ACLU’s rewriting of history shows just how dangerous the insidious march of trans ideology has become

Free speech group ACLU’s trans-friendly rewording of a Ruth Bader Ginsburg quote perfectly demonstrates the influence this minority ideology now exerts. We cannot allow the continual denial of reality to go unchecked.

One of the key objectives of transgender ideology is to erase the biological and cultural distinction between men and women. The main tactic used for the realisation of this objective is to gain control over individual words, leading to the total erasure of a gendered language. Transgenderism is determined to abolish words like ‘boy and girl’, ‘man and woman’, ‘mister and miss’.

Censorship has become the weapon of choice of transgenderism. The ascendancy of this ideology is demonstrated by its capture of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), an organisation that was originally set up to fight censorship and uphold free speech.

Recently, the ACLU decided to rewrite a quote by deceased Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In one of her most famous speeches, Ginsburg stated that, “The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-being and dignity. It is a decision she must make for herself. When government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choice.”

In its wisdom, the ACLU decided to alter Ginsburg’s memorable statement on a woman’s right to choose by tweeting: “The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a [person’s] life, to [their] well-being and dignity… When the government controls that decision for [people], [they are] being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for [their] own choices.”

In this way, the ACLU took it upon itself to change the meaning of Ginsburg’s statement and in effect excise the words ‘woman’, ‘herself’, ‘her’ and ‘she’ from its vocabulary and replace them with ugly gender-neutral terms.

Stung by the hostile reaction to its attempt to re-engineer the English language, the ACLU issued a hypocritical apology. Its creepy executive director, Anthony Romero, sought to deflect blame by claiming that it was a “mistake among the digital team.”

However, no sooner did Romero apologise for the ACLU’s censorious behaviour before he stated that it was necessary “to understand a reality that people who seek abortions are not only women. That reality exists.”

In effect, Romero implicitly justified the ACLU’s censorship by promoting the anti-scientific fantasy vision of a world where hordes of men are competing with women to gain access to an abortion clinic.

It is this synthesis of censorship with the denial of biological facts that highlights the ideological character of the transgender project. Unlike other forms of identity politics, transgenderism relies entirely on shutting down any views that counter its attempt to abolish the biological and cultural distinction between the two sexes. Consequently, it relies entirely on suppressing voices that challenge its outlook on the world. As one commentator rightly noted, “trans ideologues hide books to hide reality.”

What is truly fascinating and alarming is that the hysterical zealotry of trans activism has gained a hegemonic status in Anglo-American culture. When a free speech advocacy organisation like the ACLU become a member of the language police, it is evident that transgenderism has become a powerful cultural force.

The movement to erase foundational biological differences between men and women has even gained a foothold in the domain of science and public health. In the UK, the National Health Service has embraced transgenderism. The fantasy of gender neutrality is explicitly promoted by the Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust’s ‘transgender guidance’ for staff. Complying with this guidance is mandatory for the employees of this Trust. It states that ‘‘all staff members are responsible for complying with the transgender guidance / policy [and] challenging / reporting discriminatory practice or language.”

The writer Caroline Ffiske is absolutely right when she argues that the influence of trans ideology in the NHS “undermines everyday language, as well as free speech and freedom of conscience’, as well as science and medicine.”

Unfortunately, many people who ought to know better do not take seriously the threat posed by transgenderism. Some make light of the clumsy attempt to impose weird sounding pronouns on people and claim it’s not a big deal. Others accommodate the project of re-engineering language by arguing that it is a way of respecting the plight of a sexual minority.

However, when a zealous minority – estimated to be less than one percent of the UK population – encroaches on the freedom of the vast majority and insists that there can be no alternative to their worldview, our fundamental freedoms are directly under threat.

And the question worth asking is, after they abolish the reality of biology, what are they going to destroy next?

Frank Furedi’s ‘100 Years of Identity Crisis: The Culture War Over Socialisation’ is published by De Gruyter.

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