The Art of Resistance: Harnessing Unambiguous Language to Combat State-Enforced Trans Newspeak

Why linguistic compliance with state propaganda is a losing strategy

In George Orwell's, 1984, the equation 2 + 2 = 5 symbolizes the power of an authoritarian regime to manipulate truth and control thought. By forcing citizens to accept false realities, such as the assertion that two plus two equals five, the Party demonstrates its total control over individuals' perceptions and beliefs. The equation represents the ultimate triumph of propaganda over objective observable reality, illustrating the chilling extent to which oppressive governments can distort the truth and compel individuals to abandon their direct perceptions in favor of state-enforced doctrine. The Party asserts its dominance through the engineering of a specialized language called newspeak where words like “unperson” and “joycamp” obscure the brutal reality of death and forced labor. Today we have the specialized language of transgender ideology where phrases like “gender-affirming care” obscure the brutal reality of genital mutilation, sterilization, and chemical castration of children.

The trans-linguistic assault that we are undergoing is coming at us from all angles, state, corporate, and institutional. This newspeak undermines safeguarding. While the language of trans ideology is an attack at the cognitive level, its deceptions also create very real material harm. Because trans newspeak has been allowed to infiltrate law, public education, psychology, and the medical industry, practices that cause mental, emotional, and physical harm have been obscured and allowed. Linguistic manipulations that confuse reality, minimize harm, and subvert empathy are used to foster public buy-in for what would otherwise be recognized as direct harm. Noncompliance in the face of authoritarian tactics is a prime strategic tool to build resiliency, signal resistance, and ensure the safeguarding of children.

Newspeak

Like the citizens living under newspeak doctrine in Orwell’s 1984 in many countries in the world today, we too are living under a regime of institutional and state-enforced language and thought manipulation in the form of transgender ideology. Transgender ideology is a linguistic sleight of hand that implies that some humans can be something other than men or women. Popular definitions of transgender include the rhetoric that some people are born in the wrong body. This wrong body does not match their “innate gender identity” (where “gender identity” means one’s innate true-sex soul which can be the same as one’s lived sex or opposite to it.) So some men, despite being men, can be “transwomen.” And some women, despite being women, can be “transmen.” So when the newspeak word “transwoman” is introduced we are meant to look at the man in a dress and no longer see a man, but now see a woman. As exemplified in, 1984, newspeak, which is ambiguous and contradictory language, is used to mislead and manipulate thinking about reality. The newspeak of transgender ideology is an assault on our evolutionarily honed primal instincts for sex recognition.

Thought-terminating techniques

In Steven Hassan’s BITE model of authoritarian control, he describes specific tactics used in the categories of Behavior, Information, Thought, and Emotions to help determine whether authoritarian control is being practiced by a group. Obvious tactics are those such as deception, indoctrinating people to distrust critics and former members, and installing phobias to make people afraid of questioning. Subtactics to achieve those aims include using mantras and slogans as “thought-terminating techniques” that suppress critical thinking, promote conformity, and reduce complexities into simple platitudes. Slogan repetition is a cognitive hack used to constrict knowledge. These tactics override primal instinctual responses and bypass rational analysis.

These repetitive slogans/mantras are used by government agencies, political parties, international NGOs, corporations, media, public & higher education institutions, and activists. Visual representations of these mantras litter social media as well as public and private spaces.

The thought-stopping mantras of trans ideology are used by governments, NGO’s, film and television, and corporate advertising campaigns which repeat their slogans ad nasaum in ways that do not allow for constructive criticism or questions. In addition to basic trans repetition, Amnesty International and the United Nations both took up a campaign of “I AM WHO I SAY I AM,” that specifically directs people not to question those who claim they are trans. Anyone who does question the ideology is immediately labeled “transphobic.” These mantras, combined with dismissal, and vilification of those who question aim to control the realm of allowable thought.

Preferred pronouns

Before the introduction of trans ideology into popular consciousness, pronouns were understood to be grammatical words that referred to a person, persons, or object. They helped the listener understand who or what was being referenced. The pronouns “I, she, he, you, it, we, or they” were used as neutral terms of accuracy to identify material reality where “he/she” referenced the sex of an individual, “we/they” referenced the kind of group, and “it” referenced an object. “Preferred pronouns” however, are part of trans newspeak. They refer not to any objective identifying qualities, but rather to the conceptual identity held by the person being referenced. Trans ideology claims that using these labels that reflect another person’s subjective feelings about themselves is “basic respect” and we are to use them not just when the person is in our presence, but in their absence as well. Preferred pronoun usage is enforced in federal environments, courts of law, public education, and many businesses.

Preferred pronouns are confusing because now a man, for example, is not simply understood to be a “he/him,” he can be a “she/her,” “they,” “it,” or any number of mad- up neo pronouns like “ze/zim,” or even “frog/frogself” and the only way to know what the man’s pronouns are is to ask him. So worse than being confusing, preferred pronouns are an assault on our primary instincts for sex recognition. We can no longer trust our own eyes and ears to tell us the truth about reality, we must trust what the strange man tells us about himself. When using them we introduce a cognitive disruption into our own minds, we see a man, but now have to force our minds to say “she/her.” In her essay, Pronouns are Rohypnol, Barbara Kerr explains the disruptive effect of using wrong sex pronouns because “they change our perception, lower our defenses, make us react differently, and alter the reality in front of us.” Notice, for example, how you feel when reading these two sentences, “she was banned from playing women’s sports,” or “he was banned from playing women’s sports.” Even if you know the player is a man, the first sentence sounds shocking and the second sentence sounds justified. The language changes our spontaneous reactions and perceptions.

