The mind boggles, reels, and whirs at the speed with which the LGBTQ agenda has swept across America.
We saw it flex its muscles in the rapidity with which same-sex marriage became legalized. But Obergefell v. Hodges was only the start. Less than a decade since that historic ruling, society has flipped from where certain sexual behavior was stigmatized to where it is now celebrated and endorsed, even by the government. (READ MORE: Gallup’s Stats on American Happiness Are Baloney)
Did anyone really think the number of avowed homosexuals would not burgeon once gay and lesbian relationships became ubiquitous on television and in movies and were taught in public schools as just another equally valid family unit?
Which is what is happening.
Gays and lesbians have become so commonplace in movies, television shows, and commercials that we’re surprised to see a new release, series, or spot that does not contain them. LGBTQ has come light-years from Ellen DeGeneres’s eponymous character coming out on her show Ellen in 1997 and the normalizing of gay relationships in Will & Grace in 1998.
Trans, as the new gay, is approaching the same ubiquity. There have been transgender superheroes since 2018. An article from 2020 features five cartoon shows in which transgender characters are prominent. Pronouns have become a flashpoint in the trans revolution, as “misgendering” is criminal enough to get one expelled from school.
Religion has played a prominent role in the LGBTQ advance, as mainline Protestant denominations sanctify queerness with drag shows and other outrages that 50 years ago would have literally emptied the pews of their churches. An anti-Catholic group called Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence mocks the Christian faith right to its face with only minimal, and measured, rebuttal from the public. (RELATED: Bacha Bazi May Survive Longer Than American Christianity — And Here’s Just One Example)
The corporate world has jumped with both feet into Pride Month, sometimes, albeit not often enough, to their own economic detriment. The Bud Light, Target, and Kohl’s boycotts were exceptions to what is generally a noncontroversial corporate capitulation to zeitgeist sexual otherness.
Even sports, usually the great American retreat from the day’s troubles, offer no retreat from the LGBTQ World. The big pro leagues in America have almost all woven a pride flag into their logos for Pride Month, and teams themselves have almost universally succumbed to the pressure of holding Pride Nights. If you don’t want to see guys kissing guys, you might want to stay away from Major League Baseball parks this coming June — or become a fan of the Texas Rangers, the only franchise not to have a Pride Night in 2023 (they also won the World Series).
Recent surveys indicate that the revolution may be more extensive than ever we had feared. The number of young people self-identifying as LGBTQ has skyrocketed in the past few years. One survey from 2021 indicated that the share of millennials claiming LGBT status rose from 7.8 percent in 2017 to 10.5 percent in 2021. But it’s the numbers from Gen Z (born from 1997 to 2012) that truly startle. LGBTQ identification nearly doubled, rising from 10.5 percent in 2017 to 20.8 percent in 2021.
The results of a survey from Brown University are the most shocking. A whopping 38 percent of Brown University students identified as LGBT, or, more specifically, “gay, queer, asexual, bisexual, pansexual, questioning, or ‘other.’” That’s Brown, true, where in 2010 an astronomical (for its time) 14 percent claimed LGBT-ness. But still, 38 percent!
But here’s the quirky bit. It seems students are identifying as queer but not actually being queer. They’re saying they’re L, G, B, T, or Q but they’re still doing it the old-fashioned way. They’re queer in name but straight between the sheets.
So destigmatized has queerness become — and such a positive vibe does it exude — that claiming it for oneself increases campus cred. It boosts your status to claim you’re gay, not to mention imbuing you with the coveted and useful “victim” card, to be played as needed.
Jonathan Van Maren at the European Conservative, says the stats “indicate the sheer scale of the LGBT movement’s near-total victory in not only mainstreaming their ideology but achieving cultural dominance in key institutions. A crucial sign of that dominance is the fact that so many young people desperately want to identify with their movement.”
It’s not very bright, but one sees a hopeful glint shining through the direful LGBTQ overcast if one squints hard enough.
That is the nexus between LGBTQ identification and liberal ideology. One expert, Erik Kaufmann, explained to the College Fix why liberals might be drawn to such misidentification: “I think this is because very liberal people value difference and novelty over conformity, and are thus drawn to identifying as divergent (or weird) in some way, which can include sexuality.”
There is also an element of sticking it to the man among college kids, as in taking down the power structure of a university. Said Kaufmann, “For those in elite settings like top universities, there is also a political motivation linked to resisting oppressors or dominant power structures.” (Dylan Mulvaney’s Latest Conquest: Celebrated by Lady Gaga for International Women’s Day)
Kaufmann sees the rising line of identification leveling off eventually. Speaking in 2021, he said, “There has been no peak in LGBT identification yet, but I expect it imminently because LGBT growth has mainly occurred within the very liberal part of the population, and that is a limited pool.”
In other words, those who would misidentify themselves simply for the benefits — whether psychological or in social standing — are already on the far left of the political spectrum. “This rise is identificational more than behavioral, and is siloed among political liberals,” he told the College Fix. “It is thus unlikely to transform family formation or politics – the partisan split among young people is basically unaffected.”
A hopeful glint, true, but, as I said, not a very bright one.
