Adam and Eve stain glass window, by Christiansen‘On the Existence of Two Genders’: A Poem by Brian Yapko The Society June 30, 2025 Culture, Poetry 33 Comments . On the Existence of Two Genders Note: This poem is written in response to the trans-driven push to promulgate the idea that gender is either non-binary or does not exist at all—a nonsensical notion which is nevertheless gaining ideologically-driven traction as official policy in numerous “progressive” medical, legal and social settings. The record needs to be set straight. A temperature of ninety-eight point six; Your life expectancy, your height, your weight— All gauged with baselines; figures one may fix Upon an axis—quite divorced from hate— From which we then assess a deviation. We don’t claim nature’s failed. We simply see A reference point which serves as a foundation, A standard which marks objectivity It is of baselines now that I must speak. Specifically, I bring up “him” and “her.” I celebrate that everyone’s unique— Appearance, faith, the foods that they prefer. But when self-interest feeds on fabrications What’s real is threatened. It’s not merely diction. Such falsehoods poison simpleminded nations With claims a standard baseline is just fiction. Before a generation was deceived, Before the gender brainwashing began, We all knew how a baby was conceived: One female joined in coitus with one man. It’s true for mammals, reptiles, even birds You think me bigoted to speak this way? Or ignorant? Don’t rush to scorn my words. I know my subject well. You see, I’m gay. I’ve been through every wringer you can name From threats of harm to rank discrimination. But I don’t manufacture foes to blame Or hijack churches, press or education. I’ve marched to claim my rights. That battle’s done. We vote, we wed, we enter any store. But you, transgender friend, forget you’ve won. And so you escalate a gender war. Acceptance matters, but I can’t engage In calumny, coercion or extortion To soothe my ego. This is why I rage When you aggrandize gender rights distortion. You’re gaslighting. You claim that black is white, The sky is red; it’s virtuous to steal. I pity you your psychiatric plight But don’t you dare claim gender isn’t real. I do not fight how you should live your life. Have surgery, wear make-up, change your name, Take hormones if that heals your inner strife. Get married as you will, love as you claim. But have the decency to certify That gender’s real and binary. Your hate Must not outweigh the truth. Do not deny The baseline norm from which we deviate. As for the monolithic views of those Who push the union of L-G-B-T… It’s time for a divorce. I never chose Alliance with the Trans Hegemony. For what has gay to do with the bizarre And bullying transgender push to change All aspects of our world to who they are. In fact, most gays I speak with think this strange. With godless anarchy as your prime goal What loyalty should I give to your issues? You trade all dignity for thought-control, Demanding pity. Let me grab some tissues. You threaten lawsuits. Parents must be stopped From interfering with indoctrination! Then force some trembling doctor to adopt Woke medicine. What an abomination! Cry victim when we dare resent the endless Entitlements you foist on our good will. Just scream “transphobe” until the sane are friendless. Consume us all—you’ll never eat your fill! You hypocrites claim gender isn’t binary. But speak of women’s sports and then you fight For status as “full female” in drag finery As if the fact you’re trans dare not see light. But this is wrong! Anatomy is real. With rare exceptions, skeletons display Two genders irrespective how you feel. The mandible, the pelvis are not gay Or lesbian or trans. You claim to be A follower of science and not hexes. There are no errors in an autopsy— The genitals alone prove just two sexes I have a small suggestion to propound: Read history, psychology and learn How mass delusions gain steam and confound. Then grasp uniqueness as a gift you earn; A surgeon’s knife can’t change the soul inside; The drugs prescribed can’t alter who you are. A change of clothes won’t make the groom a bride. Ignoring baselines is a losing war. It’s time to make a U-turn and deny Coerced approval to define your worth. My life, all that I am, demands no lie. I seek no validation for my birth. I’ve suffered too with all I am and claim But I will give you love the best I can. Despite my flaws, can you give me the same? Do what you will. I still shall be a man. . Editor’s Note: This poem, originally published in September, 2023, had been removed wrongly and on reflection is now being restored. This was a poem which generated much comment activity and those comments are, unfortunately, lost. . Brian Yapko is a retired lawyer whose poetry has appeared in over fifty journals. He is the winner of the 2023 SCP International Poetry Competition. Brian is also the author of several short stories, the science fiction novel El Nuevo Mundo and the gothic archaeological novel Bleeding Stone. He lives in Wimauma, Florida. NOTE TO READERS: If you enjoyed this poem or other content, please consider making a donation to the Society of Classical Poets. The Society of Classical Poets does not endorse any views expressed in individual poems or commentary. ***Read Our Comments Policy Here*** 33 Responses Brian Yapko June 30, 2025 I appreciate Evan Mantyk republishing this poem in a context where it was originally published on September 4, 2023 and then at some point in the last few months silently removed without obtaining my copyright permission to do so and without any notice to me. This poem had over 50 comments, most of them highly complimentary concerning the reasoning set to verse and the personal price paid by the poet for the obvious risks taken in writing and publishing this. I appreciate Evan recognizing the ethical and legal error in removing a published work and at least the poem will be part of the permanent SCP archive even if all of those comments are permanently lost. On the plus side, today is the last day of Pride Month and perhaps it is appropriate that this poem be revisited for the common sense views contained therein. Reply Roy Eugene Peterson June 30, 2025 I remember commenting that I am not of that persuasion, but I recognize great poetry when I see it! This is an excellent common-sense poem that castigates and skewers the nonsensical transgender concept from a perspective that many of us do not have. Fantastic job of clear-headed thinking and exposition. Reply Brian Yapko July 1, 2025 Thank you so much, Roy, for your support both back in 2023 and now for the poem’s reissue. Your generosity means a lot to me. As for common-sense… Common sense these days seems to be in short supply, so I wanted to make it clear that no matter who one is, irrespective of whether one is liberal or conservative, reality is reality. Reality does not bend to wishful, magical thinking. Reality is above ideology. And it is no respecter of cosplay. Reply Joseph S. Salemi June 30, 2025 When I saw this poem back in 2023, I knew that it was one of tremendous force and unexampled bravery. I also knew that it was profoundly conservative in its clear-headed sanity and rejection of the absurdities that fraudulent “gender-theory” was spawning in an attempt to make everything “non-binary.” This poem gives intellectual tranniedom a well-deserved kick in the teeth. Unfortunately, a problem within the conservative movement that must be faced is the presence of censorious, Comstockian religionists who, guided by the tenets of their sectarian creed, want to silence any poem that deals with sexual or behavioral issues that they are uncomfortable with. Yes, we have to fight the crackpot left and its bizarre nostrums, and that’s just what Brian’s poem does. But sometimes we have to fight the hidden enemies within our own ranks, and that is an especially bitter fight. Reply Brian Yapko July 1, 2025 Joe, I’m very grateful indeed