“You cut that out now,” said a man dressed as a woman to commentator Ben Shapiro in 2015, “or you’ll go home in an ambulance.” I think I know how Shapiro felt, too. Years ago, one of that man’s co-ideologists wrote in an internet comment that he wants my “head on a platter.” (I really don’t think my head is the most tender part of me, but, hey, there’s no accounting for taste.)
And what “trespass” invited this hostility?
Shapiro and I editorialized against the “transgender” agenda, using logic, reason, and valid scientific understanding.
According to the official FBI narrative, this is the same “trespass” that got activist Charlie Kirk killed on September 10.
Regardless of the accuracy of that narrative, one thing is certain: the “trans” agenda is killing our country.
So asserts pundit Joseph Ford Cotto, writing for American Thinker about the toxic “trans” agenda. He calls MUSS (Made-up Sexual Status, aka “transgender”) ideology “one of the most aggressive and destabilizing ideologies of our time.”
(Note: Some don’t like the term “MUSS.” To win a debate, however, you must control the language of the debate. Thus is using a movement’s preferred term, in this case “transgenderism,” unacceptable. Now, I’m all ears if someone has a better alternative. But “trans” — the movement and the term — must go.)
Cotto uses the Kirk killer narrative to expose a much larger problem, one we’ve blithely ignored. As Cotto tells us:
UCLA’s Williams Institute discovered that 42 percent of transgender adults in America have attempted suicide, while 28 percent drink dangerously and 31 percent suffer debilitating drug usage. Over half of transgender adultsb [sic] — 56 percent — have engaged in non-suicidal self-injury at some point in their lives. Nearly half, 44 percent, reported experiencing suicidal thoughts in the recent past, with 7 percent having made a suicide attempt. 21 percent reported recent self-injury.
Furthermore, 82 percent of transgender adults have sought formal mental health services, a striking contrast to just 47 percent of “cisgender” [read: normal] adults.
… Within the transgender community, “nonbinary” [people have] faced particularly severe struggles. They were four times more likely than transgender “women” to engage in hazardous drinking. Compared to transgender “men,” “nonbinary” individuals were four times more likely to report problematic drug use, three times more likely to suffer serious psychological distress, six times more likely to have recently contemplated suicide, and four times more likely to have engaged in non-suicidal self-injury at some point in their lives.
Even more to the point, and contrary to modern myth, a 2020 report found that MUSS individuals are also more likely to commit murder than to be murdered. (In fact, the analysis finds that they’re actually less likely to be homicide victims than normal people are.) Additionally, they’re overrepresented among pedophiles. And they have in some locales, a report held, constituted up to 20 percent of Antifa rioters.
Facing Facts
Cotto points out that acts of left-wing terrorism are increasing.
Is it really surprising that the MUSS movement breeds such misery, self-harm, and violence? Putting just two brain cells to the matter informs that claiming you’re the opposite sex sends an alarming message. In the least, the person has been caught up in dark, destructive fashions. And if the individual is sincerely deluded, it reflects severe psychological dysfunction.
So it’s no shock that MUSS sufferers may be plagued by suicidal and sometimes homicidal ideation. (And that they too often act on these urges.) It’s no shock that they’re too frequently hooked on drugs and alcohol. It’s no shock that they’re more likely than normal people to engage in risky behaviors such as prostitution. And it’s no shock that an alarming number of recent-years’ mass shooters have been MUSS shooters.
For one thing, being so uncomfortable in your own skin breeds unhappiness and anger. And unhappy, angry people may lash out. Add to this, too, that MUSS ideology tells them that those not accepting their delusion are hateful oppressors. Realize as well that the rationalization they’re maintaining — that they’re the opposite sex — is a most fragile, easily burst bubble. And how angry may they be at those wielding the bubble-bursting needle of Truth?
Then, there’s also a simple rule related to this. That is, the more distant from reality the belief, the more extreme the action necessary to perpetuate it.
The Beam in Our Collective Eye
As for assigning blame, yes, we can say that MUSS ideology has damaged America. But who is really to blame for this movement’s metastasization?
We are.
That is, the wider society is — in great part.
For too many years too many of us have indulged a tolerance of the intolerable. It’s represented by stale pronouncements such as, “I don’t care what people do in their personal lives.” Of course, this ignores that bringing a behavior out of the closet and into public means it’s no longer “private.” It then becomes a public influence if not a public nuisance. It can become a cause, too, and even, in some quarters, an obsession.
Our lukewarmness, something not displayed by the cancel-culture Left, mind you, is a sin of omission. For if you don’t control the culture, the culture will control you. In the case of the MUSS agenda, it has meant the irreparable mutilation of countless youths’ bodies and minds. (Ask Chloe Cole and “Nathaniel” about that.) It has meant the growth of a monstrous cause that has spawned hatred, violence, and death. It has, too, distorted reality — that is, the truth of the sexual binary, a basic division in nature — for a generation of children.
We all know the saying “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Possessed of a misguided open-mindedness, we missed our chance for that preventive ounce and even that remedial pound. And now, like it or not, a ton of cure may be our only recourse.
Update: This article was modified from its original version to account for the fact that the accused is innocent until proven guilty.
