Absolutely. Also I will not use "transwoman". I say "trans-deluded male". If you say "transwoman", this means that the person is a woman of one sort. But the person is not. The person is male.
I alws thought of "trans" as an adjective like "fake" or "counterfeit" or "ersatz" or "wannabe", or like "vegan" in front of the name of a meat or dairy food—where the base meaning is that an "adjective+X" is by definition NOT an "X"' (these are called "privative adjectives" if you're a sufficiently hopeless language nerd).
So, whatever the hell a "trans woman" is, it's definitely not a Woman—just like the one thing we know for sure about "counterfeit money" is that it isn't money, and the one certainty about "vegan cheese" is that it isn't cheese.
TBTH, I think this is how the vast, vast majority of people process phrases like "trans woman".
It's still a problem as you say, but not so much in the sense of subtly influencing perception and/or lulling awareness of threats..in other words, the phrase "trans woman" isn't rohypnol like "she/her" pronouns are. (just in case anybody here doesn't get the reference, https://fairplayforwomen.com/pronouns/)
The main issue with "trans woman"—which is still a clear and present danger even if 100.0000% of people are aware that "trans women" are men (which they are... including the TRA delulus)—is that it's a stepping stone to activist news writers and other media influencers stripping off the "trans" and just writing "woman" about, inevitably, some perverted man who's just committed a string of sex offenses. That's where the gateway to delivering actual outright lies as though they were truth is.
in the midst of all these legitimate revelations, we must not forget that there is a difference between the “trans cult“, and the ordinary people who suffer from gender dysphoria. One of the things that causes the trans cult to go off the rails is the rejection of what the cultists call “trans medicalism”. there are lots of people who have their own ideas about how they want to rebuild the concept of gender. They are not the same people as those suffering from gender dysphoria, who have repeatedly been helped by surgery and hormone treatment. The Cass report, which is so thoroughly vilified by the trans cultists, and praised by the gender critical, acknowledges that some people really do benefit from surgery and hormones. We must not throw out this baby when we throw out the bathwater.
" benefit from surgery and hormones" - we have no idea if this is true or not. There is so much retrospective justification of decisions going on - when you cut off your tits or dick, you will justify your bad decision. They are gone - are you going to now decide that you were stupid and ruined your life?
I have no doubt that "gender dysphoria" exists. The issue is what therapy is appropriate. There is NO evidence that anything being used today makes a bit of difference. All of this quackery should be banned. It's like lobotomy - it actually worked to quiet the schizophenics by using a mix-master on their frontal cortex. 60 years later, we realize what a terrible idea this is and was.
The Cass report claims that the surgery is very effective in helping people with genuine gender dysphoria. If you’re going to accept everything else in that report, you have to take that claim seriously. I think the surgery is pretty drastic, and the possible negative health results give good reason for developing alternatives but right now it seems to be the best thing available for gender dysphoria.
The history of medical treatment is replete with examples of bad treatments. There I a no such thing as a person born in the wrong body. These treatments should be completely outlawed.
Constance, this will interest you and give you an insight into how Klein operates.
Do you remember the big, vituperative kerfuffle in Feb 2023 over a fairly mild, but truthful, article the NYTimes ran written by Emily Bazelon and Katie Baker, I believe? The one that cause GLAAD to rent a billboard truck and park it in front of NYTimes offices and at least one of its reporters to be accosted in the streets and on and on?
Well, in April of that year he has a trans activist on his podcast. So I listened to see what would be said about that fracas.
Podcast started. Podcast ended. And Klein did not at all, not once, nada, mention it.
Klein has always been on team woke. He's playing at the thoughtful moderate role now, but anyone who listened to him several years ago knows he was right there with all of the other identitarian hate-peddlers. The NYT is similarly whitewashing its reputation. They suppressed the ugly facts surrounding the transing of vulnerable kids for years, but their new position is that both sides were always mad at them, so they must be doing something right. No one at The Times will ever be held accountable for the gross malpractice that has been perpetrated these last several years.
I'm feeling relief knowing people like Jamie Reed are truth telling in the spirit of gay rights activists past. And I'm feeling gut-sick it came to this. My friends and I, in the 80's and 90's, never would have believed today's transqueer cult madness. There was always plenty of crazy around, but nihilism was never the goal. God bless the LGB Courage Coalition for picking up the torch.
Nihilism is right. Most of the people cheerleading for transgenderism also support abortion up to the point of birth, medically assisted dying and jihad. I was very much of the left until trans peaked me. Now I stand back from my old team, politically homeless, aghast at how it became a death cult. WTF happened?
Ezra Klein’s thesis—that opposition to gender ideology stems from a lack of time or exposure—is not only deeply flawed, but also shockingly ahistorical, disingenuous, and self-serving. On his June 17, 2025 podcast with Tim "Sarah" McBride, Klein suggests that Americans haven’t had enough opportunity to “open their hearts” and “change their minds.” But this framing is both intellectually dishonest and historically false.