for this appreciative comment. I remember well the comment you originally made in 2023 (unfortunately lost now) but which really helped me to keep going. I had paid a hefty price for this poem in terms of lost friendships and being canceled by publications that now considered me a traitor to the LGBT community. I felt that the risk was well worth it if it helped people recognize that so much of the transgender ideology has been mass-marketed as a product to make confused people think they can change sex. I felt the risk was worth it if it prevented children from being abused with puberty-blockers and amputations and the mental abuse of teachers and ideologue parents pushing children to identify as trans. And given my own backstory, I felt that few in our conservative poetry community could speak with authority on the subject better than I. Overreach of any kind offends me, but the shreiking transgender demands for access to our children, for the removal of the meaning of gender in all contexts (think birthing persons and impregnating persons) and to claim that only humans have no idea what a female or a male is can provoke me to rage. The importance of the subject is such that I am appalled by the “Comstockian religionists” you mention who would rather see children mutilated than see a conservative poet come out as gay and carry a message with the authority that imparts to him. God forbid that we remember and honor the relationship that Jonathan and David shared. Or remember that Walt Whitman and Christopher Marlowe (among many, many others) have voices of value in the poetry world. Reply Joseph S. Salemi July 1, 2025 The Comstockians object not just to references to being gay, but to any overt mention at all of sexual activity. I’ll never forget the firestorm that occurred when I used the sexual phrase “to put out” in an essay here, and some persons freaked out in the discussion thread that followed. Michael Vanyukov June 30, 2025 As a university student, I once knew a young man, a patient in a psychiatric hospital where I was learning some genetic methods. He helped as an assistant in the lab, which was for him part of what was considered treatment of schizophrenia, his diagnosis. He was completely normal and well adapted – except for one detail: he thought he could survive on air only. For all his “normalcy,” that was a more dangerous delusion that some other patients had: Caesars, Napoleons, etc. Some men may think they are women, and vice versa. Nobody should be forced to give scepters to Napoleons though, nor indulge other fantasies people may have. Whatever they do in their bedrooms is their personal business. Reply Brian Yapko July 1, 2025 Thank you for this, Michael. You get precisely what I was aiming for: if a transgender person wants to believe he or she has been born into the wrong body by an improbably negligent Creator, so be it. But the minute this person starts trying to legally enforce the delusion, we have a problem. I remember reading a year ago or so that J.K. Rowling might be arrested for breaking British law by “misgendering” someone — in other words refusing to call a dude “her.” As it happens, Rowling refused to back down and she was never arrested. But the fact that such a law could even exist terrifies me. It should terrify anyone who values free speech. And Colorado came within a hairlength of enacting a similar law. Political correctness is bad enough but coercing people to deny the evidence of their own eyes is just plain evil. Reply Michael Vanyukov July 2, 2025 Such a law would be dystopian indeed. Thankfully, many understand that, and even some good has come out of that—like Jordan Peterson’s visibility. The trend for Orwellian absurdities to become reality is way too strong for comfort, however. Kellie July 3, 2025 As I watch women in particular fighting to retain hard won rights that are being ripped from them while so many inexplicably cheer from the sidelines, as I see young people captured when they are most vulnerable, into a sick ideology when the only adults brave enough to attempt to safeguard them are shouted down, dogpiled and doxed into compliance, I am thankful for MEN such as Brian Yapko who will not let his important voice be silenced. It is by the brave examples set by a handful of exceptional people such as Brian that shows the rest of us how to find and more importantly use our own voices to say NO to this utter madness. Thank you Brian for being a loud, clear voice of reason which the world desperately needs. Brian Yapko July 4, 2025 Kellie, this is a generous and inspiring comment for which I’m very grateful! I try to call things as I see them but I am only one of many. But we need more. Reasonable people by virtue of being reasonable tend to be too quiet and fearful of being outspoken. Nice people don’t shout. But if we don’t speak up, the unreasonable minority is the only voice heard and people start believing their nonsense. We must get over our reticence and find our voices. As Edmund Burke famously said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” We must speak out! Evil is real, aggressively recruiting and there’s just too much at stake to be silent. Thank you, Kellie, for your own bravery in sharing out loud what you know to be the truth! Susan Jarvis Bryant June 30, 2025 I thoroughly appreciate your courage at making a huge poetic stand against radical and rabid transgender ideology that is ruining many children’s lives with its indoctrination, chemical castration, and mutilation. Brian, you are a brave man in an age that has lost sight of reality and rationale in favor of insidious idiocy from those who believe that gender is fluid and hormone blockers and a scalpel are the magic cure for gender dysphoria – a mental condition often forced upon those too young to understand the implication of taking the surgical path to utopia by “experts” who are keen to sexualize children before they’ve had a lesson in Human Biology or explored the possibility they may homosexual or simply confused… I believe many minors are confused and need gentle guidance NOT neutering. This is exactly why your voice is so important, Brian, and I thank you again for your bravery. I believe when something sad or bad happens, good often comes from it. I am sorry your comments have been lost – that is sad – but this subject needs a constant spotlight on it, and I am heartened to see it out there on the front page of the SCP for a second time. Brian thank you very much indeed! Reply Brian Yapko July 1, 2025 Susan, I am so grateful not just for your generous comment but for your support of the message this poem supports and for your own consistent bravery in standing up to the transgender hegemony and its toxic, delusional ideology. The fact of the matter is that an ideology somehow has erupted into our society which has as its goal the normalization of pretending that sex can change, and which is ruthlessly willing to enforce this poison goal with criminal penalties, parental rights stripped, child abuse, the use of chemical castration, puberty blockers, amputations down to the redefinition of “woman” and “man” in the dictionary. There was a fork in the road 20 years ago when transgender rights first began to be thought of seriously. The wrong was taken. The idea of being born in the wrong body is not “identity.” It is “disability.” Biden and Progressives, seeing it as an identity issue, decided to restructure all of society to accomodate the delusional. Rather than treat the underlying pyschiatric disorder they decided to make everything external conform with the delusion. But then if you have 10,000 different delusions, you have to somehow create 10,000 different realities to accomodate them. It makes no sense. But the urgency of this poem — more so 2 years ago when Biden was still in office — is three groups of people who are horrifically damaged by the transgender ideology: A) Children who cannot realistically be expected to