{"id":1489472,"date":"2022-05-24T08:17:32","date_gmt":"2022-05-24T12:17:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1489472"},"modified":"2022-05-24T08:17:48","modified_gmt":"2022-05-24T12:17:48","slug":"stop-the-gaslighting-conservatives-did-not-inflame-the-culture-war-over-trans-ideology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/stop-the-gaslighting-conservatives-did-not-inflame-the-culture-war-over-trans-ideology\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop The Gaslighting. Conservatives Did Not Inflame The Culture War Over Trans Ideology"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fstop-the-gaslighting-conservatives-did-not-inflame-the-culture-war-over-trans-ideology%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1489472&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/Screen-Shot-2022-05-23-at-11.53.43-AM-1024x574-1.png\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Can the gaslighting on gender and sexual identitarianism from the left get any more absurd? The Washington Post last month <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/dc-md-va\/2022\/04\/18\/mclean-community-center-culture-war\/\">ran a story<\/a> about how a decision by the community center in McLean, Virginia to co-sponsor a \u201cDrag StoryBook Hour\u201d for children during Pride Month has, in their awkward wording, \u201cset off culture wars.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>The May election for three open seats at the community center has attracted nine candidates, including Katharine Gorka, a former Trump administration official who has criticized the diversity, inclusion, and equity policies that resulted in the drag event. WaPo reporter Antonio Olivo observed, with editorial flourish, that this is \u201can example of how nothing is safe from the nation\u2019s raging culture wars.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A suburban community center hosts a drag queen story hour (DQSH) for elementary school students, yet it\u2019s conservatives who are the ones stoking the culture war by complaining about it? A Florida school board member <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/us\/florida-school-board-chaperones-elementary-school-students-gay-bar\">last year<\/a> chaperoned a group of elementary school children on a field trip to a gay bar and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tampabay.com\/news\/2019\/08\/14\/drag-queen-story-hour-in-st-petersburg-draws-protesters-we-went-inside\/\">the state\u2019s community centers promote DQSH<\/a>, but it\u2019s conservatives who are the dangerous extremists for <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/03\/29\/abc-news-doesnt-want-you-to-know-that-the-students-desantis-is-protecting-from-sex-propaganda-are-5-year-olds\/\">supporting a Florida parental rights in education bill<\/a>? <\/p>\n<p>Drag queens do bizarre, <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2021\/07\/13\/i-went-to-drag-queen-story-hour-in-washington-dc-so-you-dont-have-to\/\">borderline pornographic acts<\/a> in front of children, but it\u2019s conservatives who are responsible for miseducating and damaging American youth? Come on.<\/p>\n<h2>Anything but Innocent<\/h2>\n<p>DQSH, as Gorka recently told me, \u201cis not, as the American Library Association dishonestly describes it, an effort to combat \u2018marginalization and underrepresentation.\u2019\u201d Rather, as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dragqueenstoryhour.org\/\">DQSH website itself<\/a> declares, it is \u201cdrag queens reading stories to children in libraries, schools, and bookstores\u201d in order to \u201ccapture the imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That word \u201cplay\u201d is a bit concerning, especially given the sexually explicit nature of DQSH, and the many allegations that this pedagogy <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theamericanconservative.com\/articles\/groomers-to-the-man\/\">equates to grooming<\/a>. A drag performer at <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2021\/07\/13\/i-went-to-drag-queen-story-hour-in-washington-dc-so-you-dont-have-to\/\">one DQSH event in D.C.<\/a> last year sang shirtless with duct tape on her breasts, sported a thong, and pretended to have fake sperm over her mouth. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2019\/07\/22\/public-library-deletes-pictures-drag-queens-fondling-children-story-hour\/\">Another DQSH event in Portland, Oregon<\/a> in 2019 showed photos of children \u201clounging atop of the costumed queens on the floor, grabbing at false breasts, and burying their faces in their bodies.\u201d This is not exactly light-hearted, appropriate public entertainment, notes Gorka.<\/p>\n<h2>A Concerning National Phenomenon<\/h2>\n<p>It would be more accurate to say that DQSH events bring the culture war directly to America\u2019s children, with an ideological gameplan expressly dedicated <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/05\/13\/corporate-media-celebrates-the-exponential-rise-of-the-transgender-craze-it-helped-create\/\">to sexualizing our nation\u2019s youth<\/a> and urging children to consider themselves gender dysphoric. The first DQSH event in the United States was held in San Francisco in 2015. Since then, the events have spread across the country. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailysignal.com\/2020\/01\/27\/how-drag-queen-story-hour-expanded-across-america\/\">As of 2020<\/a>, the official DQSH website boasted almost 50 independently operated chapters across the United States, including in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Chicago. It is also supported by the American Library Association, whose <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ala.org\/advocacy\/libraries-respond-drag-queen-story-hour\">extensive resource page<\/a> includes information on how libraries can resist and censure people in local communities who object to these events.