The public has not been deprived of exposure to gender ideology—it has been saturated. Klein’s own media platforms, from Vox to The New York Times, along with NPR, MSNBC, The Atlantic, and The Washington Post, have spent years amplifying a relentlessly affirming narrative. Since at least 2015, particularly after the Bruce "Caitlyn" Jenner media moment, pro-trans messaging has dominated the mainstream. Between 2017 and 2022, the volume of such content far exceeded anything seen during the early gay rights era. Trans affirmation has been omnipresent: in corporate advertising, school policies, Pride month campaigns, government programs, children's books, and television. This was not a marginalized issue—it became the dominant moral script.
Klein’s analogy to the gay rights movement is also deeply misleading. Public support for gay people grew gradually, grounded in adult visibility, appeals to equal legal treatment, and integration into civil society—not through radical theoretical redefinitions. In contrast, gender ideology demands that we redefine the most basic social categories (man, woman, child), accept extraordinary medical claims about the mutability of sex, comply with compelled speech, and look the other way as children are placed on irreversible medical pathways for distress that often resolves with time.
To pretend that there hasn’t been enough “exposure” is a rhetorical maneuver meant to shield the ideology from accountability. It dodges serious concerns about autogynephilia, rapid-onset social contagion, detransition, the loss of sex-based protections, and the laundering of pseudoscience into law and medicine without democratic scrutiny. Klein’s framing casts all dissent as ignorance or latent prejudice, delegitimizing disagreement before it can even be voiced.
But the public has listened—and said no. Parents, clinicians, educators, and even previously supportive liberals have seen girls lose sports titles to males, been told to use obviously false pronouns, watched children rushed into hormone treatments, and witnessed the erosion of parental rights. What they encountered wasn’t a movement quietly asking for understanding, but one demanding the reordering of reality and punishing anyone who hesitates.
Klein’s claim may appear soft-spoken and technocratic, but the logic beneath it is chillingly familiar: if people object, it's because they are not yet properly conditioned. This form of rhetorical gaslighting—rooted in denial, inversion, and moral manipulation—would be immediately recognizable to any Soviet dissident.
It’s not Stalinism. But it draws from the same rhetorical toolbox: recast dissent as failure to understand, and truth as something that only ideology can deliver.
Klein’s claim that this is all happening too fast for Americans to understand flips the truth on its head. It’s not that people haven’t had enough time—it’s that the movement grossly overreached, mistaking saturation for persuasion. The backlash Klein laments isn’t premature; it’s the natural and long-delayed response to a decade of ideological overreach.
Wow, thank you Ollie for this brilliant and clarifying breakdown. It should be published on its own elsewhere and I hope you commented on the NYT site too. The only piece I wonder about is whether Kline is more blinded than disingenuous. Given his age and given the circles he has moved within since ivy league college days, he almost certainly has trans identified close friends and/or family in his life that he cares deeply about. He long ago accepted them and the trans narrative, has likely grown into adulthood with them, has them as colleagues he respects. My question does not invalidate any of your points, as Kline is also a public intellectual with great influence and deserves to be taken to task in the ways you have done here. This caveat does not let him off the hook. But love can blind anyone.
I have been close friends in the past with more than one transgenderist man.
When I learned what transgenderism really is--that these men were shamelessly lying to everyone they knew, while indulging in rampant internalized homophobia and shocking misogyny--I lost all respect for them. And I lost all interest in having them as friends.
Friends don't lie to each other. They don't manipulate each other for sympathy. They don't exploit each other's oppression.
“This was not a marginalized issue—it became the dominant moral script.”
I used to joke the democrats had a “just trans” platform. Want healthcare? Nope, just trans! Stopping foreign wars? Here , have some more trannies instead! An end to the prison industrial complex? OPEN WIDE BITCH ITS TIME FOR THIS GIRL COCK!!! 😈
Yes. I peaked around 2016 when Bruce was celebrated, Rachel was vilified, and two different moms of teen girls told me they had been asked for binders. I had no idea what they were talking about, and was horrified when I learned. I've lobbied and supported women's causes my whole life, and this wasn't ok. I know a social contagion when I see one.
Since then I've made a point to talk to people about the issue and it turns out that almost everyone knows someone in their circle--a relative, friend, co-worker, etc.--who has announced their "transition".
There is a claim that "they've been around forever". No, that's just wrong. There were always gay people--the "perpetual bachelors", the "Boston marriages". There was a couple of women in my extended family who lived together for decades, and no one ever talked about it.
Where are the gay kids now? They start out as gender-non-conforming kids. Weird, that. It often still takes a while to figure oneself out, to experiment, and see what you like. High school, college age, even later. I was a late bloomer, physically & mentally. When I was a child, I wouldn't have been able to say how I would want to live as an adult. I know that I hated the unwanted attention I got from older kids and men when I hit puberty. If someone had offered me a ticket out of that ("you're really a boy") I would have grabbed it, and lived to regret it for the rest of my life.