understand the issue, who are easily persuaded and manipulated, and who suffer the most grave effects of misdiagnosis by becoming sterilized or otherwise permanently injured; B) Gay people — lesbians and gay men — who are being eradicated by the Trans ideology. Every little girl who demonstrates some tomboyish behavior — every little boy who has effeminate behavior.. they are now misdiagnosed as transgender and never even given the chance to grow into adolescence and the possibility that they might be gay rather than transgender. This is taken to a further extreme in Iran. In Iran there is “no such thing” as homosexuality. If anyone has a same-sex attraction they are automatically forced into the transgender sex change with hormones and surgeries. This is why Iran has the second highest incidence of sex changes in the world. C) Women. As you well know, Susan, women are being erased in a dozen different ways by the toxic transgender ideology. Women’s sports has been corrupted so that any mediocre male athlete has only to identify as a woman and suddenly he’ll start winning medals — and totally at the expense of biological women. Trans-women go to women’s prison — and end up impregnating fellow inmates. Our very language is being forcibly changed with terms like “birthing person” and refusals to define “woman.” Women’s locker rooms and restrooms are no longer safe spaces for biological women. And all because identity politics dictates that the ideology must trump the reality. It’s insane, it’s pernicious and it’s highly destructive. Thank you, Susan, for your support of my work in general and this difficult poem in particular. Reply Mike Bryant June 30, 2025 Brian, this is a brave and necessary poem. Thanks for standing up for the children. I am with you, I have been pro-child and anti-expert, in every field, since I was a kid. It seems to me that the experts in religion, science and everything else in the supervisory establishment have formed an unholy coalition against “we, the people.” Of course, that includes our children. Part of that utopian vision was well explained in “It Takes a Village.” But, no, it turns out they were wrong. Look what the expert class is doing to our country, our states, our cities, our people. The expert class is faltering now only because of free speech. Brian, I’m sorry this poem was deleted, but I am thrilled to see this issue arising again into the spotlight because the numbskulls need to be confronted again and again. Where are those experts now? I have a feeling they know they are losing and will not try to hold up their completely discredited suppositions. Your voice is especially important. Turley has written about how the “experts” are being marginalized. A big first step was the SCOTUS takedown of the Chevron Doctrine. Good read here: https://jonathanturley.org/2025/06/26/the-icarian-gene-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-expert-class/ Reply Brian Yapko July 1, 2025 Mike, thank you so much for your generous support, kind words and powerful insights regarding the subject matter here and the subject we have avoided discussing until now: experts. That’s a subject which is worth some attention but before I get to that I want to also say thank you for bringing up the children. As I mentioned to Susan above (and in other poem comment sections, I believe) it is a big problem to treat children as Progressives would like to treat them: under the guise of “protecting” children they are abusing them. A) They have tried to wrestle control over children’s education away from parents; B) They have affirmatively tried to legitimize hiding critical information from parents (e.g. a child uses an opposite gender name in school and opposite gender pronouns); C) They try to manipulate children into identifying as transgender under the guise of “helping them”; D) They promote chemical treatments for prepubescent children; E) They promote amputations for early adolescents; F) They discourage any attempt to see a child’s trangender fantasies as just that: fantasies. (On this subject I’m reminded of Susan’s excellent poem “Aargh, Jim Lad” https://classicalpoets.org/2022/06/poems-on-sexualizing-school-children-by-susan-jarvis-bryant/ Straight kids and gay kids are all being ruthlessly indoctrinated into a set of fantasies that may make progressives feel good about how enlightened they are, but these progressives are ruining lives. And the doctors are complicitly committing malpractice. Now you’ve mentioned “experts” so let’s talk about those doctors, that class of professional who has learned that they have to make decisions which keep the fundraising going, which keep the profession relevant, which support making a tidy living. We are in the middle of an opiod crisis because the doctors have been cavalier about prescribing narcotic pain medication left and right to people because it profits them to do so. They are encouraged to do so by the pharmaceutical industry and it makes them very popular indeed among patients who want their drugs. This is just one small aspect. Experts are very often political hacks or for sale to the highest bidder. I know this well from my experience as a practicing lawyer in litigation matters. Each side simply hires the expert who will say what the lawyer wants them to say. And the experts are only too happy to comply. Whoever puts on the best show wins. It has nothing to do with “truth.” And then there are the ideologues who fall in love with their own theories and would go so far as to falsify results to bolster a crumbling theory. And for the glory of it. But these are the people who decided that lobotomies were the ideal treatment for depression and that phrenology was a good reason to conduct a genocide. Experts deserve no more credibility than any advocate promoting a certain point of view whether for ego or for profit. When it comes to actually getting at the truth of matters, we are on our own. Reply Mark Stellinga June 30, 2025 I honestly believe that all children over 6 or 7 know, in their hearts, what they’re common-sense-challenged parents are co-opting them to risk is totally F’d-up, Brian. It seems, more often than not, to be genetic, seeing the typical fools who’re fighting to legalize it nation wide. Like DJT, I’m a very strong believer in stopping very-destructive-practices in a seriously-once-and-for-all manner. Your piece is of the sort that can only be created by a very talented and extremely passionate poet – and you’ve definitely ground your ‘point’ to razor’s edge with this one, my friend, and I’m with you all the way. 🙂 Reply Brian Yapko July 1, 2025 Mark, thank you for commenting and for your support both of the poem and the contents thereof. I think you are 100% right. Children are not nearly as screwed up as their ideologially-driven parents. I look at all these Hollywood celebrities who have an astonishing number of children who identify as transgender: Cher, Robert DeNiro, Annette Bening, Charlize Theron, Cynthia Nixon, Jamie Lee Curtis… Annette Bening was quoted as saying that having a trans child makes her “more interesting.” Narcissistic maybe? The latest craze? This celebrity list goes on and on and it’s the height of improbability and a clear product of spoiled narcissism. I want to scream it from the street corners: You are not identifying transgender children. You are creating them!! Reply Mike Bryant July 1, 2025 Dr. Jordan Peterson agrees with you, Brian… 70 seconds of sanity: https://rumble.com/v6vjg9j-did-jordan-peterson-just-break-the-internet-again.html Reply Brian Yapko July 1, 2025 Thank you for this, Mike. Great find!! Peterson is very smart: To tell people that a man can become a woman and vice-versa… “That is literally the biggest lie you can foist upon people… Even creatures without a nervous system can tell the difference between sexes.” This is 70 seconds not just of sanity but of pure gold. Wish I could post a transcript because it should be required. Reply ABB July 