Biden-Harris and the LGBTQ+ Wedge

Y ou can’t blame Senator Kamala Harris for playing the identity card. It’s not like she had a choice. Even before the former California attorney general was announced as Joe Biden’s running mate, the editors of major publications received letters from Planned Parenthood, the National Women’s Law Center, TimesUp, Supermajority, and others, instructing them “to be anti-racist and anti-sexist” in their coverage of the VP pick.

The thing is, when the new definition of racism and misogyny includes even accidental name mispronunciations, as well as any criticism whatsoever of her politics and character, you can’t help but worry that this (authoritarian) candidate might be getting a dangerous free pass in terms of media scrutiny.

Of course, there are plenty of other media buzzwords than “racist” and “misogynist” deployed in such a way as to frighten journalists out of doing their jobs. Already, for example, we have seen Harris being heralded as a bold LGBTQ+ “ally.” This is especially politically advantageous since Biden doesn’t have the best record, having been one of those politicians who “evolved” (i.e. flip-flopped) on the issue of gay marriage.

But Harris doesn’t have a perfect record on LGBTQ+ rights, either. For instance, as attorney general of California she denied sex changes for male prisoners (back when doing so was non-controversial). She evidently intends to make up for lost time, however, signing up as the co-sponsor of the so-called Equality Act, a staggeringly aggressive piece of legislation that would require all federally funded colleges, sports teams, homeless shelters (and more) to allow men who identify as women to compete and reside with actual women.

Biden and Harris have promised to make the enactment of the Equality Act a “top legislative priority” for the first 100 days of his presidency. On top of that, they seek to ensure that government-funded foster-care and adoption agencies no longer “put LGBTQ+ youth in care at risk by failing to place them with safe and affirming families.” This could look harmless enough except that the word “affirming” in the context of the gender-identity debate typically refers to a contentious and irreversible medical experiment on children confused about their biological sex. As I warned in an extensive report on the topic of “transgender children” in November:

In a recent “listening session” held by the [publicly funded] National Institutes of Health’s Sexual and Gender Minority Research Office, one activist inquired into whether it might be possible for the NIH to extend the study “for another five years so that we can get even more longitudinal data,” which would be “helpful” to show courts “that the affirming parent is actually acting in the best interest of the child,” since there has been a recent “uptick in custody disputes involving transgender youth.”

Then there’s the affront to women’s rights that this represents. The Trump administration rolled back the Obama-era guidance that told federally funded schools and colleges that they ought to allow men who identify as women to use the women’s restrooms, but Biden — bypassing Congress — promises to reinstate this. Biden also believes that “every transgender or non-binary person should have the option of changing their gender marker to ‘M,’ ‘F,’ or ‘X’ on government identifications, passports, and other documentation” and would therefore implement a system of self-identification by ensuring that “all transgender individuals have access to identification documents that accurately reflect their gender identity.”

Gabby Orr wrote an insightful piece at Politico, explaining how an “anti-transgender” campaign could be weaponized by the Trump campaign during the election year. However, she got her analysis back to front. It is not the Trump campaign but the Biden campaign that is determined to make this into a culture war. From the Biden-Harris website: “Donald Trump and Mike Pence have given hate against LGBTQ+ individuals safe harbor and rolled back critical protections for the LGBTQ+ community.” But this is nonsense. The Trump and Pence administration have simply unraveled the legacy of the Obama era, which laid the groundwork for the comprehensive redefinition of sex by stealth.