"Klein’s framing casts all dissent as ignorance or latent prejudice, delegitimizing disagreement before it can even be voiced."
I didn't hear this argument in the interview from either of the speakers--in fact, I heard the opposite. (Perhaps one of both of them have said this elsewhere?) I thought the overall theme in the conversation was about effective political process and the unfortunate rise of and problems stemming from illiberalism that DO lead to delegitimizing disagreement. I'm glad I listened to the whole thing.
Sarah McBride and Ezra Klein explicitly disavow many of the rhetorical tactics commonly criticized in trans activist discourse — including absolutism, ideological purism, and the framing of disagreement as bigotry. However, the interview is still a political performance, and even a gracious, self-critical performance can contain elements that arguably obscure, minimize, or deflect from difficult truths.
Below is a list of possible points where bad faith, minimization, or selective framing could be inferred — though these are subtle and not overtly manipulative in the way you might see from more strident activist spokespeople:
1. Minimizing the Nature of Public Concerns by Reframing Them
Example: Klein and McBride repeatedly describe public resistance to gender ideology as rooted in discomfort with "speech norms" or a lack of understanding about gender identity.
McBride: “We started to have what maybe were conversations that were happening in academic institutions… and we started having those out in public on social media.”
Critique:
This reframing downplays substantive, rational objections to gender self-ID policies — especially those with legal and institutional consequences (e.g., for sports, prisons, or parental rights) — by implying they stem mostly from a mismatch in educational tempo or public discomfort with new pronouns. That is arguably a soft form of gaslighting: treating policy disagreement as cultural incomprehension.
2. Sanitizing the Role of Medical Institutions
Example: McBride defends WPATH and U.S. medical associations as the proper arbiters of youth gender care, contrasting them with meddling politicians.
“You cannot tell me that it’s the role of the government to pre-empt those conversations.”
Critique:
This selectively omits growing international concern — particularly from countries with strong public health systems (e.g., Sweden, Finland, the UK) — over the very same institutions McBride elevates. These countries have already acted to restrict pediatric transition based on evidence reviews. Her framing implicitly discredits critiques of the American medical consensus by making them sound like right-wing overreach — which may be minimization of an evolving medical debate.
3. Slippery Use of “Innateness”
Example: McBride describes being trans as “a visceral feeling… like a constant feeling of homesickness,” aligning with the “born this way” narrative.
Critique:
At another point, she concedes that there was a push within the LGBTQ community to abandon the “born this way” narrative in favor of a constructionist view of gender identity as chosen or fluid — yet doesn’t fully reconcile the tension.
This equivocation can be read as strategic ambiguity — invoking innateness when it's politically useful, and valorizing chosen identity when that suits the audience. While this isn’t necessarily bad faith, it can serve as conceptual sleight of hand.
4. Appeal to Grace as a Way to Deflect Harder Questions
Example: McBride repeatedly invokes “grace,” “hope,” and “persuasion” to encourage dialogue and discourage purging of imperfect allies.
Critique:
While admirable in tone, this may also diffuse accountability for specific activist excesses or false claims (e.g., “puberty blockers are completely reversible”) without directly acknowledging them. It risks smoothing over real harms caused by previous overreach by framing backlash as a failure of tone rather than substance.
5. Framing Opposition as Overreaction or Misdirection
Example: McBride likens her Republican antagonists in Congress to reality TV characters seeking a “season-long story arc.”
Critique:
That metaphor may have truth, but it also delegitimizes the opposition’s motives by reducing them to cynicism and attention-seeking. Even if some politicians are posturing, many constituents have sincere, reasoned objections — and those are glossed over. This is a form of minimization through caricature.
6. Hiding the Ball on Parental Rights and Education Policy
Example: McBride defends parental decision-making in youth transition but does not address cases where schools conceal gender identity transitions from parents.
Critique:
This omission is significant. Parental exclusion in schools is a key point of public backlash and legislation. To leave it unmentioned while framing the issue as “families and doctors should decide” feels like selective omission, a form of rhetorical deflection.
In Summary:
While McBride and Klein operate in a more intellectually honest and conciliatory mode than typical activist discourse, they still engage in:
Minimization of substantive disagreement by portraying it as misunderstanding
Selective framing of medical controversies
Omission of activist overreach (especially in schools and online harassment)
Idealization of institutional actors whose authority is contested
Occasional strategic vagueness around key concepts (e.g., innateness vs. identity fluidity)
They do not appear to engage in outright bad faith, gaslighting, or demonization of dissenters, but they do employ some rhetorically cushioning strategies to avoid grappling with the strongest arguments against their positions.
Yes, yes and yes! I agree with these observations--all points that in a public debate and in investigative journalism can and should be asked, debated, highlighted! McBride was a guest on Klein's talk show; little of that was going to happen here. Should have happened on the NYT The Protocol podcast though!