1, 2025 Great poem, Brian. Missed this the first time around. Sorry you lost friends over this but glad you took a stand on it. Enjoyed such rhymes as binary/finery and appreciate the medical and scientific baselines as metaphors for social and biological norms (not that the left cares about facts). Was walking around downtown KC earlier this month and rolling my eyes passing a lot of weirdos conveying their ideology through their fashion sense. Reply Brian Yapko July 2, 2025 Thank you very much indeed, Andrew. The rhymes on this one were particularly difficult to figure out because the poem has more of a logical progression than most poems. My ability to stray from the argument and invoke metaphors which might help a rhyme was very limited. It might not look like it but from a technical standpoint this was a very difficult poem to write. Your walk around downtown Kansas City is a telling one: it’s fascinating to know that when you see people with their hair died blue and piercings in their eyebrow you can guess with great accuracy how they vote and what their stance is on issues ranging from abortion to Gaza. It’s a phenomenon. Reply Mike Bryant July 1, 2025 Brian, it’s a blessing that this poem is back! It gives people who care for the truth a chance to speak out on behalf of our children… I applaud you again for standing up, knowing how much it has already cost you, and how much it may cost again. The only reason for anyone to remain silent… well there is no reason good enough. “But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” Matthew 18:6 Reply Brian Yapko July 2, 2025 Mike, I’m so moved to read this compassionate new comment which shows such an intense awareness of what this poem has cost to put out there (twice!) and yet why it’s still worth it. But the fact of the matter is, the truth needs to be told and fear of repurcussions seems like a hollower and hollower reason not to speak candidly (and sharply) when necessary. There’s too much at stake. And when it comes to our children, you are so right. There is no excuse not to support whatever it takes to save them. Your quote of Matthew is powerful indeed. Waiting for the perfect messenger to offer the perfect message is the height of spiritual vanity. Important messages can come from imperfect messengers. Moses was no saint. And don’t get me started on Jonah. Or Paul. Or pagan Cyrus, for that matter. But if you’re going to judge the messenger rather than the message… Well, a great deal of damage can take place while we wait for that perfect, sinless messenger to come forth and fix the world. It takes a certain humility, I think, to recall that in history there has only been one “Perfect, Sinless Messenger.” He knows our hearts. And He knows that, despite the law, sometimes you just have to heal people on the Sabbath. Reply Laura Schwartz July 1, 2025 “Only the Brave”. Brian, those emperors of new-age fiction have no clothes, nor the legs to stand on. The “woke” (how I hate that term) Dudley Do-Wrongs and Transgender community are trying to co-opt the obvious binary reality of 2 sexes. I stand on the side of science: that there are only 2 physical sexes and that surgery, brainwashing, megaphones, or dressing the opposite of your birth-sex cannot change the truth of biology. Convincing small children that any confusion about themselves should be approached or certified with drugs and/or a scalpel instead of level-headed thinking is criminal. This is gruesomely self-serving and undisciplined wishful thinking on the part of agenda-driven parties who would sacrifice a child’s innocence to their own deviant cause. You speak for the innocent and the easily swayed; that pulling children and adolescents into this black hole is immoral at the least and criminal at worst. Your poem is the sword of justice in this increasingly crazy world. Thank you for your courage. Reply Joseph S. Salemi July 1, 2025 We do not allow children to drink alcoholic beverages until they are older. We do not allow them to drive a car until they are older. We do not admit them to the military until they are older. We do not allow them go hunting until they are older. We do not allow them to smoke until they are older. We do not allow them to take part in intensely physical sports until they are older. We do not allow them to use firearms until they are older. But we do allow them to have irreversible bodily surgeries inflicted on them by greedy physicians, or hormone-blocking drugs prescribed for them by fake therapists, or crossdressing forced on them by psychological quacks, and gender ideology pumped into them by left-liberal teachers when they are still prepubescent. Gender ideology ands trans-sexualism are pure poison, but you can’t get left-liberals to fight against these poisons because they are intellectually incapable of arguing against any politicized and well-funded “victim group.” They literally become tongue-tied. Reply Brian Yapko July 3, 2025 This is so true, Joe. A couple of additional points: from a legal standpoint, minors (generally defined as someone under the age of 18) are deemed to lack the capacity to enter into a contract. And if they do contract with another, the contract is automatically void or voidable. And then there is the criminal issue of statutory rape in which it is illegal for an adult to have sex with a minor. Statutory rape laws presume coercion because a minor or mentally disabled adult is legally incapable of giving consent to the act. But this person who is presumed to lack capacity to enter into a contract or to engage in sexual activity has the experience, intelligence and insight to decide that he or she needs to transition into the opposite sex? Have breasts or penis amputated? Have hormones which cause sterilization? Suffer a lifetime of incomprehensible pain and regret because of what he or she was goaded into a by sick, ideologue adults? The hypocrisy of those who claim to care about children’s rights and welfare is astounding. Brian Yapko July 3, 2025 Thank you so much for this comment, Laura. The push to ignore the reality of two sexes is incomprehensible to me. We are born with either XX or XY chromosomes to determine gender and this is embedded in every cell of the body. No matter how much make-up or cross-dressing or hormones or amputations a transgender person utilizes, nothing will have changed except that he or she has mutilated himself and engaged in delusional cosplay. Well, maybe this is not terribly harmful — like having the invisible Harvey the Rabbit as your best friend — but once a person starts compelling all sorts of societal change to accomodate that delusion, then society itself is threatened. That is where we are at now. The dictionary definition of “woman” altered to accomodate a subjective identification, judges and legislators who can’t define “woman”, biological men in women’s sports and prisons and bathrooms. And most painful of all, convincing children who are already highly impressionable that God plopped their little souls into the wrong body and it has to be corrected with sterilizing puberty blockers and amputations. Transgender ideology has erased more gay people than AIDS ever did. It’s infuriating. The teachers and the psychiatrists and the pharmaceutical companies and the progressive legislators have perpetrated a great evil. Thank you again, Laura. I so appreciate your moral clarity. Reply Russel Winick July 1, 2025 Brian – I remember this poem, principally because of how it educated me with the LGBTQ issues. I’ve paraphrased that in many conversations since then. This is an epic poem, which could only have been written by someone with your unique and consummate skill. I’m in awe! Reply Brian Yapko July 3, 2025 Russel, I’m so grateful for this generous comment. Thank you! And thank you for remembering the piece from when it first came out. I had hoped to spark a conversation or two and am so glad that it achieved that purpose. I’m glad that it gets to do so again