COMPROMISE
We believe transgenderism should be treated as a health issue, not a political issue. And people need to know that trans people are victims, exploited by liberal communities who want to increase their membership, and especially by a heartless corporate health industry that cares first and foremost about profit. They deserve help, not blame.
In 2016 we favored trans rights. While our allies wanted to wait for action at the state level, we promoted trans-friendly bathrooms in the local high school. It was a simple civil rights issue. But it isn’t simple. Our board of directors has approved proposals to reverse the influence of transgenderism, including legislation focused on removing transgender influence in schools.
Why is this necessary ? Here is our theory of how the movement became popular so fast. Four strong influences have aligned suddenly to promote transgenderism: social media, internet politics, the news media, and the medical industries. First, social media have devalued true friendship and parental love and separated children’s social lives from their parents’ supervision. Secondly, non-straight groups are deceptively recruiting confused young people through those un-supervised social media platforms. Internet activism and social media have created a shallow standard of civic involvement, and non-straight activist groups are desperate for active membership. So, they pose as saviors, flattering confused young people for their victimhood and grooming them as new members. Thirdly, transgenderism is ideal clickbait. With elements of sex and conflict, it dominates the attention of the news media, exaggerating its apparent importance for the public. The last influence is the medical industry, with burgeoning investments in drugs, surgeries, counseling, and artificial birth. Promising to neutralize the very idea of women, transgenderism opens a market for artificial birth and is a strategic investment. One biotech firm is predicting the completion of an artificial womb within ten years. These trends together overwhelm the good judgement of older liberals and feminists, while cancellation and transgressive behavior intimidate the rest. One popular transgenderist told his 767,000 followers today, “If there’s anything we’ve learned from Republicans, it’s that bullying works.” Altogether transgenderism is a threat to public mental health, as it rejects both reason and civility, and especially it threatens the health of young people. Our proposals are not to reject them, but to rescue them from the industries and political interests that are exploiting them.
This is not new. The health industry has profited from many trends that were later discredited: frontal lobotomy, electroshock therapy, multiple personality syndrome. Even phrenology — the management of behavior according to the bumps on a person’s skull — was once highly respected. The opioid crisis is the worst: millions of people received pain-killing drugs that were designed to be addictive. Organizing within established health institutions, the manufacturers made the mass over-prescription of narcotics legitimate, leaving a trail of broken homes and broken lives. 800,000 people have died by overdose since 1999. The health industry is itself becoming addicted to new investment potential without scientific foundation. Viewed through this same lens, transgender treatments are another industry trend without scientific foundation.
Our main proposal, Back To Basics , will allow public school instruction on philosophy and religion for its significance in society and provide online instruction and materials on sensitive subjects to be given under parental control to students . It abolishes intermural sports, defusing the hot-button issue of trans kids on girls sports teams, which is Mr. Trump’s main excuse for intervening. Our strategy appeals to both sides. Religious conservatives will support it in order to protect their children. Liberals should support it in order to protect the social justice agenda in Vermont schools. So, the main proposal has good chances.
Vermont is on the verge of a tax revolt, fueled largely by the education budget, and Mr. Trump is threatening to defund our state education system for promoting transgenderism. So, our proposals will appeal to the general public who are skeptical of the trans agenda, to liberals as taxpayers, and also to religious conservatives. Religious conservatives view transgenderism as hostile to their faith and destructive of parental authority. Older liberals more than younger ones oppose it from a traditional feminist perspective. People might see it as a waste of public funds while state finances are strained. And many people have a common sense traditional view of sex.
Our proposal is a compromise to appease Mr. Trump and limit transgender influence while preserving it as part of the social justice curriculum in public schools . Our own survey shows people supporting transgenderism for friends and allies, (or for their own safety if they don’t actually feel any alliance) rather than for its merits. When we advocated for transgender bathrooms in the local high school; our support was simplistic, viewing the matter as a civil right. The support today for transgenderism is similar, accepting it for the sake of friends. Liberal support for many causes is like this. We did a short poll of a liberal audience about why people express themselves in street protest. Their reason was, it was “the least they can do” or “because it builds community”. No one said, “because it works”. This is weak support, like our own simple support in 2016. On the other hand, support for compromise will be strong; based on personal financial interest, on religion, or on principle.
Here is why BCS and Brattleboro are the right team to start this campaign. We “Think globally and act locally”. Instead of protests and support groups, we use elections, negotiation and the courts. Although we are a small team, our work has been reported regionally and around the world. In recent years we have collaborated with Christians and conservatives, and publicly advocated respect for them. We are experienced with social justice politics and assumed to be in alliance with trans-activism, which is well represented here. So, our opposition will be newsworthy and start a potent national campaign. It’s a good plan, but we’re in trouble and already losing allies. Without such a compromise Mr. Trump will take over the entire Vermont education system.
Urgently
Kurt Daims
March 1, 2026
BrattleboroCommonSense@gmail.com
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