What I thought this was going to be about when I saw the headline--the excruciating truth that "liberals (like Ezra Kline) need more time" to wake up to the knowledge of the horrific deal they signed with the devil in advocating for the institutionalization of gender ideology. With all the ensuing harm you know of too well as an apostate, from a front row seat in the pews, preaching from the pulpit even. I didn't listen to that podcast because once I got wind of the shape of the interview, I couldn't bear to hear it. Again, the word for me with how long this is taking for liberals and progressives to get it: excruciating. I think Ezra Kline is an earnest and intelligent public voice on other matters, and I don't need to invalidate all his views because of this interview, but I it's so disappointing, and I wish it wasn't so slow. On the positive side--we are finally well positioned in the US with public voices like yours and the others in the Courage Coalition. We did not have that a few years ago. Enough liberals and progressives HAVE finally joined us said "NO." Our friends are GC-curious and may listen to people they thought were dead wrong a few years ago, but would otherwise relate to in their lives. The books coming out, the interviews, and the posts like this one will find the ears that need to hear. Too slowly, but it is happening!
As quiet as it's kept unfortunately a very large amount of Liberals /Democrats never agreed with this Transformer misogynistic, Pedophile pushing bullshit
Thank you Jamie for this article and everything you’ve done. I have been through that exact evolution myself. Working as a primary care provider I went from having one transgender patient a year to seeing several a week. I have had an open mind, tried to educate myself about their care and meet everyone with compassion. Time and increased exposure has only shown me how destructive this entire movement is as I’ve seen the trans patients dealing with serious mental illness, personality disorders, autism, histories of sexual trauma and psychogenic disorders like non-epileptic seizures. I’ve also realized how many of them are probably gay. Once you’ve seen the truth behind this curtain you can’t go back and no amount of time will make it different.
The more the American public knows and understands what gender ideology means and the consequences, the more they will completely reject it. The utter continuing failure of MSM to report factually is appalling and another example of those who graduated from alleged elite schools and are moving into positions of influence and bringing their distorted social justice mentality with them. Journalism has been a prime example of that effect as are the staffs of most Democrat office holders. It is almost impossible for Democrat politicians to change course because of their staffs and the overwhelming pressure from the transtapo. Anyone speaking out will be challenged in a primary.
Jamie and coalition, would you think about taking on a letter to the editor and op-ed writing campaign to challenge the framing that “transgender rights are under attack” from efforts to limit access to medicalization and preserve women’s sports and spaces? It’s distressing to see this canard uncritically reproduced even in the most ostensibly rational media outlets: https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/transgender-rights-movement-challenges-b8de6e62?st=tNLis1&reflink=article_copyURL_share
Activists in the US behave as id self-ID is the law of the land and though it may be in some states, I don’t believe it ti be so at the Federal level. Maybe @kdansky could clarify. Men’s demands especially those which violate women’s established rights =\= rights.
Yes, and Mc Bride said he was” afraid “! Sure, everyone is attacking trans people! Really? All that’s happening is putting a few brakes on their demands. They still have more rights than the rest of us!
Trump is throwing people out of the military just because they are trans; people with long and distinguished careers in the service. There is also a large uptick thank you in violence against trans people. These are real problems and should not be ignored just because there are trans activists who are overreaching.
Great article. Trans acceptance relies on people not knowing anything about it. The more you know, the worse it is. At the end of the road is astonishment at having gone along with it at all, your faith in all the institutions that pushed it totally shattered. The gay rights movement is nothing, nothing, NOTHING like this.
At the bottom of your screen, to the right of the “comment” speech-bubble icon are two curved arrows that make a circle. Hit it and you can repost a substack article you like - with or without your own comment above it.
The horror some will feel, when they realise finally, what they have done to children. Children, who were told, not to worry if they were born in the wrong body, Santa will bring them a new one.
Brilliant takedown of Ezra Klein's disingenuous fanboy propaganda piece in the NYT on Sarah McBride. Bull's eye!
Exactly!
(And I still call him Tim McBride. He's not a woman. He's not "Sarah." Minor point, but I won't give in on this.)
Absolutely. Also I will not use "transwoman". I say "trans-deluded male". If you say "transwoman", this means that the person is a woman of one sort. But the person is not. The person is male.
Yep. When we let them control the language, we lose the argument.
Exactly!
I alws thought of "trans" as an adjective like "fake" or "counterfeit" or "ersatz" or "wannabe", or like "vegan" in front of the name of a meat or dairy food—where the base meaning is that an "adjective+X" is by definition NOT an "X"' (these are called "privative adjectives" if you're a sufficiently hopeless language nerd).
So, whatever the hell a "trans woman" is, it's definitely not a Woman—just like the one thing we know for sure about "counterfeit money" is that it isn't money, and the one certainty about "vegan cheese" is that it isn't cheese.
TBTH, I think this is how the vast, vast majority of people process phrases like "trans woman".
