Gender ideology is a battle, but the tide is turning

Jay Richards is the William E. Simon Senior Research Fellow in DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. A convert to Catholicism, he also serves as senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and executive editor of the online news journal The Stream. A prolific author and editor of more than a dozen books, he has spoken widely and has appeared on numerous radio and television programs. 

He will speak on gender ideology at Legatus’ Summit 2024, to be held January 25-27 at the Monarch Beach Resort in Dana Point, CA. 

What are your chief concerns about gender ideology? How has the battle against it been going?

I am deeply disturbed how gender ideology has captured our educational and medical institutions. It is a direct assault on human nature, and the convergence of the worst ideas of the 19th and 20th centuries. Pope Benedict XVI called it an attack on reason and the West, with the Church as the final bulwark. I had been teaching at Catholic University of America, but I was prompted to move to the Heritage Foundation to work full-time on the issue.

Fortunately, we’ve seen some great progress. If this was World War II, 2023 would be the year of the battles of Guadalcanal and Midway. We’re taking back territory previously lost. We’ve seen 22 different pieces of legislation passed in opposition to gender ideology. It is so radical — we’re telling our kids that they were born into the wrong body and sterilizing them — that people are waking up in a way they haven’t for other stages of the Sexual Revolution. 

The momentum is on our side. If you look at public opinion polling, the vast majority oppose gender ideology, but weirdly for the Democratic Party it has been full speed ahead. The radical activists are committed to it, and until they are punished at the polls, I think we’ll see more of the same.

How does gender ideology harm youth?

I have gotten to know a couple dozen “detransitioners.” They once believed the lie that they were born into the wrong body, got on the “trans” pathway, including puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgeries, and then realized it was not solving their problems. They are the primary victims.

The secondary victims are parents, who were told that if they did not go along with their children’s transitioning, they would kill themselves. “Better to be the parent of a live son than a dead daughter,” they were told. It’s emotional blackmail, and there’s no evidence that these procedures reduce suicide.

I would also like to point out that gender ideology has become a “social contagion” promoted through media to the young. Twenty years ago, gender dysphoria was rare; there has been an explosion of cases since. To give one example from one pediatric “gender care” facility in the United Kingdom, from 2009 to 2019 the number of its referrals increased by 4,400 percent. It’s being spread socially.

What led you to convert to Roman Catholicism?

I came into the Catholic Church with my family in 2009. I am a philosopher, and I created a Word document listing impediments to my becoming Catholic. I did a serious study of the faith, and I found the arguments for Catholicism persuasive. 

Among the most persuasive was the canonization of Scripture; it occurred around the year 395, which meant that there had to be an authoritative Church to do it. Another was the doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. I did an exegesis of John 6 [Christ’s promise of the Eucharist: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.”] and discovered that Christians had long believed in the Real Presence.