Leaked lobbying guide calls for more emotional manipulation and deception

The leaked lobbying guide that advocates tying transgender issues to race is quite the read, from the call to "build the choir" to the argument that recognizing 'transgirls' are "actually male" is transphobic.

You'll find all the usual misdirection: recognizing sex is discriminating against people for being trans, the specious analogy between separating people by sex in settings where sex matters with segregating people by race. The guide argues that advocates "can and should connect justice for transgender people to issues of racial and economic justice." Frankly, the only 'connection' is a parasitic one, however. Trans rights benefit from being linked to the struggles for racial and economic justice.

But what about the reverse? What do racial and economic justice have to do with the trans movement? How do people marginalized by race and class benefit from the trans movement's specious analogies and shameless piggybacking?

Then we've arrive at the touchy subject of fairness in sport. Most unfortunately, "Our base and persuadables... are extremely susceptible to our opposition's argument that excluding trans youth is necessary to protect the fairness of women's sport."

Can't imagine why.

This movement operates most effectively in the shadows, tacking itself onto more popular reforms (as in Ireland, where self-id rode in with marriage equality) and trading on the good reputations of social movements that pursued their aims in the open.

But sustained contact with the trans movement reveals comparisons to racial justice, the women's movement, and the push for LGB rights to be utterly craven and hollow.

Look, it's difficult for any individual—and any movement—to pretend to be something you're not and to seek acceptance as what you are not. You're always at risk of being exposed. 'Acceptance' purchased at such a price is not acceptance at all. No wonder it's never enough.

The trans movement pretends to be something it is not: a grassroots movement for human rights that has no implications for women, no implications for same-sex attracted people, no implications for children's wellbeing. Since the truth is [much more] complicated than trans activists will admit, no one must be permitted to speak freely about this movement that seeks to reshape our societies and the very idea of what it means to be human/embodied.

A more honest and open trans movement would drop the attempt to equate sex and gender identity. This would end the conflict between the trans movement's demands and women's sex-based rights overnight.

I didn't see that anywhere in the lobbying guide, did you?

An honest trans movement wouldn't exploit the struggles and successes of movements like LGB rights, women's rights, racial justice, or people with disorders of sexual development.

An honest trans movement would fight its battles in the open, in clear everyday language. If you have a case for change, make it. If your arguments can't withstand public scrutiny, think carefully about why that is.

And if the movement found itself arguing unjustifiable positions—defending the rights of male rapists over female victims, say, or arguing males have no advantage over female athletes—it would rethink, rather than doubling down and bombarding critics with rape and death threats.

There's a reason why trans campaigners across the Western world have bent over backwards to avoid public scrutiny. Their agenda isn't popular—their own lobbying guide acknowledges this outright—and their tactics are ugly, too.

The trans movements' campaign of deception and emotional manipulation isn't changing any time soon. But the subversive way to read this guide supports our push for transparency in policymaking on trans issues. The truth will out. That’s what the lobbyists are afraid of.