It's still a problem as you say, but not so much in the sense of subtly influencing perception and/or lulling awareness of threats..in other words, the phrase "trans woman" isn't rohypnol like "she/her" pronouns are. (just in case anybody here doesn't get the reference, https://fairplayforwomen.com/pronouns/)
The main issue with "trans woman"—which is still a clear and present danger even if 100.0000% of people are aware that "trans women" are men (which they are... including the TRA delulus)—is that it's a stepping stone to activist news writers and other media influencers stripping off the "trans" and just writing "woman" about, inevitably, some perverted man who's just committed a string of sex offenses. That's where the gateway to delivering actual outright lies as though they were truth is.
in the midst of all these legitimate revelations, we must not forget that there is a difference between the “trans cult“, and the ordinary people who suffer from gender dysphoria. One of the things that causes the trans cult to go off the rails is the rejection of what the cultists call “trans medicalism”. there are lots of people who have their own ideas about how they want to rebuild the concept of gender. They are not the same people as those suffering from gender dysphoria, who have repeatedly been helped by surgery and hormone treatment. The Cass report, which is so thoroughly vilified by the trans cultists, and praised by the gender critical, acknowledges that some people really do benefit from surgery and hormones. We must not throw out this baby when we throw out the bathwater.
" benefit from surgery and hormones" - we have no idea if this is true or not. There is so much retrospective justification of decisions going on - when you cut off your tits or dick, you will justify your bad decision. They are gone - are you going to now decide that you were stupid and ruined your life?
I have no doubt that "gender dysphoria" exists. The issue is what therapy is appropriate. There is NO evidence that anything being used today makes a bit of difference. All of this quackery should be banned. It's like lobotomy - it actually worked to quiet the schizophenics by using a mix-master on their frontal cortex. 60 years later, we realize what a terrible idea this is and was.
The Cass report claims that the surgery is very effective in helping people with genuine gender dysphoria. If you’re going to accept everything else in that report, you have to take that claim seriously. I think the surgery is pretty drastic, and the possible negative health results give good reason for developing alternatives but right now it seems to be the best thing available for gender dysphoria.
The history of medical treatment is replete with examples of bad treatments. There I a no such thing as a person born in the wrong body. These treatments should be completely outlawed.
Call a spade a spade.
The man's name is Tim.
Constance, this will interest you and give you an insight into how Klein operates.
Do you remember the big, vituperative kerfuffle in Feb 2023 over a fairly mild, but truthful, article the NYTimes ran written by Emily Bazelon and Katie Baker, I believe? The one that cause GLAAD to rent a billboard truck and park it in front of NYTimes offices and at least one of its reporters to be accosted in the streets and on and on?
Well, in April of that year he has a trans activist on his podcast. So I listened to see what would be said about that fracas.
Podcast started. Podcast ended. And Klein did not at all, not once, nada, mention it.
Klein is a Woke tool.
Thanks, I did not lnow.
I didn’t realize it either, until,I heard his interview, with Tim Mc Bride , which I turned off after 10 minutes .
Wow, you got through 10 minutes!
My hat is off to you.
Strong constitution 🤪
Klein has always been on team woke. He's playing at the thoughtful moderate role now, but anyone who listened to him several years ago knows he was right there with all of the other identitarian hate-peddlers. The NYT is similarly whitewashing its reputation. They suppressed the ugly facts surrounding the transing of vulnerable kids for years, but their new position is that both sides were always mad at them, so they must be doing something right. No one at The Times will ever be held accountable for the gross malpractice that has been perpetrated these last several years.
I'm feeling relief knowing people like Jamie Reed are truth telling in the spirit of gay rights activists past. And I'm feeling gut-sick it came to this. My friends and I, in the 80's and 90's, never would have believed today's transqueer cult madness. There was always plenty of crazy around, but nihilism was never the goal. God bless the LGB Courage Coalition for picking up the torch.
Nihilism is right. Most of the people cheerleading for transgenderism also support abortion up to the point of birth, medically assisted dying and jihad. I was very much of the left until trans peaked me. Now I stand back from my old team, politically homeless, aghast at how it became a death cult. WTF happened?
Ezra Klein’s thesis—that opposition to gender ideology stems from a lack of time or exposure—is not only deeply flawed, but also shockingly ahistorical, disingenuous, and self-serving. On his June 17, 2025 podcast with Tim "Sarah" McBride, Klein suggests that Americans haven’t had enough opportunity to “open their hearts” and “change their minds.” But this framing is both intellectually dishonest and historically false.
The public has not been deprived of exposure to gender ideology—it has been saturated. Klein’s own media platforms, from Vox to The New York Times, along with NPR, MSNBC, The Atlantic, and The Washington Post, have spent years amplifying a relentlessly affirming narrative. Since at least 2015, particularly after the Bruce "Caitlyn" Jenner media moment, pro-trans messaging has dominated the mainstream. Between 2017 and 2022, the volume of such content far exceeded anything seen during the early gay rights era. Trans affirmation has been omnipresent: in corporate advertising, school policies, Pride month campaigns, government programs, children's books, and television. This was not a marginalized issue—it became the dominant moral script.