in a somewhat more sane political landscape but one which is even more polarized. Reply Michael Vanyukov July 2, 2025 Just one more thing. As absurd as it may seem, trying to normalize a mental disorder to the degree that children are indoctrinated into it, this is just part of a neo-Marxian scenario of splitting the society into “oppressors” and “oppressed”, replacing good old classic “classes” with multiple antagonistic categories to include into the ideological set and play upon. That is no conspiracy theory—no conspiracy is needed to be involved. It’s just natural evolution of the ideology—under the conditions of the enlightened wealthy West rather than backward dirt-poor East. Reply Brian Yapko July 3, 2025 Thank you for these additional insights, Michael. The politics of division seems to be a particular specialty of the far left which wants to perpetuate every possible type of victimhood and discontent so that the proletariat rises against the status quo. Contented people don’t foment revolution. So we will continue to see the Obamas rail against the suffering they have endured for their race even though he won the presidency twice and owns lavish homes in Washington D.C., Martha’s Vineyard, Chicago and now an $18,000,000 beachfront house in Oahu (with 11 bedrooms and 14 bathrooms.) I feel so sorry for them. And yet they still stoke the DEI, BLM victimhood machine. And a small aside. An $18,000,000 house on the water in Hawaii? For someone who screams about how climate change is drowning our shores with rising sea levels? Hypocrisy. Vile hypocrisy. Reply Cheryl A Corey July 2, 2025 Brian, I commend you for having the courage to present this poem. Common sense is slowly beginning to prevail, although it’s a battle. Most recently, UPenn has stripped titles from “Lia” and will bar males from competing against women. De-transitioners have come forward and are filing lawsuits against medical professionals who misled them. I wonder how future historians will describe this period. We’ve had the age of faith, the age of reason, the era of good feeling. The age of insanity? Reply Brian Yapko July 3, 2025 Thank you so much, Cheryl, for this generous comment and for the encouraging report concerning how things are slowly changing for the better. Yes, I heard about the University of Pennsylvania eating crow on Lia Thomas and how this biological male had been wrongfully allowed to colonize women’s sports. An excellent start. As for the detransitioners, they have always been there asserting medical malpractice and undue influence by ideologues, but they are finally being noticed and given a voice. The MSM has made it its business to bury all such stories because it didn’t fit the woke narrative. I think your projected assessment of future historians identifying this as the “age of insanity” is a good one. But it was a cynically promoted insanity by some really rotten influencers. People like George Soros love the idea of mass sterilization and what better way to achieve this then by convincing the gullible that self-sterilizing via “gender affirming care” is in their best interests? The way our society has been cynically manipulated is criminal on an epic scale. Reply Leave a Reply Cancel ReplyYour email address will not be published.CommentName* Email* Website Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting. Δ This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Brian Yapko June 30, 2025 I appreciate Evan Mantyk republishing this poem in a context where it was originally published on September 4, 2023 and then at some point in the last few months silently removed without obtaining my copyright permission to do so and without any notice to me. This poem had over 50 comments, most of them highly complimentary concerning the reasoning set to verse and the personal price paid by the poet for the obvious risks taken in writing and publishing this. I appreciate Evan recognizing the ethical and legal error in removing a published work and at least the poem will be part of the permanent SCP archive even if all of those comments are permanently lost. On the plus side, today is the last day of Pride Month and perhaps it is appropriate that this poem be revisited for the common sense views contained therein. Reply
Roy Eugene Peterson June 30, 2025 I remember commenting that I am not of that persuasion, but I recognize great poetry when I see it! This is an excellent common-sense poem that castigates and skewers the nonsensical transgender concept from a perspective that many of us do not have. Fantastic job of clear-headed thinking and exposition. Reply
Brian Yapko July 1, 2025 Thank you so much, Roy, for your support both back in 2023 and now for the poem’s reissue. Your generosity means a lot to me. As for common-sense… Common sense these days seems to be in short supply, so I wanted to make it clear that no matter who one is, irrespective of whether one is liberal or conservative, reality is reality. Reality does not bend to wishful, magical thinking. Reality is above ideology. And it is no respecter of cosplay. Reply
Joseph S. Salemi June 30, 2025 When I saw this poem back in 2023, I knew that it was one of tremendous force and unexampled bravery. I also knew that it was profoundly conservative in its clear-headed sanity and rejection of the absurdities that fraudulent “gender-theory” was spawning in an attempt to make everything “non-binary.” This poem gives intellectual tranniedom a well-deserved kick in the teeth. Unfortunately, a problem within the conservative movement that must be faced is the presence of censorious, Comstockian religionists who, guided by the tenets of their sectarian creed, want to silence any poem that deals with sexual or behavioral issues that they are uncomfortable with. Yes, we have to fight the crackpot left and its bizarre nostrums, and that’s just what Brian’s poem does. But sometimes we have to fight the hidden enemies within our own ranks, and that is an especially bitter fight. Reply
Brian Yapko July 1, 2025 Joe, I’m very grateful indeed for this appreciative comment. I remember well the comment you originally made in 2023 (unfortunately lost now) but which really helped me to keep going. I had paid a hefty price for this poem in terms of lost friendships and being canceled by publications that now considered me a traitor to the LGBT community. I felt that the risk was well worth it if it helped people recognize that so much of the transgender ideology has been mass-marketed as a product to make confused people think they can change sex. I felt the risk was worth it if it prevented children from being abused with puberty-blockers and amputations and the mental abuse of teachers and ideologue parents pushing children to identify as trans. And given my own backstory, I felt that few in our conservative poetry community could speak with authority on the subject better than I. Overreach of any kind offends me, but the shreiking transgender demands for access to our children, for the removal of the meaning of gender in all contexts (think birthing persons and impregnating persons) and to claim that only humans have no idea what a female or a male is can provoke me to rage. The importance of the subject is such that I am appalled by the “Comstockian religionists” you mention who would rather see children mutilated than see a conservative poet come out as gay and carry a message with the authority that imparts to him. God forbid that we remember and honor the relationship that Jonathan and David shared. Or remember that Walt Whitman and Christopher Marlowe (among many, many others) have voices of value in the poetry world. Reply
Joseph S. Salemi July 1, 2025 The Comstockians object not just to references to being gay, but to any overt mention at all of sexual activity. I’ll never forget the firestorm that occurred when I used the sexual phrase “to put out” in an essay here, and some persons freaked out in the discussion thread that followed.
