There’s a growing cultural posture, especially online, where performative ignorance is treated as moral high ground. People believe they’re being kind, progressive, or empathetic by refusing to acknowledge biological reality. But this performance is not neutral, it has consequences. And when truth is demonized, it’s not just science that erodes. Beauty, language, meaning, and childhood itself become casualties.
This is an attempt to clarify a conversation that’s been hijacked by bad faith, lazy slogans, and institutional cowardice. I wrote it because I believe we can do better.
We’re living in a time when signaling moral virtue is less about integrity and more about deliberate confusion. The new status symbol is pretending not to know what everyone used to know. Pretending not to know what a woman is. Pretending that chemically castrating children is “care.” Pretending that basic biology is up for debate, as long as it earns the right kind of applause.
It’s a kind of cultivated stupidity disguised as empathy. A posture of performative ignorance that flatters the ego while avoiding the discomfort of reality. People have mistaken passivity for compassion. They’ve convinced themselves that to be good is to be soft, to “see both sides,” to contort themselves into postmodern pretzels for the sake of feelings. They call it open-mindedness, but it’s not that. It’s an abdication of responsibility. A refusal to name what’s right in front of them because naming it might make someone uncomfortable. Or worse—it might get them labeled.
So instead of the courage to say what’s right, they choose signaling. Instead of clarity, they choose confusion. Because these days, confusion is safe. It makes you look “empathetic.” It earns you points in the right circles. And if you just parrot the scripts (“trans women are women,” “gender is a spectrum,” “science evolves!”), you get to feel both morally superior and intellectually evolved.
As if defending objective reality is arrogant. As if not playing along is oppressive. As if keeping children off puberty blockers is some extremist stance. And it’s always cloaked in the same smug tone: “Who am I to say?”
It’s all backwards.
JK Rowling said it best (she usually does): “Never in my lifetime have so many people tried to signal their intellectual and moral superiority by playing stupid.”
And she’s right.
Pretending not to know what a woman is used to be the setup to a joke. Now, it’s a TED Talk. It’s a virtue signal. It’s a costume people wear to prove they’re “on the right side of history”—even if it means abandoning reason, biology, and the basic structure of language itself.
It’s a way to dodge responsibility and look morally evolved without having to draw any lines. A way to be praised for “kindness” while leaving others—usually women and children—to bear the cost of your ambiguity.
This is the modern religion of niceness. It asks nothing of you except submission to its emotional optics. You don’t have to make sense, just sound gentle. You don’t have to be right, just avoid offense. And above all, you must never, ever state the obvious—because truth is now considered hatred.
People love to jump in my comments whenever I talk about this and say things like, “But Stepfanie! I thought you were all about live and let live!?” Let me be clear: this is not about “live and let live.” That would be a defensible position. “Live and let live” implies tolerance. It implies letting adults do as they please, provided they don’t infringe on others’ rights. But that’s not what this is. What we’re seeing now is compelled agreement, enforced confusion, and a wholesale redefinition of basic truths to serve a fringe ideology.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand why some people end up going along with this—because if you don’t, you’ll be treated like you’re the threat. You’ll be painted as cold, cruel, or closed-minded for refusing to betray your own senses. Even if your position is rooted in science. Even if it’s spoken with compassion. Even if it’s plainly true.
But that is so far from intellectual humility… it’s cultural psychosis.
And it’s working. The average person now feels guilty for recognizing patterns. They’re shamed for drawing boundaries. They’re asked to apologize for noticing reality. And those who don’t go along with the farce get painted as hateful for simply saying, “no.” For saying, “a woman is an adult human female.” That’s the line now. Not just controversial—but punishable.
Truth, once regarded as a defense against tyranny, is now treated as aggression.
Which brings us back to J.K. Rowling. The reason her words hit so hard is because they speak to a deep exhaustion in the public psyche. People are tired of pretending. Tired of swallowing lies in the name of politeness. Tired of being gaslit into thinking that saying 2 + 2 = 4 makes them a bigot. Because deep down, most people still know the truth. They’re just afraid to say it out loud.
And in that vacuum where the sane stay silent, the ideologues fill the space. They redefine the terms. They move the Overton window. And then they accuse you of shifting right when in reality, you just stayed put.
So no, I will not play along. I will not pretend that denying reality is somehow brave. And as a society, we need to stop rewarding people for outsourcing their moral compass to TikTok trends and activist slogans.
The truth is not arrogant. The truth is not cruel. The truth is simply what is.
The Erosion of Language is the Erosion of Truth
Language is not neutral. It never has been. It shapes how we think, what we notice, what we’re allowed to say—and eventually, what we’re allowed to see. The current ideological push isn’t just about acceptance, it’s about altering the terrain of reality by reshaping the words used to describe it.