Klein’s analogy to the gay rights movement is also deeply misleading. Public support for gay people grew gradually, grounded in adult visibility, appeals to equal legal treatment, and integration into civil society—not through radical theoretical redefinitions. In contrast, gender ideology demands that we redefine the most basic social categories (man, woman, child), accept extraordinary medical claims about the mutability of sex, comply with compelled speech, and look the other way as children are placed on irreversible medical pathways for distress that often resolves with time.
To pretend that there hasn’t been enough “exposure” is a rhetorical maneuver meant to shield the ideology from accountability. It dodges serious concerns about autogynephilia, rapid-onset social contagion, detransition, the loss of sex-based protections, and the laundering of pseudoscience into law and medicine without democratic scrutiny. Klein’s framing casts all dissent as ignorance or latent prejudice, delegitimizing disagreement before it can even be voiced.
But the public has listened—and said no. Parents, clinicians, educators, and even previously supportive liberals have seen girls lose sports titles to males, been told to use obviously false pronouns, watched children rushed into hormone treatments, and witnessed the erosion of parental rights. What they encountered wasn’t a movement quietly asking for understanding, but one demanding the reordering of reality and punishing anyone who hesitates.
Klein’s claim may appear soft-spoken and technocratic, but the logic beneath it is chillingly familiar: if people object, it's because they are not yet properly conditioned. This form of rhetorical gaslighting—rooted in denial, inversion, and moral manipulation—would be immediately recognizable to any Soviet dissident.
It’s not Stalinism. But it draws from the same rhetorical toolbox: recast dissent as failure to understand, and truth as something that only ideology can deliver.
Klein’s claim that this is all happening too fast for Americans to understand flips the truth on its head. It’s not that people haven’t had enough time—it’s that the movement grossly overreached, mistaking saturation for persuasion. The backlash Klein laments isn’t premature; it’s the natural and long-delayed response to a decade of ideological overreach.
Wow, thank you Ollie for this brilliant and clarifying breakdown. It should be published on its own elsewhere and I hope you commented on the NYT site too. The only piece I wonder about is whether Kline is more blinded than disingenuous. Given his age and given the circles he has moved within since ivy league college days, he almost certainly has trans identified close friends and/or family in his life that he cares deeply about. He long ago accepted them and the trans narrative, has likely grown into adulthood with them, has them as colleagues he respects. My question does not invalidate any of your points, as Kline is also a public intellectual with great influence and deserves to be taken to task in the ways you have done here. This caveat does not let him off the hook. But love can blind anyone.
I have been close friends in the past with more than one transgenderist man.
When I learned what transgenderism really is--that these men were shamelessly lying to everyone they knew, while indulging in rampant internalized homophobia and shocking misogyny--I lost all respect for them. And I lost all interest in having them as friends.
Friends don't lie to each other. They don't manipulate each other for sympathy. They don't exploit each other's oppression.
Abusers do that.
Consider that Tim "Sarah" McBride's trans advocacy is likewise disingenuous, with all those pleas for "nuance" and "grace".
“This was not a marginalized issue—it became the dominant moral script.”
I used to joke the democrats had a “just trans” platform. Want healthcare? Nope, just trans! Stopping foreign wars? Here , have some more trannies instead! An end to the prison industrial complex? OPEN WIDE BITCH ITS TIME FOR THIS GIRL COCK!!! 😈
Wow! You really got to the heart of this! So well thought out ! Thank you!
This is excellent.
Wow, Ollie—this is one of the most eloquent and articulate comments I’ve ever seen on this platform. I hope to see more from your powerful pen.
Yes. I peaked around 2016 when Bruce was celebrated, Rachel was vilified, and two different moms of teen girls told me they had been asked for binders. I had no idea what they were talking about, and was horrified when I learned. I've lobbied and supported women's causes my whole life, and this wasn't ok. I know a social contagion when I see one.
Since then I've made a point to talk to people about the issue and it turns out that almost everyone knows someone in their circle--a relative, friend, co-worker, etc.--who has announced their "transition".
There is a claim that "they've been around forever". No, that's just wrong. There were always gay people--the "perpetual bachelors", the "Boston marriages". There was a couple of women in my extended family who lived together for decades, and no one ever talked about it.
Where are the gay kids now? They start out as gender-non-conforming kids. Weird, that. It often still takes a while to figure oneself out, to experiment, and see what you like. High school, college age, even later. I was a late bloomer, physically & mentally. When I was a child, I wouldn't have been able to say how I would want to live as an adult. I know that I hated the unwanted attention I got from older kids and men when I hit puberty. If someone had offered me a ticket out of that ("you're really a boy") I would have grabbed it, and lived to regret it for the rest of my life.
Very well said!
"Klein’s framing casts all dissent as ignorance or latent prejudice, delegitimizing disagreement before it can even be voiced."
