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November 13, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Since my column last week warning that Christian communities have virtually no defence against LGBTQ activists who fully intend to come after our schools (like they did in Alberta last year), our freedom of speech and assembly (like Trinity Western University, a small evangelical university that found itself the subject of a years-long judicial witch-hunt), and are attempting to make bar-none approval of the entire LGBTQ agenda a pre-requisite for public life, a number of people have assured me that most people are not yet on board with the transgender “men can get pregnant” crazy train.

I actually agree with that completely. 

This agenda is being imposed from the top down, and I’ve not only noted this fact in many columns (especially those taking a look at the increasing restrictions on the ability to criticize gender ideology in the United Kingdom) but also on my podcasts. One of the reasons I remained hopeful in the face of the rainbow juggernaut is because it is transparently obvious that most people find the idea that women have penises or that gender is fluid to be ridiculous. Most people simply have too much common sense to climb on board with this stuff, which is why Jonathan “Jessica” Yaniv was the trans movement’s worst nightmare: He was exposing where their crazy train is taking us.

Jonathan Kay, Quillette editor and one of those pro-choice, pro-gay rights liberals who has been kicked off the progressive island for declining to swallow the claims of trans activists, recently posted an interesting thread on Twitter. “Since I’ve been writing about gender issues, I’ve received DMs from ppl in all sorts of organizations,” he noted. “Similar pattern: 1 or 2 fanatics leverage human-rights threats to enforce ideological discipline. Everyone on eggshells, giving lip service to stuff they don’t believe…they’ll end with something like ‘I can’t go public with this because I’d get fired.’ In one case, it was an on-air broadcaster at the CBC. [T]hey’re often looking for someone to talk to, to prove to themselves they’re sane. [T]hey’re scared to mention it even to trusted colleagues.”

Kay went on to note that this is happening everywhere, from mom’s groups to feminist organizations, where a rift has formed between those who are willing to accept biological males as “sisters” in the struggle and those who are reticent to give up the private spaces they spent decades fighting for. In short: A handful of radical activists, who focus and fight with singular passion and energy, have effectively stormed the mainstream media, academia, and left-of-centre political parties, gaining an incredibly powerful stranglehold on the public conversation surrounding gender in an incredibly short amount of time. They are driving policy, reshaping the education system, colonizing the schools, dictating how these issues are reported on, and cowing those who disagree with them—including conservative politicians—into silence. 

It has been a stunningly successful coup.

My experience mirrors Kay’s. Behind closed doors, many people in politics and in media, with the exception of a handful of philosophically fluid folks who are willing to embrace each new fad with unfettered enthusiasm, are willing to admit that they don’t buy what the trans activists are pushing. Despite that, there are—as I said in my previous column—almost none who are willing to step forward to say a simple sentence like “there are only two genders” or “men can’t get pregnant.” They are convinced that to do so would be career suicide, because even if most Canadians disagree with them, the media will ensure that the public understands them to be ugly bigots who must be tarred, feathered, and run out of town in the name of tolerance. Kill the TERFs (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists), and all that. The media is the mouthpiece of the LGBTQ mob, and there are few effective alternatives.

And that is why I am not very optimistic about where this is all heading. What does it matter that high profile politicians are willing to whisper their dissent into their scotch glasses in the presence of friends? Who cares if broadcasters with the CBC are willing to tell the truth to someone secretly, while parroting the lines they are required to when on air? Does any of this make a difference if nobody is willing to stand up and fight back where it counts, like on educational policy and in the media and in academia? 

Jordan Peterson proved that the support base exists—but I cannot name a single other high-profile figure who has bothered to follow in his footsteps, and the trans activists have continued to flatten the opposition in the wake of his rise. Many of us hoped that he would be the beginning of a phenomenon. Unless things change, it appears that he might have been a single prophet, warning us of what will come next.

I’ll repeat: I would be happy to be proven wrong on this. I’d love to hear from those who see encouraging things on the horizon, or new up and coming leaders who are willing to speak for the common-sense Canadians trying to avoid the fanatics and get on with their lives without ending up as the latest target of a LGBTQ mob (like Meghan Murphy, for example.) What I see is that the LGBTQ activists have an iron grip on educational policy, the backing of the courts, and no serious political opposition to speak of.  

Unless I’m wrong, we can all be assured that Christian communities—and especially Christian schools—have big, fat targets painted on them.

Jonathon’s new podcast, The Van Maren Show, is dedicated to telling the stories of the pro-life and pro-family movement. In his latest episode, he interviews Dr. Kathy Aultman, a former abortion provider. Dr. Aultman has testified on behalf of a wide range of pro-life laws across the United States. She has also testified before Congress about the horrors of the abortion industry that she has seen with her own eyes. You can subscribe here and listen to the episode below: 

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Jonathon Van Maren is a public speaker, writer, and pro-life activist. His commentary has been translated into more than eight languages and published widely online as well as print newspapers such as the Jewish Independent, the National Post, the Hamilton Spectator and others. He has received an award for combating anti-Semitism in print from the Jewish organization B’nai Brith. His commentary has been featured on CTV Primetime, Global News, EWTN, and the CBC as well as dozens of radio stations and news outlets in Canada and the United States.

He speaks on a wide variety of cultural topics across North America at universities, high schools, churches, and other functions. Some of these topics include abortion, pornography, the Sexual Revolution, and euthanasia. Jonathon holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in history from Simon Fraser University, and is the communications director for the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.

Jonathon’s first book, The Culture War, was released in 2016.