“Gender-affirming care” is a prime example. It sounds gentle, progressive, supportive. But what it refers to in practice—especially for minors—is a suite of irreversible medical interventions: puberty blockers, double mastectomies, sterilizing hormones, and sometimes even genital surgery. If we called it what it is—“child sterilization in the name of identity” or “cosmetic castration of minors”—the public reaction would be immediate and visceral. But we don’t. Because the euphemism dulls the instinct to resist.
This is why language has become the front line of cultural warfare.
But words are not just descriptors. They are the boundaries of our shared reality. Once those boundaries are blurred, truth becomes optional, and power rushes in to fill the void. When “woman” means “anyone who feels like one,” it ceases to mean anything. And that’s the point. If definitions can be rewritten on a whim—without debate, without logic, without limits—then so can laws, protections, and even moral frameworks.
Language becomes a hall of mirrors—as
highlights below.
The intellectuals saw this coming. Orwell warned us. So did Solzhenitsyn.1 The first step in every authoritarian regime is to degrade the language. Because once you control the words, you control perception. And once you control perception, resistance becomes impossible, because no one can name what’s being done to them.
This is why it’s not “just semantics.” It’s not “just being polite.” It’s not “just letting people live their truth.” It’s rewriting the structure of reality to protect the egos of a small, vocal class, while gaslighting the rest of us into silent obedience.
And worst of all? It’s not just tolerated. It’s celebrated. We teach children that objective reality is oppressive, but delusion is empowering.
What we are watching is not an expansion of inclusion. It’s a collapse of discernment.
Child Medicalization is the Red Line
“Live and let live” collapses the second you bring children into it.
What once masqueraded as a plea for tolerance has metastasized into a moral obligation to affirm. Not understand. Not explore. Affirm. No questions, no hesitations, no second opinions. A child says “I’m trans,” and the next socially acceptable response is: “Here’s a chest binder, a new name, and a referral to the gender clinic.”
We are not talking about adults making peace with their own bodies. We are talking about children—prepubescent kids, confused teens, autistic girls, gay boys, trauma survivors—being fast-tracked into medical pathways that will sterilize them before they can legally drink, drive, or get tattoos.
The Medical Pipeline
What starts as a social transition often leads, predictably, to the medical one. Pronouns and name changes are treated as harmless, reversible acts of compassion, but they often set children on a psychological trajectory that assumes the body is the problem to be fixed.
Then come puberty blockers. Sold to the public as a “pause button,” but biologically speaking, there is no such thing. Puberty is not a video game. It’s a critical period for bone density, brain development, and sexual maturation. Block it, and you don’t delay development—you derail it.
Some clinic protocols have reported 98% of children put on blockers go on to cross-sex hormones. This isn’t neutral. It’s a conveyor belt. Britain, of all places, indefinitely banned puberty blockers for “gender dysphoria” in 2024 after independent experts found there was an unacceptable safety risk in prescribing the medication.2
Then the irreversible procedures: double mastectomies and hysterectomies on young girls. Boys given estrogen that stunts their growth, weakens their bones, and leaves them permanently infertile. Girls put on testosterone that deepens their voices and causes vaginal atrophy—something they’ll deal with the rest of their lives.
And let’s talk about the crown jewel of this horror show: neovaginas. A euphemism, because they do not function like vaginas. These are surgical wounds that require lifelong dilation to remain open. There is no sensation. No pleasure. Just pain, scar tissue, and dependency on pharmaceutical intervention forever.
No one talks about that. No one shows you what these surgeries actually look like. Because if they did, this entire ideology would collapse under the weight of its own denial. If you’ve never Googled it, and you’re someone that defends this—I highly recommend you go do some of your own research because the images you will see are graphic and incredibly disturbing. Everyone who defends this should be forced to look at these images. In fact, I dare you to look.
Something as serious and irreversible as altering a child’s body, should not be so easy to do.
This isn’t just theoretical. In a viral X thread from October 2024, a California mother named Beth Bourne posed as the parent of a second (non-dysphoric) child inquiring about gender transition at Kaiser Permanente in Davis. She shared screenshots of pediatricians openly stating that all providers were “comfortable, knowledgeable, and supportive” of gender-affirming care, with no mention of dissenting protocols or gatekeeping. Even when she questioned how providers determine if a child is truly trans, there was no skepticism—only logistical guidance for navigating referrals, hormone treatments, and pronoun updates. Her thread shows in disturbing detail how institutional capture plays out in real time: everyone in the system speaks the same language, follows the same scripts, and assumes affirmation as the only path. The most shocking part isn’t the speed of the response—it’s the total absence of doubt.