Michael Vanyukov June 30, 2025 As a university student, I once knew a young man, a patient in a psychiatric hospital where I was learning some genetic methods. He helped as an assistant in the lab, which was for him part of what was considered treatment of schizophrenia, his diagnosis. He was completely normal and well adapted – except for one detail: he thought he could survive on air only. For all his “normalcy,” that was a more dangerous delusion that some other patients had: Caesars, Napoleons, etc. Some men may think they are women, and vice versa. Nobody should be forced to give scepters to Napoleons though, nor indulge other fantasies people may have. Whatever they do in their bedrooms is their personal business. Reply
Brian Yapko July 1, 2025 Thank you for this, Michael. You get precisely what I was aiming for: if a transgender person wants to believe he or she has been born into the wrong body by an improbably negligent Creator, so be it. But the minute this person starts trying to legally enforce the delusion, we have a problem. I remember reading a year ago or so that J.K. Rowling might be arrested for breaking British law by “misgendering” someone — in other words refusing to call a dude “her.” As it happens, Rowling refused to back down and she was never arrested. But the fact that such a law could even exist terrifies me. It should terrify anyone who values free speech. And Colorado came within a hairlength of enacting a similar law. Political correctness is bad enough but coercing people to deny the evidence of their own eyes is just plain evil. Reply
Michael Vanyukov July 2, 2025 Such a law would be dystopian indeed. Thankfully, many understand that, and even some good has come out of that—like Jordan Peterson’s visibility. The trend for Orwellian absurdities to become reality is way too strong for comfort, however.
Kellie July 3, 2025 As I watch women in particular fighting to retain hard won rights that are being ripped from them while so many inexplicably cheer from the sidelines, as I see young people captured when they are most vulnerable, into a sick ideology when the only adults brave enough to attempt to safeguard them are shouted down, dogpiled and doxed into compliance, I am thankful for MEN such as Brian Yapko who will not let his important voice be silenced. It is by the brave examples set by a handful of exceptional people such as Brian that shows the rest of us how to find and more importantly use our own voices to say NO to this utter madness. Thank you Brian for being a loud, clear voice of reason which the world desperately needs.
Brian Yapko July 4, 2025 Kellie, this is a generous and inspiring comment for which I’m very grateful! I try to call things as I see them but I am only one of many. But we need more. Reasonable people by virtue of being reasonable tend to be too quiet and fearful of being outspoken. Nice people don’t shout. But if we don’t speak up, the unreasonable minority is the only voice heard and people start believing their nonsense. We must get over our reticence and find our voices. As Edmund Burke famously said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” We must speak out! Evil is real, aggressively recruiting and there’s just too much at stake to be silent. Thank you, Kellie, for your own bravery in sharing out loud what you know to be the truth!
Susan Jarvis Bryant June 30, 2025 I thoroughly appreciate your courage at making a huge poetic stand against radical and rabid transgender ideology that is ruining many children’s lives with its indoctrination, chemical castration, and mutilation. Brian, you are a brave man in an age that has lost sight of reality and rationale in favor of insidious idiocy from those who believe that gender is fluid and hormone blockers and a scalpel are the magic cure for gender dysphoria – a mental condition often forced upon those too young to understand the implication of taking the surgical path to utopia by “experts” who are keen to sexualize children before they’ve had a lesson in Human Biology or explored the possibility they may homosexual or simply confused… I believe many minors are confused and need gentle guidance NOT neutering. This is exactly why your voice is so important, Brian, and I thank you again for your bravery. I believe when something sad or bad happens, good often comes from it. I am sorry your comments have been lost – that is sad – but this subject needs a constant spotlight on it, and I am heartened to see it out there on the front page of the SCP for a second time. Brian thank you very much indeed! Reply
Brian Yapko July 1, 2025 Susan, I am so grateful not just for your generous comment but for your support of the message this poem supports and for your own consistent bravery in standing up to the transgender hegemony and its toxic, delusional ideology. The fact of the matter is that an ideology somehow has erupted into our society which has as its goal the normalization of pretending that sex can change, and which is ruthlessly willing to enforce this poison goal with criminal penalties, parental rights stripped, child abuse, the use of chemical castration, puberty blockers, amputations down to the redefinition of “woman” and “man” in the dictionary. There was a fork in the road 20 years ago when transgender rights first began to be thought of seriously. The wrong was taken. The idea of being born in the wrong body is not “identity.” It is “disability.” Biden and Progressives, seeing it as an identity issue, decided to restructure all of society to accomodate the delusional. Rather than treat the underlying pyschiatric disorder they decided to make everything external conform with the delusion. But then if you have 10,000 different delusions, you have to somehow create 10,000 different realities to accomodate them. It makes no sense. But the urgency of this poem — more so 2 years ago when Biden was still in office — is three groups of people who are horrifically damaged by the transgender ideology: A) Children who cannot realistically be expected to understand the issue, who are easily persuaded and manipulated, and who suffer the most grave effects of misdiagnosis by becoming sterilized or otherwise permanently injured; B) Gay people — lesbians and gay men — who are being eradicated by the Trans ideology. Every little girl who demonstrates some tomboyish behavior — every little boy who has effeminate behavior.. they are now misdiagnosed as transgender and never even given the chance to grow into adolescence and the possibility that they might be gay rather than transgender. This is taken to a further extreme in Iran. In Iran there is “no such thing” as homosexuality. If anyone has a same-sex attraction they are automatically forced into the transgender sex change with hormones and surgeries. This is why Iran has the second highest incidence of sex changes in the world. C) Women. As you well know, Susan, women are being erased in a dozen different ways by the toxic transgender ideology. Women’s sports has been corrupted so that any mediocre male athlete has only to identify as a woman and suddenly he’ll start winning medals — and totally at the expense of biological women. Trans-women go to women’s prison — and end up impregnating fellow inmates. Our very language is being forcibly changed with terms like “birthing person” and refusals to define “woman.” Women’s locker rooms and restrooms are no longer safe spaces for biological women. And all because identity politics dictates that the ideology must trump the reality. It’s insane, it’s pernicious and it’s highly destructive. Thank you, Susan, for your support of my work in general and this difficult poem in particular. Reply
Mike Bryant June 30, 2025 Brian, this is a brave and necessary poem. Thanks for standing up for the children. I am with you, I have been pro-child and anti-expert, in every field, since I was a kid. It seems to me that the experts in religion, science and everything else in the supervisory establishment have formed an unholy coalition against “we, the people.” Of course, that includes our children. Part of that utopian vision was well explained in “It Takes a Village.” But, no, it turns out they were wrong. Look what the expert class is doing to our country, our states, our cities, our people. The expert class is faltering now only because of free speech. Brian, I’m sorry this poem was deleted, but I am thrilled to see this issue arising again into the spotlight because the numbskulls need to be confronted again and again. Where are those experts now? I have a feeling they know they are losing and will not try to hold up their completely discredited suppositions. Your voice is especially important. Turley has written about how the “experts” are being marginalized. A big first step was the SCOTUS takedown of the Chevron Doctrine. Good read here: https://jonathanturley.org/2025/06/26/the-icarian-gene-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-expert-class/ Reply