I didn't hear this argument in the interview from either of the speakers--in fact, I heard the opposite. (Perhaps one of both of them have said this elsewhere?) I thought the overall theme in the conversation was about effective political process and the unfortunate rise of and problems stemming from illiberalism that DO lead to delegitimizing disagreement. I'm glad I listened to the whole thing.
Point taken.
Sarah McBride and Ezra Klein explicitly disavow many of the rhetorical tactics commonly criticized in trans activist discourse — including absolutism, ideological purism, and the framing of disagreement as bigotry. However, the interview is still a political performance, and even a gracious, self-critical performance can contain elements that arguably obscure, minimize, or deflect from difficult truths.
Below is a list of possible points where bad faith, minimization, or selective framing could be inferred — though these are subtle and not overtly manipulative in the way you might see from more strident activist spokespeople:
1. Minimizing the Nature of Public Concerns by Reframing Them
Example: Klein and McBride repeatedly describe public resistance to gender ideology as rooted in discomfort with "speech norms" or a lack of understanding about gender identity.
McBride: “We started to have what maybe were conversations that were happening in academic institutions… and we started having those out in public on social media.”
Critique:
This reframing downplays substantive, rational objections to gender self-ID policies — especially those with legal and institutional consequences (e.g., for sports, prisons, or parental rights) — by implying they stem mostly from a mismatch in educational tempo or public discomfort with new pronouns. That is arguably a soft form of gaslighting: treating policy disagreement as cultural incomprehension.
2. Sanitizing the Role of Medical Institutions
Example: McBride defends WPATH and U.S. medical associations as the proper arbiters of youth gender care, contrasting them with meddling politicians.
“You cannot tell me that it’s the role of the government to pre-empt those conversations.”
Critique:
This selectively omits growing international concern — particularly from countries with strong public health systems (e.g., Sweden, Finland, the UK) — over the very same institutions McBride elevates. These countries have already acted to restrict pediatric transition based on evidence reviews. Her framing implicitly discredits critiques of the American medical consensus by making them sound like right-wing overreach — which may be minimization of an evolving medical debate.
3. Slippery Use of “Innateness”
Example: McBride describes being trans as “a visceral feeling… like a constant feeling of homesickness,” aligning with the “born this way” narrative.
Critique:
At another point, she concedes that there was a push within the LGBTQ community to abandon the “born this way” narrative in favor of a constructionist view of gender identity as chosen or fluid — yet doesn’t fully reconcile the tension.
This equivocation can be read as strategic ambiguity — invoking innateness when it's politically useful, and valorizing chosen identity when that suits the audience. While this isn’t necessarily bad faith, it can serve as conceptual sleight of hand.
4. Appeal to Grace as a Way to Deflect Harder Questions
Example: McBride repeatedly invokes “grace,” “hope,” and “persuasion” to encourage dialogue and discourage purging of imperfect allies.
Critique:
While admirable in tone, this may also diffuse accountability for specific activist excesses or false claims (e.g., “puberty blockers are completely reversible”) without directly acknowledging them. It risks smoothing over real harms caused by previous overreach by framing backlash as a failure of tone rather than substance.
5. Framing Opposition as Overreaction or Misdirection
Example: McBride likens her Republican antagonists in Congress to reality TV characters seeking a “season-long story arc.”
Critique:
That metaphor may have truth, but it also delegitimizes the opposition’s motives by reducing them to cynicism and attention-seeking. Even if some politicians are posturing, many constituents have sincere, reasoned objections — and those are glossed over. This is a form of minimization through caricature.
6. Hiding the Ball on Parental Rights and Education Policy
Example: McBride defends parental decision-making in youth transition but does not address cases where schools conceal gender identity transitions from parents.
Critique:
This omission is significant. Parental exclusion in schools is a key point of public backlash and legislation. To leave it unmentioned while framing the issue as “families and doctors should decide” feels like selective omission, a form of rhetorical deflection.
In Summary:
While McBride and Klein operate in a more intellectually honest and conciliatory mode than typical activist discourse, they still engage in:
Minimization of substantive disagreement by portraying it as misunderstanding
Selective framing of medical controversies
Omission of activist overreach (especially in schools and online harassment)
Idealization of institutional actors whose authority is contested
Occasional strategic vagueness around key concepts (e.g., innateness vs. identity fluidity)
They do not appear to engage in outright bad faith, gaslighting, or demonization of dissenters, but they do employ some rhetorically cushioning strategies to avoid grappling with the strongest arguments against their positions.
Yes, yes and yes! I agree with these observations--all points that in a public debate and in investigative journalism can and should be asked, debated, highlighted! McBride was a guest on Klein's talk show; little of that was going to happen here. Should have happened on the NYT The Protocol podcast though!
Thank you for this, Ollie.
Just one thing: I believe you mean Bruce.
Good point - it's been so long that fakery becomes normalized!
Bravo. Great response.