You can view the rest of the correspondence between Beth and Kaiser professionals here.
The Myth of Reversibility
The activists say: “It’s reversible.” The doctors say: “They’ll thank us later.” The media says: “Would you rather have a dead child or a trans child?”
This is emotional blackmail.
And the truth is, many of these kids are already starting to speak out. Detransitioners3—once paraded as success stories—are now shouting into the void about their regret. About the loss of fertility. About the irreversible damage to their bodies. About the adults who said they were being “brave” when they were just being abandoned.
You know what they’re not saying? “That was the best decision of my life.”
Instead, we hear:
“Why didn’t anyone stop me?”
“Why was I allowed to do this at 14?”
“I didn’t need hormones—I needed therapy.”
Chloe Cole is one of the most vocal detransitioners on X. Her account is a great place to start if you’ve never been faced with detransitioner stories or struggles.
Maia is another young, brave and vocal detransitioner on X. Chloe and Maia are just 2 of many children who were duped into permanently altering their bodies and now have to live with the consequences—consequences medical professionals should have protected them from.
Instead, some of these so-called professionals who took an oath to “do no harm” make incredibly stupid statements like this:
Who’s Profiting?
Follow the money.
Lupron4—the puberty blocker most commonly prescribed—was originally developed to treat prostate cancer. It’s now a billion-dollar product line. These kids become lifelong patients ($1.5 million dollars worth of hormones over a lifetime for a patient who starts at 14). Once they start down the path, they don’t stop. Hormones for life. Surgeries. Check-ups, complications, surgical revisions, infections.
This isn’t healthcare. This is a business model.5
And the worst part is, the consent isn’t informed. Most parents aren’t told about sterility, or bone loss, or the fact that cross-sex hormones radically increase cardiovascular risk.6 They’re sold a false promise: transition or suicide.7
The Lie of Suicide
You’ll hear it everywhere: “Affirm or they’ll kill themselves.”
The suicide statistic most often cited—that trans youth are at 40% risk of suicide if not affirmed—is based on flawed self-reported surveys. It doesn’t account for comorbidities, trauma, or the fact that suicide rates are also disproportionately high in other struggling groups, including autistic and gay teens.
Even worse: there’s no evidence that medical transition actually reduces suicide risk long-term. In fact, the largest long-term study out of Sweden found that trans people were 19 times more likely to die by suicide—even after transition. 8
You cannot lie a child into mental health.
You cannot cut your way to identity.
You cannot drug away distress rooted in deeper psychological pain.
The Cultural Gaslighting
Parents are told they’re bigots for asking questions.
Therapists are fired for exercising caution.
Pediatricians are afraid to speak up.
And lawmakers are either captured, cowardly, or clueless. Afraid of being labeled transphobic, they pass bills with language so broad it removes all guardrails—cementing into law the idea that a child’s self-perception is more medically binding than their actual biology.
We are living through a mass psychosis. A collective suspension of reality cloaked in the language of compassion. But real compassion means telling the truth. Real compassion means protecting the young from irreversible harm—especially when the culture is too cowardly to do it.
Posted by Prisha Mosley on X
The Cost to Women
For all the talk of progress, the people who’ve paid the steepest price for this ideological shell game, aren’t trans people or political dissenters.
They’re women.
Biological women.
Real women.
The kind the dictionary used to define with a single sentence.
Because in the name of inclusion, womanhood has been hollowed out and repackaged as a feeling—something anyone can identify into, opt into, perform into. “Woman” has become a costume.
And if anyone dares suggest that maybe a male body doesn’t belong in a women’s prison, or a rape shelter, or a competitive sports league where biological advantage matters—well, now she’s the problem. Now she’s the bigot.
Here are just a few very real consequences:
1. Legal and Language Erosion
Women fought for centuries to be recognized in law—as voters, as workers, as full citizens with their own rights and interests. But if you can’t define what a woman is, how do you protect her in policy?
How do you uphold Title IX if “woman” is now just a feeling?
How do you track sex-based violence if the data collapses under self-ID categories?
How do you protect women in custody when male inmates can simply declare themselves female and be housed alongside them?
Language is not just symbolic. It’s functional. Change the terms, and you change the entire terrain. You can’t simultaneously protect a class and erase the boundaries that define it.
2. Safety in Public Spaces
This is not a hypothetical. There are now documented cases of men—violent men—self-identifying as women to gain access to women’s prisons, shelters, and locker rooms. Ask any trauma survivor what it means to share a closed space with an intact male body and be told you’re the intolerant one if you feel unsafe.
It’s psychological warfare.