Brian Yapko July 1, 2025 Mike, thank you so much for your generous support, kind words and powerful insights regarding the subject matter here and the subject we have avoided discussing until now: experts. That’s a subject which is worth some attention but before I get to that I want to also say thank you for bringing up the children. As I mentioned to Susan above (and in other poem comment sections, I believe) it is a big problem to treat children as Progressives would like to treat them: under the guise of “protecting” children they are abusing them. A) They have tried to wrestle control over children’s education away from parents; B) They have affirmatively tried to legitimize hiding critical information from parents (e.g. a child uses an opposite gender name in school and opposite gender pronouns); C) They try to manipulate children into identifying as transgender under the guise of “helping them”; D) They promote chemical treatments for prepubescent children; E) They promote amputations for early adolescents; F) They discourage any attempt to see a child’s trangender fantasies as just that: fantasies. (On this subject I’m reminded of Susan’s excellent poem “Aargh, Jim Lad” https://classicalpoets.org/2022/06/poems-on-sexualizing-school-children-by-susan-jarvis-bryant/ Straight kids and gay kids are all being ruthlessly indoctrinated into a set of fantasies that may make progressives feel good about how enlightened they are, but these progressives are ruining lives. And the doctors are complicitly committing malpractice. Now you’ve mentioned “experts” so let’s talk about those doctors, that class of professional who has learned that they have to make decisions which keep the fundraising going, which keep the profession relevant, which support making a tidy living. We are in the middle of an opiod crisis because the doctors have been cavalier about prescribing narcotic pain medication left and right to people because it profits them to do so. They are encouraged to do so by the pharmaceutical industry and it makes them very popular indeed among patients who want their drugs. This is just one small aspect. Experts are very often political hacks or for sale to the highest bidder. I know this well from my experience as a practicing lawyer in litigation matters. Each side simply hires the expert who will say what the lawyer wants them to say. And the experts are only too happy to comply. Whoever puts on the best show wins. It has nothing to do with “truth.” And then there are the ideologues who fall in love with their own theories and would go so far as to falsify results to bolster a crumbling theory. And for the glory of it. But these are the people who decided that lobotomies were the ideal treatment for depression and that phrenology was a good reason to conduct a genocide. Experts deserve no more credibility than any advocate promoting a certain point of view whether for ego or for profit. When it comes to actually getting at the truth of matters, we are on our own. Reply
Mark Stellinga June 30, 2025 I honestly believe that all children over 6 or 7 know, in their hearts, what they’re common-sense-challenged parents are co-opting them to risk is totally F’d-up, Brian. It seems, more often than not, to be genetic, seeing the typical fools who’re fighting to legalize it nation wide. Like DJT, I’m a very strong believer in stopping very-destructive-practices in a seriously-once-and-for-all manner. Your piece is of the sort that can only be created by a very talented and extremely passionate poet – and you’ve definitely ground your ‘point’ to razor’s edge with this one, my friend, and I’m with you all the way. 🙂 Reply
Brian Yapko July 1, 2025 Mark, thank you for commenting and for your support both of the poem and the contents thereof. I think you are 100% right. Children are not nearly as screwed up as their ideologially-driven parents. I look at all these Hollywood celebrities who have an astonishing number of children who identify as transgender: Cher, Robert DeNiro, Annette Bening, Charlize Theron, Cynthia Nixon, Jamie Lee Curtis… Annette Bening was quoted as saying that having a trans child makes her “more interesting.” Narcissistic maybe? The latest craze? This celebrity list goes on and on and it’s the height of improbability and a clear product of spoiled narcissism. I want to scream it from the street corners: You are not identifying transgender children. You are creating them!! Reply
Mike Bryant July 1, 2025 Dr. Jordan Peterson agrees with you, Brian… 70 seconds of sanity: https://rumble.com/v6vjg9j-did-jordan-peterson-just-break-the-internet-again.html Reply
Brian Yapko July 1, 2025 Thank you for this, Mike. Great find!! Peterson is very smart: To tell people that a man can become a woman and vice-versa… “That is literally the biggest lie you can foist upon people… Even creatures without a nervous system can tell the difference between sexes.” This is 70 seconds not just of sanity but of pure gold. Wish I could post a transcript because it should be required. Reply
ABB July 1, 2025 Great poem, Brian. Missed this the first time around. Sorry you lost friends over this but glad you took a stand on it. Enjoyed such rhymes as binary/finery and appreciate the medical and scientific baselines as metaphors for social and biological norms (not that the left cares about facts). Was walking around downtown KC earlier this month and rolling my eyes passing a lot of weirdos conveying their ideology through their fashion sense. Reply
Brian Yapko July 2, 2025 Thank you very much indeed, Andrew. The rhymes on this one were particularly difficult to figure out because the poem has more of a logical progression than most poems. My ability to stray from the argument and invoke metaphors which might help a rhyme was very limited. It might not look like it but from a technical standpoint this was a very difficult poem to write. Your walk around downtown Kansas City is a telling one: it’s fascinating to know that when you see people with their hair died blue and piercings in their eyebrow you can guess with great accuracy how they vote and what their stance is on issues ranging from abortion to Gaza. It’s a phenomenon. Reply
Mike Bryant July 1, 2025 Brian, it’s a blessing that this poem is back! It gives people who care for the truth a chance to speak out on behalf of our children… I applaud you again for standing up, knowing how much it has already cost you, and how much it may cost again. The only reason for anyone to remain silent… well there is no reason good enough. “But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” Matthew 18:6 Reply
Brian Yapko July 2, 2025 Mike, I’m so moved to read this compassionate new comment which shows such an intense awareness of what this poem has cost to put out there (twice!) and yet why it’s still worth it. But the fact of the matter is, the truth needs to be told and fear of repurcussions seems like a hollower and hollower reason not to speak candidly (and sharply) when necessary. There’s too much at stake. And when it comes to our children, you are so right. There is no excuse not to support whatever it takes to save them. Your quote of Matthew is powerful indeed. Waiting for the perfect messenger to offer the perfect message is the height of spiritual vanity. Important messages can come from imperfect messengers. Moses was no saint. And don’t get me started on Jonah. Or Paul. Or pagan Cyrus, for that matter. But if you’re going to judge the messenger rather than the message… Well, a great deal of damage can take place while we wait for that perfect, sinless messenger to come forth and fix the world. It takes a certain humility, I think, to recall that in history there has only been one “Perfect, Sinless Messenger.” He knows our hearts. And He knows that, despite the law, sometimes you just have to heal people on the Sabbath. Reply
