/int/ - International (1 reader)

I believe transgender identity (and LGBT politics broadly) might have been the tipping point for most people by which American liberalism lost its credibility. As much as we can interminably debate the case for acceptance of homosexuals and their subsequent rights, that cause can be made logically and ethically within the confines of American law because it postulates sexual behavior is an artifact of whatever individual's idiosyncratic desires happen to be. Only the most hardline religious fundamentalists or right-wingers would reject that at base.

In contrast, transgender identity is a bizarre metaphysical, quasi-religious claim that suggests somehow matter is configured "wrongly," however you define it, or that people are animated by some sort of dualistic spirit that is deposited incorrectly in a physical body. The very fundamentals of biology go out the window, and it's rich that these people who tell you endlessly that everything is a social construct will treat a person's gender identity with stern reverence. If you think you're a woman, then you are a woman, biology be damned. Of course, going trans is a quick pathway for easy clout and political privileges for weak men in a society that works endlessly to pathologize masculinity, so that can't be ignored in why transgenders seem so widespread.