Ask anyone in your life to define a ‘conspiracy theory,’ and you’ll likely get a different answer. From elections to vaccines, from the ‘deep state’ to Ukraine, there is only one thing that most people now agree on: that establishment narratives are false. There are a range of key contributing factors to this—the internet and social media, the collapse of trust in institutions, increasing polarization, and much more. But one prominent issue that has proven to be a catalyst for all these trends has been largely ignored: the rise of the transgender movement.
What do I mean by a ‘catalyst’? A catalyst is “an agent that provokes or speeds significant change or action.” Thus, the change is already occurring, but the catalyst accelerates it. The transgender agenda, which has been imposed from the top down by the establishment in just a few short years—government, the press, the entertainment industry, academia, and activists—has radically increased distrust in institutions and increased polarization by destroying the common ground where compromise has traditionally been possible. If we can’t even agree on basic biology, what can we agree on?
Progressives seem oddly blind to the effect their radicalism on this issue has on ordinary people. Police bulletins featuring photos of bearded male rapists identifying them as ‘women’; men identifying as women being sent to female prisons; males with all of the male equipment (‘her penis’) competing against girls in sports; sex change ‘treatments’ for minors; and the never-ending insistence that all of this is normal, that nothing has changed, and that we are bigoted for pointing out that this is all very new and even those of us in our early thirties remember when it was different—all of this has a profoundly radicalizing effect in turn.
The reply from the progressive establishment has been censorship, demonization, and a threatening question: Who are you going to believe—us or your lying eyes? When average people in possession of common sense see the experts and elites aggressively pushing absurd things, most reach one of two conclusions:
Option 1: These people actually believe what they are saying, and thus their judgment is so impaired and their worldview so corrupt that their expertise, reporting, or statements on any matter at all cannot be trusted.
Option 2: These people do not believe what they are saying, in which case they are going along with a radical ideology with profound social consequences under pressure from activists—which means they would go along with pretty much anything in similar conditions and cannot be trusted.
The latter view is very common. I know of prominent politicians who have said in private that they do not believe the claims of gender ideology, but they go along with it because they feel they must. From the corporate world to academia to the halls of power, there are many who do not believe that men can become women or that we should be offering sex change ‘treatments’ to children but still obediently supply their pronouns and play along because they fear the power of the transgender movement, which reacts fiercely to any sign of public dissent (remember the Scottish construction worker who got a huge fine for laughing at a man dressed as a woman on the street?).
The adoption of gender ideology as dogma by the establishment has gutted their credibility by making them appear ridiculous, evil, or both. A frequent retort in online debates about the COVID vaccine, for example, was people pointing out that the same leaders urging everyone to get the jab were supporting sex change surgeries for minors. The short version of this retort is ‘pronouns in bio,’ the implication being that anyone who supplies his or her pronouns is a victim of complete ideological capture. Indeed, the very people who told us to ‘follow the science’ were also insisting that the ‘science’ affirmed the necessity of chemical castration for gender dysphoric children.
Consequently, many people now approach all establishment narratives with a hermeneutic of suspicion. No matter how far-fetched a given conspiracy theory might seem, it will not be as far-fetched as the idea that there are now 72 genders. In fact, considering which narratives the progressive establishment defends most fiercely, it seems to many that the only truly credulous position to take would be that of leaders who cannot even define what a woman or a man is, who reject established science on issues of ideology, and gaslight us when we try to point that out. To many, taking medical advice from folks who also promote puberty blockers, abortion, hormonal birth control, and euthanasia seems frankly stupid.
My point here is not to endorse or rebut any particular theory or even the hermeneutic of suspicion as default—I’ve written on many of these issues elsewhere. I am merely observing the fact that by embracing the transgender agenda and imposing it on our societies, the progressive establishment has demolished their own credibility—and largely eliminated their ability to be persuasive through hectoring, argumentation, or accusations of ‘disinformation.’