Laura Schwartz July 1, 2025 “Only the Brave”. Brian, those emperors of new-age fiction have no clothes, nor the legs to stand on. The “woke” (how I hate that term) Dudley Do-Wrongs and Transgender community are trying to co-opt the obvious binary reality of 2 sexes. I stand on the side of science: that there are only 2 physical sexes and that surgery, brainwashing, megaphones, or dressing the opposite of your birth-sex cannot change the truth of biology. Convincing small children that any confusion about themselves should be approached or certified with drugs and/or a scalpel instead of level-headed thinking is criminal. This is gruesomely self-serving and undisciplined wishful thinking on the part of agenda-driven parties who would sacrifice a child’s innocence to their own deviant cause. You speak for the innocent and the easily swayed; that pulling children and adolescents into this black hole is immoral at the least and criminal at worst. Your poem is the sword of justice in this increasingly crazy world. Thank you for your courage. Reply
Joseph S. Salemi July 1, 2025 We do not allow children to drink alcoholic beverages until they are older. We do not allow them to drive a car until they are older. We do not admit them to the military until they are older. We do not allow them go hunting until they are older. We do not allow them to smoke until they are older. We do not allow them to take part in intensely physical sports until they are older. We do not allow them to use firearms until they are older. But we do allow them to have irreversible bodily surgeries inflicted on them by greedy physicians, or hormone-blocking drugs prescribed for them by fake therapists, or crossdressing forced on them by psychological quacks, and gender ideology pumped into them by left-liberal teachers when they are still prepubescent. Gender ideology ands trans-sexualism are pure poison, but you can’t get left-liberals to fight against these poisons because they are intellectually incapable of arguing against any politicized and well-funded “victim group.” They literally become tongue-tied. Reply
Brian Yapko July 3, 2025 This is so true, Joe. A couple of additional points: from a legal standpoint, minors (generally defined as someone under the age of 18) are deemed to lack the capacity to enter into a contract. And if they do contract with another, the contract is automatically void or voidable. And then there is the criminal issue of statutory rape in which it is illegal for an adult to have sex with a minor. Statutory rape laws presume coercion because a minor or mentally disabled adult is legally incapable of giving consent to the act. But this person who is presumed to lack capacity to enter into a contract or to engage in sexual activity has the experience, intelligence and insight to decide that he or she needs to transition into the opposite sex? Have breasts or penis amputated? Have hormones which cause sterilization? Suffer a lifetime of incomprehensible pain and regret because of what he or she was goaded into a by sick, ideologue adults? The hypocrisy of those who claim to care about children’s rights and welfare is astounding.
Brian Yapko July 3, 2025 Thank you so much for this comment, Laura. The push to ignore the reality of two sexes is incomprehensible to me. We are born with either XX or XY chromosomes to determine gender and this is embedded in every cell of the body. No matter how much make-up or cross-dressing or hormones or amputations a transgender person utilizes, nothing will have changed except that he or she has mutilated himself and engaged in delusional cosplay. Well, maybe this is not terribly harmful — like having the invisible Harvey the Rabbit as your best friend — but once a person starts compelling all sorts of societal change to accomodate that delusion, then society itself is threatened. That is where we are at now. The dictionary definition of “woman” altered to accomodate a subjective identification, judges and legislators who can’t define “woman”, biological men in women’s sports and prisons and bathrooms. And most painful of all, convincing children who are already highly impressionable that God plopped their little souls into the wrong body and it has to be corrected with sterilizing puberty blockers and amputations. Transgender ideology has erased more gay people than AIDS ever did. It’s infuriating. The teachers and the psychiatrists and the pharmaceutical companies and the progressive legislators have perpetrated a great evil. Thank you again, Laura. I so appreciate your moral clarity. Reply
Russel Winick July 1, 2025 Brian – I remember this poem, principally because of how it educated me with the LGBTQ issues. I’ve paraphrased that in many conversations since then. This is an epic poem, which could only have been written by someone with your unique and consummate skill. I’m in awe! Reply
Brian Yapko July 3, 2025 Russel, I’m so grateful for this generous comment. Thank you! And thank you for remembering the piece from when it first came out. I had hoped to spark a conversation or two and am so glad that it achieved that purpose. I’m glad that it gets to do so again in a somewhat more sane political landscape but one which is even more polarized. Reply
Michael Vanyukov July 2, 2025 Just one more thing. As absurd as it may seem, trying to normalize a mental disorder to the degree that children are indoctrinated into it, this is just part of a neo-Marxian scenario of splitting the society into “oppressors” and “oppressed”, replacing good old classic “classes” with multiple antagonistic categories to include into the ideological set and play upon. That is no conspiracy theory—no conspiracy is needed to be involved. It’s just natural evolution of the ideology—under the conditions of the enlightened wealthy West rather than backward dirt-poor East. Reply
Brian Yapko July 3, 2025 Thank you for these additional insights, Michael. The politics of division seems to be a particular specialty of the far left which wants to perpetuate every possible type of victimhood and discontent so that the proletariat rises against the status quo. Contented people don’t foment revolution. So we will continue to see the Obamas rail against the suffering they have endured for their race even though he won the presidency twice and owns lavish homes in Washington D.C., Martha’s Vineyard, Chicago and now an $18,000,000 beachfront house in Oahu (with 11 bedrooms and 14 bathrooms.) I feel so sorry for them. And yet they still stoke the DEI, BLM victimhood machine. And a small aside. An $18,000,000 house on the water in Hawaii? For someone who screams about how climate change is drowning our shores with rising sea levels? Hypocrisy. Vile hypocrisy. Reply
Cheryl A Corey July 2, 2025 Brian, I commend you for having the courage to present this poem. Common sense is slowly beginning to prevail, although it’s a battle. Most recently, UPenn has stripped titles from “Lia” and will bar males from competing against women. De-transitioners have come forward and are filing lawsuits against medical professionals who misled them. I wonder how future historians will describe this period. We’ve had the age of faith, the age of reason, the era of good feeling. The age of insanity? Reply
Brian Yapko July 3, 2025 Thank you so much, Cheryl, for this generous comment and for the encouraging report concerning how things are slowly changing for the better. Yes, I heard about the University of Pennsylvania eating crow on Lia Thomas and how this biological male had been wrongfully allowed to colonize women’s sports. An excellent start. As for the detransitioners, they have always been there asserting medical malpractice and undue influence by ideologues, but they are finally being noticed and given a voice. The MSM has made it its business to bury all such stories because it didn’t fit the woke narrative. I think your projected assessment of future historians identifying this as the “age of insanity” is a good one. But it was a cynically promoted insanity by some really rotten influencers. People like George Soros love the idea of mass sterilization and what better way to achieve this then by convincing the gullible that self-sterilizing via “gender affirming care” is in their best interests? The way our society has been cynically manipulated is criminal on an epic scale. Reply
