Speaking to My Family and Friends

Here's my Please Listen video

I live a largely secret life, one that is hidden from most of my family and friends.

I often put in very long hours for weeks or months at a time, burning the midnight oil night after night, crafting major advocacy documents, organizing people to issue joint demands for change, preparing speeches that I give at events, and more.   But most of my family and friends have no clue about any of this.  Nor do they know that on multiple occasions I have been part of small groups that were encircled and intimidated by terrifying mobs.  That I’ve been unjustly censored on-line, and I’ve gone through all sorts of other experiences that are precisely the kind of things people need to be able to talk about with loved ones.

Why are the majority of my activities and experiences unknown to most of my family members and friends? 

Because I’m fighting against Gender Identity policies, curricula, and narratives. 

This fight is central to my ongoing work to protect the environment, foster peace, and create a just economic system.  But it brings with it demoralizing punishment meted out by the people we love.

Some loved ones, despite having never talked with me about Gender Identity issues, have explicitly declared that anything having to do with those issues is officially off limits for discussion.  Others accomplish the same outcome by studiously avoiding the topic, by consistently asking no follow-up questions if I mention something I’m working on, and by swiftly changing the subject.  Some loved ones quietly pulled out of my life altogether when they got wind of my gender critical views. In some circles the departure of friends was less quiet, with people announcing that they don’t have time to waste on bigots like me.

These experiences have also had a chilling effect on me.  With some loved ones, and with people I meet who could become friends, I’ve proactively silenced myself.  I’ve opted to not mention to them things that are important to me, never bringing up one of the defining issues of our day that greatly affects their future as well as mine.   

I’ve written about the suppression that is key to how Gender Ideology has advanced so far and so fast.  See Part IV of my Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Transgender Galaxy for oodles of examples of people fired, depublished, deplatformed, assaulted, and more for their gender critical views.  But there’s another type of suppression underway that is just as important:  the suppression of gender critics within their own families and friendship networks.

Gender Identity Ideology intentionally drives a wedge between trans-identifying individuals and any loved ones who have doubts about that ideology.  It also intentionally drives a wedge between so-called “trans allies” and their loved ones. 

Gender ideologues often claim to be simply asking people to “be kind.”   By that they mean we must all agree that individuals are whatever sex they declare themselves to be, and we must forfeit sex-based rights along with our sex-based words.   At the same time, they deem anyone who questions Gender Identity Ideology as unworthy of any kindness or respect whatsoever.  Our feelings and needs don’t matter at all. Any and all gender critics, including loved ones, are to be instantly shut down. 

In fact, the Be-Kind Brigade is decidedly unkind. Threaten Grandma with never letting her see her grandchildren again, because she approaches you to express concerns about Gender Ideology?  Those who consider themselves trans allies don’t hesitate to engage in such cruel and horrifying behavior.  They don’t hesitate to follow through on their threats either, cutting the grandchildren out of Grandma’s life.  And cutting her out of theirs.

This sort of thing, and the silencing I’ve experienced, are happening everywhere.  There is an atmosphere of repression around Gender Identity issues that is unlike anything I’ve experienced before. 

Gender critics lose loved ones to this ideology all the time.  And relationships with the loved ones who remain in our lives are lopsided and shallow.  While gender critics listen to whatever our friends and family members want to talk about, we, ourselves are muzzled.  We’re not allowed to mention the things we’re working on.  We can’t even talk about things like feeling shaken by having been attacked by a mob.

The harm caused by Gender Ideology is massive.  The implications of this Ideology’s stranglehold on our society are dire on multiple fronts, not the least of which is humanity’s ability to organize for real change, and our ability to retain any semblance of freedom of speech and assembly. 

In addition, for me personally, as someone who has focused throughout my life on protecting children from harm and helping them thrive, Gender Ideology issues have taken on a new level of urgency.  I love all children, but now there are some new little individuals in my life whom I adore, and I am very worried about what will happen to them as they grow.

So, I have made a video with the help of my partner Bruce. It is a message for my friends and family.  It shares with them a bit of my secret life, and why I live it.  As I recorded the words, I was thinking about and speaking to various loved ones. 

I am sending this video to many, but not all, family members and friends.

If some decline my request that they listen to it, so be it.  Them not hearing my words will flow from their choice, rather than my silence. 

Because of the risks involved, not everyone can do something like this.  But if you are able to speak to family and friends, and have not done so already, please do so now.   Feel free to borrow from our script if it will help you, or to forward a link for our video to your loved ones.

Let’s make 2024 the year we turn things around on Gender Ideology.  The whistleblowers are proliferating.  The lawsuits are happening.  We’re seeing encouraging shifts in media coverage, resistance within captured institutions, and more.

This can also be the year in which huge numbers of us speak to loved ones.  Breaking the silence on our own home fronts is part of the way forward. 

Thank you to the friends and family members who have stuck with me and have not silenced me on this issue. You are a blessing. Thank you most of all to my partner Bruce---my fellow heretic, my hero, my love, and my rock.  Would that all who stand up on this issue had someone to come home to each day who is as supportive as him.