that children cannot consent to life-altering medical interventions.
Reclaiming What Is True
Unfortunately, the culture war is far from over. While individuals are free to express themselves however they see fit, they cannot demand that others participate in their personal fantasy. Individual liberty is not the freedom to force society to lie. Science is not whatever the activist class declares this week or next month. True compassion looks a child in the eye and says: “You are not broken. Your body is not a mistake. We will help you love the skin you’re in, not mutilate it.” That is empathy grounded in reality. Not the untruthful, performative version that has produced skyrocketing youth gender clinic referrals, regretful detransitioners, and a generation taught that only subjective feelings can define our reality.
Rational people who value the truth must continue to speak plainly: men are not women. Children cannot consent to sterilization. Stating simple facts is not hateful or oppressive. We owe the next generation better than lies spoken through the woke prism of gender ideology. We owe them a world based in objective reality – one built on facts, not feelings. And reality, however uncomfortable, is the only foundation upon which genuine human flourishing can be built.
References
1. What is Gender Ideology? The Heritage Foundation. https://www.heritage.org/gender/commentary/what-gender-ideology
2. U.S. Department of Education Finds California Department of Education Violated Federal Law by Hiding Students’ “Gender Transitions” from Parents. https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-finds-california-department-of-education-violated-federal-law-hiding-students-gender-transitions-parents
3. List of School District Transgender – Gender Nonconforming Student Policies. https://defendinged.org/investigations/list-of-school-district-transgender-gender-nonconforming-student-policies
4. The Cass Review. Dr. Hilary Cass. https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20250310143933/https://cass.independent-review.uk/home/publications/final-report/
5. The Communist Manifesto. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/
6. What is Gender Dysphoria? American Psychiatric Association. https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/what-is-gender-dysphoria
7. Trump Officially Sweeps all 7 Swing States. Axios. https://www.axios.com/2024/11/10/trump-sweeps-seven-swing-states
8. Biden hosts Pride Month celebration at White House. PBS. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/biden-hosts-pride-month-celebration-at-white-house-voices-lgbtq-support
9. Trans Influencer Rose Montoya invited to White House. https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1668410936259125248
10. Chuck Schumer & Hakeem Jeffries commit to defending trans rights at star-studded Pride gala. Advocate. https://www.advocate.com/news/schumer-jeffries-democrats-transgender-support
11. Rachel Levine: Transgender official sworn in as four-star admiral. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58974627
12. Transgender Mania Grips White House. Newsmax. https://www.newsmax.com/billdonohue/gender-hormone-therapy/2022/04/22/id/1066868/
13. Abigail Shrier: How the Gender Fever Finally Broke. The Free Press. https://www.thefp.com/p/abigail-shrier-how-the-gender-fever-broke-trump-executive-order
14. Target under scrutiny over LGBTQ Pride merch. Fox 11 Los Angeles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erqz8oaKxRQ
15. Riley Gaines: ‘I Left There With No Trophy’ After Tie With Lia Thomas; Kentucky Standout Disappointed With NCAA. Swimming World. https://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/news/riley-gaines-i-left-there-with-no-trophy-after-tie-with-lia-thomas-kentucky-standout-disappointed-with-ncaa/
16. Defending Women From Gender Idology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government. The White House. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/
17. NYC preschool read book on gender identity: ‘It’s ok to be whatever gender’. PIX 11. https://pix11.com/news/local-news/manhattan/nyc-preschool-read-book-on-gender-identity-its-ok-to-be-whatever-gender/
18. New state standards on sex education are inappropriate for our children. Chicago Sun Times. https://chicago.suntimes.com/2022/8/11/23300381/sex-ed
19. LA elementary school materials push gender transitions despite Trump order. The Center Square. https://www.thecentersquare.com/california/article_500b63ed-1f57-4578-892b-2c7fdd82c1f8.html
20. Harris backed taxpayer-funded gender surgeries for detained migrants during 2020 campaign. The National News Desk. https://thenationaldesk.com/news/americas-news-now/harris-backed-taxpayer-funded-gender-surgeries-for-detained-migrants-during-2020-campaign0-american-civil-liberties-union-aclu-donald-trump-transgender-kamala-democratic-washington-dc-election-2024-november-lgbtq-border-crisis
21. Position Statement on Gender Surgery for Children and Adolescents. American Society of Plastic Surgeons. https://www.plasticsurgery.org/documents/health-policy/positions/2026-gender-surgery-children-adolescents.pdf
22. American Medical Association Says Gender Surgeries for Minors Should Wait. Powers Health. https://www.powershealth.org/about-us/newsroom/health-library/2026/02/06/american-medical-association-says-gender-surgeries-for-minors-should-wait
23. Woman Wins Malpractice Suit Over Gender Surgery as a Minor. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/03/health/gender-surgery-malpractice-varian.html