California Has Installed Gender Ideology As Its State Religion
If residents don’t follow the strict commandments of gender ideology, they face severe legal consequences.
Gender ideology is often referred to as a quasi-religion, a cult, a social contagion. However, in many places, both worldwide and in the United States, gender ideology is effectively the state religion. Residents must abide by all the crazy beliefs and rules or risk breaking the law.
Is gender ideology a religion? It’s insulting to consider gender ideology as a religion in comparison to the world’s major religions, but there are some very strange, fringe religions in existence. Raëlism, founded in 1974, teaches that life on earth was created by aliens. Discordianism, founded in the 1960’s, promotes chaos and irony, centering on Eris, the Greek goddess of discord, and considers all humans to be individuals with the power to create their own reality. Followers of discordianism believe that Eris can act through mundane, random objects - often a toaster. There are many other fringe religions, including some that advocate self-harm in some form.
Gender ideology is similar to these fringe religions in that members of all these religions believe things that not only have no basis in reality, but also directly contradict easily provable established science and reality. Raëlians’ belief in extraterrestrials is countered by the fact that there is no credible proof of the existence of extraterrestrials. Discordian beliefs that toasters do anything other than toast bread are nonsense. Followers of gender ideology believe that it’s possible to have a “gender identity” that is different from their “sex assigned at birth”, although there is no credible evidence of a biological or scientific basis for this concept. Declaring that you are a boy in a girl’s body is an idea, a thought, ultimately a belief. And yet, the existence of boys in girls’ bodies (and vice versa) is the official state policy of many US states.
Worldwide, some societies have a state religion, which is officially endorsed and supported by the society’s government. In many of these places, not following the rules of the religion has dire consequences. Criticism of these religions is not allowed, and there are often strict dress requirements, but other rules are eerily familiar.
The state religion must be taught in all schools. This religious education is a mandatory subject in both private and public schools, and students may not opt out of this instruction.
Children must be raised in the traditions of the state religion at home. Failure to raise a child in these traditions can result in loss of custody of the child, and possible punishment of the parent(s).
Religious laws must be followed, and typically there are laws regarding public behavior, worship of only the state religion, etc. Many countries have police organizations, often known as the “religious police”, that ensure public adherence to these laws.
Gender ideology, like other fringe religions, has beliefs that are provably false, and yet California, New York, and other blue states have laws in place similar to the laws in these countries with a state religion regarding the religion known as gender ideology. Consider:
In California, under the FAIR Education Act and the California Healthy Youth Act, schools must teach about gender identity, expression, and sexual orientation starting in elementary school.
In California, courts are required to consider a parent’s affirmation or lack of affirmation of a child’s “gender identity” in custody disputes. Also, a court may “affirm” a child’s identity and both non-affirming parents may lose custody of their child.
In New York, intentional and repeated “misgendering” can be illegal in the state and is specifically prohibited in New York City.
Other blue states have similar restrictions, though it would appear that California and New York are the worst offenders. All residents of those states have thus had a fringe religion imposed on them. Gender ideology is taught in schools. If a child becomes a follower of gender ideology, parents can lose custody of their child if they don’t also become followers, an edict enforced by Child Protective Services, a police force comparable to the “religious police” of other countries, except that CPS has more power. A person’s declaration of their identity compels others to believe, and to ignore observable, provable facts, and to refer to the person as their declared identity. Sex-based laws and customs are considered secondary, obsolete and subservient to the self-declared concept of “gender.”
The constitutional rights of freedom of religion and freedom of speech have been trashed in blue states that have adopted gender ideology as their state religion.
As gender ideology is exposed as the fringe religion that it is, the number of people believing in gender ideology will continue to decline. However, there will always be a handful who still believe. What rights should the followers of gender ideology have? You often hear gender extremists screaming, “Trans rights are human rights”, but this is equivalent to saying, “Raëlism rights are human rights”, or “Discordianism rights are human rights”, because when it comes to rights, gender ideology is just another fringe religion. What gender extremists are really asking for is that gender ideology be installed as the state religion, with strict compliance required by all residents. The United States allows a lot of latitude when it comes to religious rights for different religions, but state religions are not allowed. If gender ideology is treated as a religion, then adult followers can have religious rights and believe whatever they want to believe, but followers don’t get to force their beliefs on others. Those followers must obey the same rules and laws that followers of all religions in the US must obey.
No compelled belief - Followers cannot demand that everyone believe their metaphysical claims (“I’m a woman in a man’s body”).
No compelled speech - Followers cannot require that everyone abide by made-up pronoun rules and usage of words that exist only in their ideology.
No teaching of this religion (gender ideology) in public schools.
No lying on official documents (Sex cannot be changed).
No replacing sex-based laws and customs with laws and customs based on the self-declared, religious concept of "gender.”
No doctor-assisted self-harm on minors - As self-harm is a major component of this religion, children must be protected.
Every religion in the United States follows these rules. As a religion, gender ideology is not entitled to special treatment.
There is another reason for exposing gender ideology as a fringe religion. Right now, being “trans” is, in some circles, still considered hip and edgy. But the reality is that being “trans” is just following the edicts of another fringe religion. Gender ideology is nothing special. Once kids realize that, gender ideology becomes boring and just weird and loses its appeal. As fringe religions go, Raëlism sounds like much more fun.
California and other blue states have installed gender ideology as their state religion in violation of the constitution. Those states must drop gender ideology as their state religion, reform their “religious police” forces (CPS), and pursue policies consistent with the freedom of religion and the freedom of speech. These states are in America, not in some foreign country with a state religion.
The article states: "Those who defend gender ideology believe it is possible to have a 'gender identity' different from one's 'sex assigned at birth,' although there is no credible evidence of a biological or scientific basis for this concept. Declaring that you are a boy in a girl's body is an idea, a thought, ultimately a belief. And yet, the existence of boys in girls' bodies (and vice versa) is the official state policy of many US states."
Let's go step by step.
There are people who claim to have a "gender identity" different from their sex assigned at birth. That is a fact. What this means is that these people do not have a typical gender expression — that is, the expression we all associate with a given sex. For example, boys on average are more active than girls. If a boy behaves like the majority of girls, then he does not have typical behavior for his sex. In that case, he would have a "gender identity" different from his sex.
In general, males with a gender identity different from their sex will, in adulthood, be effeminate homosexuals. And girls with a gender identity different from their sex will be masculine lesbians. Or at least that was the case before so-called "gender medicine" took over.
The problem, then, is not that there are people with a cross-gender identity, but rather what response we give them when they experience "gender dysphoria."
There are basically two options: either we put them into gender medicine (with hormonal and surgical treatments), or we promote self-acceptance and help them deal with the hostile reactions they may encounter from others. I firmly believe the latter is the correct choice.
This is quite accurate. This bizarre belief system needs to be treated as just that. People can have bizarre beliefs, but they should not be forcing those beliefs on other people, teaching them to children as facts, and punishing the non-believers. Children should be protected from the more gruesome rituals of this belief system, from puberty blockers to cross-sex synthetic hormones to chopping off body parts or mangling others.
I keep waiting for society to realize this, and I'm hopeful that some day it will, at which point people will look back in horror on what our state governments (executive, legislative and judicial branches) and former federal government, and all the pillars of society, from large corporations, to famous people, to educators and medical providers, have done.