Boundaries are not bigotry. They’re boundaries. They are the bedrock of female safety and autonomy. And when those boundaries are erased, women are left exposed—in both body and spirit.
3. The Death of Female Sports
Biological males are now not only competing in, but dominating, women’s sports. Weightlifting, cycling, swimming, track & field—you name it. There are girls who trained their whole lives to qualify for a championship event only to be beaten by someone with a Y chromosome, higher bone density, and greater muscle mass.
And if they speak up, they risk losing their scholarships, being labeled TERFs, or publicly dragged for “not being inclusive.”
Translation: shut up and lose gracefully to the boy.
Imagine telling a teenage girl her hard-won victory doesn’t matter because someone else’s identity crisis is more important than her physical reality. Imagine codifying that injustice as compassion.
Some brave people like
have been canceled, sued, and literally arrested for speaking out on these issues—for saying basic truths out loud.94. Maternity, Motherhood, and Medical Gaslighting
Women are no longer mothers. They’re “birthing persons.” They’re “chestfeeders.” They’re “people with uteruses.”
In trying to include everyone, we’ve erased the most fundamental experience exclusive to women—the biological act of growing and delivering human life.
And again, this isn’t just annoying—it’s dangerous. If we can’t name female-specific medical concerns, we can’t study them. We can’t fund them. We can’t screen for them properly.
Language affects care.
And we are actively sabotaging that care in the name of fringe ideological comfort.
This isn’t inclusion. This is erasure by euphemism.
And women are gaslit into silence every time they try to object. Every time they raise concerns, they’re accused of gatekeeping gender or “punching down.” But there is no such thing as gatekeeping a biological category. You either are or you aren’t. If that feels harsh, it’s only because we’ve spent a decade padding every conversation with affirmations and disclaimers designed to soften the truth. But when it comes to women’s safety, women’s language, women’s rights—there is no room for vagueness.
Because the people willing to be vague are the ones with nothing to lose.
At the end of the day, this isn’t about politics. It’s about whether we still believe in reality.
You don’t have to be cruel to tell the truth. You don’t have to be brave to see what’s right in front of you. But these days, doing either will get you labeled “transphobic” or dangerous.
Fine. Let them say it.
Because if truth is dangerous, so be it. I’d rather live in danger than in denial. I’d rather be called a bigot than become a liar. I’d rather stand with reality than kneel to someone else’s delusion.
This is the line. We don’t have to cross it. We don’t have to say two plus two equals five. We don’t have to pretend men can become women, or that cutting up children is compassion. We can still choose clarity over collapse.
The entire illusion is propped up by compliance. If enough people stop complying, steadily and without apology, the illusion will end.
I unequivocally and unapologetically choose reality. Beauty. Truth.
—S
Solzhenitsyn, particularly in The Gulag Archipelago, chronicled how euphemism, censorship, and forced ideological conformity paved the way for mass repression under Soviet rule.
An average of 5 years after their initial social transition, 7.3% of youth had retransitioned at least once. At the end of this period, most youth identified as binary transgender youth (94%), including 1.3% who retransitioned to another identity before returning to their binary transgender identity. 2.5% of youth identified as cisgender and 3.5% as nonbinary. Later cisgender identities were more common amongst youth whose initial social transition occurred before age 6 years; the retransition often occurred before age 10. Full study.
Lupron, also known by its generic name leuprolide, is a synthetic hormone medication used to treat various conditions by suppressing sex hormone levels. As a gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonist, it effectively manages hormone-dependent cancers, reproductive disorders, and conditions related to early puberty.
Britain indefinitely bans puberty blockers for children with gender dysphoria, amid overwhelming concerns that they are potentially harmful. (December 2024) Link.
Simonsen et al. (2016) found that among Danish individuals undergoing SRS, ~10% had died by age 53.5 and somatic disease rates rose modestly post‑surgery. But the authors explicitly disclaim causal attribution of treatments to these outcomes. (This doesn’t by itself prove that medical transition is causative, only that long-term outcomes deserve rigorous scrutiny.)
The overall mortality for sex-reassigned persons was higher during follow-up (aHR 2.8; 95% CI 1.8–4.3) than for controls of the same birth sex, particularly death from suicide (aHR 19.1; 95% CI 5.8–62.9). Sex-reassigned persons also had an increased risk for suicide attempts (aHR 4.9; 95% CI 2.9–8.5) and psychiatric inpatient care (aHR 2.8; 95% CI 2.0–3.9). Full study.
Thank you, Graham.
Girl, this is masterful. I’m amazed with how much top tier content you’ve been gracing us with lately!
good stuff. these things need to be said and repeated. it's important to be reminded there is such a thing as a man and woman. and that it is not a big deal to say so.