Of course, the point is that the sudden exponential increase in self-proclaimed rainbow identities shows that the mantra of "born this way" is a lie. It is now obvious that LGBTQ identities are being spread by social contagion, which means they are not all innate, immutable, and essential aspects of a person's authentic self.

Though it was not widely publicized, the search for a "gay gene" ended in failure a few years ago. Rather than crude genetic determinism, the development of our sexual desires is complex and often fluid, with environmental and social factors playing crucial roles. The reality of human sexuality is far more complicated than "born this way."

There is no objective test to determine whether someone is transgender. It is purely a matter of self-identification justified by the bizarre metaphysical claims that a person can be "born into the wrong body" and go through the "wrong puberty."

This last claim demonstrates what is at stake. It is not just that the cultural and legal victories of the LGBTQ movement were built upon the "born this way" falsehood, but that recognizing this lie reveals how sinister the LGBTQ movement's current goals are. Given that we are not born this way, the flood of pro-LGBT materials in schools and culture looks less like an effort to help children accept their true selves, and more like a recruiting effort--grooming, if you will.

Furthermore, if we are not born this way, then the enormous increase in children identifying as transgender is a social contagion. Young women (and at least some girls) are having their breasts amputated, and young men (and at least some boys) are being castrated because of superstitious panic that imagines children can be born into the wrong bodies. This is obvious, yet the LGBTQ movement and its many allies from Hollywood to the Democratic Party have gone all-in on chemically and surgically mutilating children.

It turns out that the LGBTQ movement hurts people in quite a few ways.

Nonetheless, Coaston pretends to be befuddled as to why people are alarmed by the constant increase in LGBTQ identities among the young--an upward climb that shows no signs of stopping, with a multitude of unlikely clustering effects such as entire cliques of adolescent girls all coming out as trans or non-binary. Her response consists of inanities such as, "There is no maximum number of people on earth who can be trans before we face civilizational ruin or planetary collapse," which is false even on its own terms--a movement that self-sterilizes will lead to civilizational ruin if it grows large enough.

Coaston has to be evasive because the LGBTQ movement was built on a lie, and it is now breaking the promises it made to secure support from ordinary Americans. The falsehood that rainbow identities are intrinsic and immutable from birth was essential to persuading people that the LGBTQ agenda was harmless. (How will letting your gay neighbors get married hurt you? How will letting Eric become Erin hurt you?)

It turns out that the LGBTQ movement hurts people in quite a few ways, from the efforts to compel participation in same-sex ceremonies and transgender pronoun rituals, to putting men in women's sports, prisons, and locker rooms. But what has really roused people is that the rainbow lobby is coming for children.

The lie of "born this way" has been used to justify exposing children to sexual material and teaching them about gender ideology at ever-younger ages. Coaston handwaves away these influences, even as she writes about the increase in LGBTQ identification that shows that they are succeeding in recruiting children into rainbow identities.

Public schools are secretly "transitioning" children without parent consent, and some states are even stripping parental rights away from parents who are perceived as insufficiently affirming of the identities their children have been propagandized into. They are doing this even as many European nations are backing away from transitioning children, and as medical malpractice lawsuits have begun rolling in from those who have detransitioned.

Parents don't want their daughters shot full of testosterone, or to have their sons chemically castrated, and they have realized that the excuses for doing so--that children are born into the wrong bodies and must be medically transitioned before they kill themselves--are lies.

The LGBTQ movement sold itself as being about the rights of consenting adults, but it actually wanted the right to seize our children as its own.

END