What I thought this was going to be about when I saw the headline--the excruciating truth that "liberals (like Ezra Kline) need more time" to wake up to the knowledge of the horrific deal they signed with the devil in advocating for the institutionalization of gender ideology. With all the ensuing harm you know of too well as an apostate, from a front row seat in the pews, preaching from the pulpit even. I didn't listen to that podcast because once I got wind of the shape of the interview, I couldn't bear to hear it. Again, the word for me with how long this is taking for liberals and progressives to get it: excruciating. I think Ezra Kline is an earnest and intelligent public voice on other matters, and I don't need to invalidate all his views because of this interview, but I it's so disappointing, and I wish it wasn't so slow. On the positive side--we are finally well positioned in the US with public voices like yours and the others in the Courage Coalition. We did not have that a few years ago. Enough liberals and progressives HAVE finally joined us said "NO." Our friends are GC-curious and may listen to people they thought were dead wrong a few years ago, but would otherwise relate to in their lives. The books coming out, the interviews, and the posts like this one will find the ears that need to hear. Too slowly, but it is happening!
As quiet as it's kept unfortunately a very large amount of Liberals /Democrats never agreed with this Transformer misogynistic, Pedophile pushing bullshit
Thank you Jamie for this article and everything you’ve done. I have been through that exact evolution myself. Working as a primary care provider I went from having one transgender patient a year to seeing several a week. I have had an open mind, tried to educate myself about their care and meet everyone with compassion. Time and increased exposure has only shown me how destructive this entire movement is as I’ve seen the trans patients dealing with serious mental illness, personality disorders, autism, histories of sexual trauma and psychogenic disorders like non-epileptic seizures. I’ve also realized how many of them are probably gay. Once you’ve seen the truth behind this curtain you can’t go back and no amount of time will make it different.
Psychiatrist here. Same, same. Waking up to a medical scandal like this is sickening.
Wow—in just four years, in St Louis, such a rapid change! And the children who come to the ER are just the tip of the iceberg.
It’s not that we don’t yet understand it. It’s not that we’re “not there yet.”
We rejected this nonsense precisely *because* we came to understand it.
The more the American public knows and understands what gender ideology means and the consequences, the more they will completely reject it. The utter continuing failure of MSM to report factually is appalling and another example of those who graduated from alleged elite schools and are moving into positions of influence and bringing their distorted social justice mentality with them. Journalism has been a prime example of that effect as are the staffs of most Democrat office holders. It is almost impossible for Democrat politicians to change course because of their staffs and the overwhelming pressure from the transtapo. Anyone speaking out will be challenged in a primary.
Jamie and coalition, would you think about taking on a letter to the editor and op-ed writing campaign to challenge the framing that “transgender rights are under attack” from efforts to limit access to medicalization and preserve women’s sports and spaces? It’s distressing to see this canard uncritically reproduced even in the most ostensibly rational media outlets: https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/transgender-rights-movement-challenges-b8de6e62?st=tNLis1&reflink=article_copyURL_share
Activists in the US behave as id self-ID is the law of the land and though it may be in some states, I don’t believe it ti be so at the Federal level. Maybe @kdansky could clarify. Men’s demands especially those which violate women’s established rights =\= rights.
WSJ op-ed page more clued-in than the news desk: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/transgender-treatments-distort-the-purpose-of-medicine-ccd6e513?st=iuWgHw&reflink=article_copyURL_share
Yes, and Mc Bride said he was” afraid “! Sure, everyone is attacking trans people! Really? All that’s happening is putting a few brakes on their demands. They still have more rights than the rest of us!
Trump is throwing people out of the military just because they are trans; people with long and distinguished careers in the service. There is also a large uptick thank you in violence against trans people. These are real problems and should not be ignored just because there are trans activists who are overreaching.
In the growing Reckoning, can we start asking transactivists to articulate what trans "rights" are under attack or being rolled back?
Absolutely. The comments on today’s Andrew Sullivan piece in the NYT bring up exactly this need.
Even Jim Obergefell has fallen for it, such a shame (see end of article): https://apple.news/AYJpl_3XLQTyhRmH4HEpevg
Succinctly perfect- you are an absolute warrior, Jamie- thank you.
Great article. Trans acceptance relies on people not knowing anything about it. The more you know, the worse it is. At the end of the road is astonishment at having gone along with it at all, your faith in all the institutions that pushed it totally shattered. The gay rights movement is nothing, nothing, NOTHING like this.
Yes thank you. I keep hearing this. It happened too quickly. Give me a break. So our options were accept it now or accept it later.
Perfectly stated. I have restacked.
Susan, What is restacking?
At the bottom of your screen, to the right of the “comment” speech-bubble icon are two curved arrows that make a circle. Hit it and you can repost a substack article you like - with or without your own comment above it.
Thank you.
You‘re very welcome:)
Brilliant piece. Seems so obvious to anyone with an ounce of common sense but not always so well conveyed. Bravo
Great piece. Succinct. Cogent. To the point.
The horror some will feel, when they realise finally, what they have done to children. Children, who were told, not to worry if they were born in the wrong body, Santa will bring them a new one.
This says everything I need to say ! Thank you for this!