<\/p>\n<p>Terrifyingly, the grooming charge is reality. In 2021, the former president of an organization that served as a sponsor for the Milwaukee Drag Queen Story Hour <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2021\/03\/25\/for-some-leftists-the-well-being-of-children-only-matters-when-they-can-be-used-as-political-props\/\">was charged<\/a> with possessing child pornography depicting the sexual abuse of underage boys, including toddlers. In 2019, the Houston Public Library <a href=\"https:\/\/www.khou.com\/article\/news\/local\/houston-public-library-admits-registered-child-sex-offender-participated-in-drag-queen-storytime\/285-becf3a0d-56c5-4f3c-96df-add07bbd002a\">admitted a registered child sex offender<\/a> to read to kids in a DQSH event. Allyn Walker, a transgender former assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at Old Dominion University in Virginia, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/allyn-walker-virginia-old-dominion-university-pedophilia-minor-attracted-1653340\">sought to defend<\/a> people who are attracted to minors.<\/p>\n<p>As I noted in a recent Federalist article, the media and schools aggressively promoting transgenderism have created a national crisis. There has been a dramatic, unprecedented surge in people identifying with sexual identities other than heterosexual. <\/p>\n<p>As Abigail Shrier documents at length in her alarming book \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/regnery.com\/9781684510313\/irreversible-damage\/\">Irreversible Damage<\/a>,\u201d the consequences for those who seek hormone treatment and\/or sexual reassignment surgery are lifelong. DQSH marks an attempt to push the boundaries even further, not only for children entering puberty but to early elementary school and pre-K.<\/p>\n<p>This truly is a national challenge. DQSH now reportedly has chapters in 29 different states, which means there is plenty of local political work to be done. As Gorka notes, \u201cpornographic books such as \u2018All Boys Aren\u2019t Blue\u2019 can be found in hundreds of school libraries across the country, thanks in part to the fact that The Young Adult Library Services Association (a division of the American Library Association) put the book at the top of its Teens\u2019 Top 10 book list in 2021.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Malevolent Gaslighting<\/h2>\n<p>This makes the left\u2019s abusive and hyperbolic rhetoric on conservative resistance to DQSH and other grooming activities all the more insulting and infuriating. The Washington Post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/media\/disgraced-washington-post-cartoonist-blasted-anti-desantis-cartoon-image-drowned-syrian-boy\">provocatively featured a political cartoon<\/a> in April portraying Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as responsible for the deaths of trans children. Liberal media outlets <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/first-person\/22977970\/anti-trans-legislation-texas-idaho\">are claiming that<\/a> conservatives should be held responsible for the suicides of children struggling with dysphoria.<\/p>\n<p>Yet who encouraged prepubescent children to think about myopic topics like gender dysphoria in the first place? I certainly never heard of such things when I was in grade school in the 1990s. Who told children that their gender and sexual identity were the most important thing about them, and that misidentifying or misgendering amounted to the worst possible offense? Who is <a href=\"https:\/\/humanumreview.com\/articles\/the-trans-industrial-complex\">making millions of dollars<\/a> off lying to and emotionally damaging impressionable, easily-manipulated children?<\/p>\n<p>The answer is those advocating DQSH and the many other ubiquitous forms of sexual and gender propaganda influencing millions of American youth. It is they who are deceiving \u2014 and often permanently damaging \u2014 an entire generation of Americans for the sake of their own ideological agenda, the normalizing of bizarre, pornographic behavior. <\/p>\n<p>No, conservatives did not inflame the culture war over trans ideology and drag queens. But we sure would like to stop it.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  Casey Chalk is a senior contributor at The Federalist and an editor and columnist at The New Oxford Review. He has a bachelor\u2019s in history and master\u2019s in teaching from the University of Virginia and a master\u2019s in theology from Christendom College. He is the author of The Persecuted: True Stories of Courageous Christians Living Their Faith in Muslim Lands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Can the gaslighting on gender and sexual identitarianism from the left get any more absurd? The Washington Post last month ran a story about how a decision by the community<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":658,"featured_media":1489498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1489472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/658"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1489472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1489498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1489472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1489472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1489472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}