Transgenderism Ends in Nihilism

A gunman walked into Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, armed to the hilt and intent on murdering the parish’s schoolchildren as they celebrated their first Mass of the school year. In the end, the perpetrator, Robin Westman—formerly Robert Westman—killed two children and injured several others, then turned the gun on himself.

I watched the story unfold last week with a sense of immense heartbreak. When I saw photographs of the murderer, I could predict the storyline: a man who identifies as a woman, ensnared in delusion and psychopathy, makes a desperate bid for attention through nihilistic violence. It is, sadly, a story we’ve seen again and again in recent years.

The New York Times, however, seemed baffled in its coverage. The paper affirmed the shooter’s gender identity, referring to him as “she” and “her,” feigned ignorance of the connection between transgenderism and his violence, and insisted that his motive was “a mystery.”

It is only a mystery for those who have not paid attention, or, in the case of the Times, for those who deny reality to preserve their ideology.

For the past decade, the Left’s intellectual apparatus has concocted a narrative about “gender-affirming care,” “trans joy,” and “authentic gender identity,” which has captured institutions and promised to punish dissenters. The trans movement lures troubled young people, such as Westman, with promises of love, affirmation, self-esteem, and authenticity. But it is predicated on a lie: that a man can become a woman and achieve fulfilment through name changes, cross-sex hormones, and genital surgeries.

After the killing in Minneapolis, reporters found fragments of Westman’s diaries and his online videos, in which he said that he was “tired of being trans” and wished that he had not been brainwashed by the movement. Even as he was plunging into madness, he saw reality better than the editors of the Times. “I know I am not a woman, but I definitely don’t feel like a man,” Westman said.

We should grieve those beautiful children who lost their lives at Annunciation Catholic Church. We should also grieve the innocent young people scattered across America who have lost their health, dignity, and sanity to transgenderism, an ideology predicated on dishonesty and nihilism.

Those of us on the right can also put to rest the delusion that transgenderism is rooted in “personal choice.” Transgenderism is not a pluralistic belief system, but a coercive ideology that forces others to deny reality. It has succeeded only through an enormous propaganda campaign, which promises rewards for those who affirm transgender identities and punishments for those who don’t.

The ideology has resulted in the mutilation of countless Americans and in some cases inspired acts of deadly violence. That outcome was predictable: pumping kids full of hormones, while telling them they can change from boy to girl, is likely to end in tragedy, for self or others.

It must stop now. America has a generation of young people struggling with identity, spiritual disturbances, and the deceptions of the digital world. Westman fell for one of those deceptions, ruined himself, and then, like a character in a Russian novel, sought revenge on society through an act of pure evil.

Unless transgender ideology and its system of rewards and punishments is defeated, it will continue to catch troubled young men like Robin Westman in its web of delusion, and more innocent people will suffer. Now is the time to leave the ideology behind.

Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images