Originally a comment by Sastra on The lack of formal protocols.

I’ve recently started trying to come up with a scenario where Genderism and the belief in medicalizing “trans kids” was originally produced, promoted, and popularized not by the Progressive Left, but by the Conservative Right. Can it be done?

It’s hard because there are so many contributing elements — such as critical theory in academics and unsupervised teenagers on Tumblr — which don’t fit easily into the conservative mindset. But there are I think other elements that either do or could have done.

Consider a hypothetical revisionist history where, back in the early 2000s or so:

1.) A few respected and prominent conservative pundits start floating the idea that homosexuality is not so much a sin as a sign that the essential natures of women and men were born into the wrong bodies. A gay man is really a straight woman; a lesbian is really a straight man. A simple explanation, with a simple solution.

2.) Transexuals and people with gender dysphoria are used as examples supporting this — and the conservative community begins to support them . They argue for more and better health care that helps align the true inner soul to the body. They invite them to speak, join, their communities, and love bomb some of them into doing so, seeing the trans-identified as proof that “our souls are real, men and women have different natures, and it matters.”

3.) The heartfelt emphasis on “believe the children” popular during the Satanic Panic is continued, with the pure and honest declarations of childhood you can depend on now having to do with an inner gender needing acknowledgment instead of nursery school teachers sacrificing goats.

4.) The vulnerable, marginalized status of trans people is emphasized by people intent on showing God’s infinite love towards them, and the stories of Born Again as the Correct Gender join and sometimes turn into the stories of Born Again in Christ.

5.) Pushback from the scientific, skeptical, rational community involves ridiculing the homophobia, gendered souls, and Save the Children “roots” of the belief in transgenderism.

7.) The religious demonize those secular liberalswho scoff at the existence of Gender Identity and/or try to prevent trans kids from expressing their God-Given nature. Eventually, they also “demonize” them metaphorically.

6.) The media begins to frame the issue as Conservative vs Liberal, and then starts to report it as Republican vs Democrat.

7.) Both sides get caught up in rationalizing why the Other Side is wrong.

Might it have gone that way? I don’t know. I don’t think it would have achieved anywhere near the popularity it has. But I can conceive of this scenario. Conservatives who insist the excesses of trans doctrine are the natural consequence of uniquely Progressive thinking are mistaken. It could have been them.