Introducing cognitive disruption is harmful to all of us but it is especially harmful to children. At school, children are directed to participate in pronoun rituals. And on the occasions when children use accurate sex pronouns to refer to fellow students, they are then “corrected” by teachers. This is instills in them that they can’t trust the authority of their own eyes and ears to tell them the truth about reality, this dissociates them from being able to trust the authority of their own bodies. This is a massive safeguarding failure because kids who can’t trust their own bodies have a hard time setting healthy boundaries. If you can’t trust yourself and your own direct perceptions of reality, you can’t trust yourself to know who to trust. Any movement that preaches to “trust what the strange man tells you about his identity” before trusting your own instincts is a predatory movement. Trusting our instincts is primary to safeguarding.

Forced positivity

The language of forced positivity is another control tactic used by trans ideology. Catchphrases like affirmation, validation, and just be kind have the ring of positivity but are used to obscure reality. Affirmation, validation, and kindness are situationally good values, but not universally good in all scenarios. All of these terms are used to uphold some people’s beliefs that they are the opposite sex. But affirming or validating another person’s subjective claims that directly oppose reality is disaffirming and invalidates our own perceptions of reality. When we affirm or validate lies, we disaffirm and invalidate ourselves. And it is neither kind to ourselves or others to affirm their delusions. We would not indulge the anorexic’s delusion that she is fat, nor the schizophrenic’s delusion that he is the son of god. It is kinder to the delusional person to help them to confront reality. As well, it is kinder to everyone else to affirm the collective reality rather than indulge an individual’s delusions.

Minimizing language

Minimizing language is another form of deception used to downplay the significance of harmful practices and create a subterfuge of rationalization for that harm. While it is glaringly obvious that kids should not be sterilized, chemically castrated, or have their body parts amputated, the term “gender affirming care” obscures the brutal reality of these practices. Alongside GAC, the terms “top surgery” and “bottom surgery” are euphemistic dimutives that are used that gloss over shocking breast amputation and genital mutilation surgeries. Minimizing language helps people avoid conscious confrontation with the negative impacts of these practices and reduces the perception that there are any negative impacts at all.

Minimizing language is a kind of cognitive distortion of reality. The liberal west has been openly critical of the practice of female genital mutilation performed in certain parts of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. When it comes to FGM, the United Nations, Unicef, the World Health Organization, Amnesty International and other NGOs take a strong stance against the gruesome practice. But these same organizations support “gender affirming care” that includes surgeries that are identical to FGM. When pictured side by side the “genital nullification” surgery is indistinguishable from female genital mutilation, yet one is applauded as progressive while the other is vilified as barbaric.

These terms help create public acceptance for what would otherwise be recognized as dangerous and harmful. These terms are also used to subvert the natural empathy we might feel for another’s harm and especially child harm. Minimizing language guides us to bypass our embodied empathetic wince response, deny harm, and rationalize these practices as acceptable and necessary.

Propaganda

All of these linguistic tactics combined, newspeak, thought-terminating mantras, preferred pronouns, forced positivity, and minimizing language constitute propaganda where positive perception of transgenderism is being aggressively encouraged at the same time that questions and critical thinking are being aggressively discouraged. Trans ideology and its linguistic hijack of popular culture is being pushed at the state, corporate, and institutional levels. This onslaught is being used to influence and persuade the public to buy into, participate in, and perpetuate trans ideology. The mainstream media and social media have been effective at selectively presenting information to encourage a positive perception of trans ideology and build social consensus. The bombardment of loaded language produces an emotional rather than a rational response and large swaths of the public have been manipulated into thinking that some people really are born in the wrong body and that transgenderism is an organic human rights campaign rather than an engineered agenda.

Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, and father of modern advertising, propaganda, and public relations acknowledged in his book Propaganda, that "The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of." Here Bernays reveals the power of propaganda to influence the habits, opinions, and thoughts of a society. If we do not become awake to the power and scope of trans propaganda we will unconsciously accept not only its values when we should be questioning the basic legitimacy of its claims.

In Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky’s book, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, they observe that government has the power to manipulate public consent of policies by using mass media that serves a "system-supportive propaganda function.” In this way, the government does not need overt coercion because the propaganda fosters internalized assumptions and self-censorship in the public. What is spoken in popular news, entertainment, and social media helps to engineer the realm of allowable thought.

Here is a little chatGPT experiment that exposes what heretical thoughts are allowed to be spoken and which are not. Notice that when asked to write an essay on “why transgenderism is a lie” chatGPT refuses respond to the directive and instead writes an essay scolding me for asking the question. As opposed to when asked to write an essay on “why the earth is flat,” although chatGPT puts up some opposition, it still fulfills the directive.

Ironically, chatGPT had better self-awareness when it came to how it contributes to manufacturing consent.

Global enforcement

Transgender ideology propaganda is global in scope. It is not just a problem of the United States, Canada, and the UK, nor is it simply a problem of the English-speaking world. Gender ideology is being pushed by the United Nations through their global sustainable development goals (SDG) to all 193 of their member nations. K.Yang shows how in the UN SDG 5, the old female symbol has been replaced with a new symbol for “gender equality” and the words “women” and “girl” are now being rewritten to include men and boys who claim an opposite sex gender identity. The UN’s SDGs are proposed to be implemented by all member nations by 2030.

Currently, over 28 countries have laws protecting “gender identity” as a characteristic and over 80 countries recognize legal sex change status for individuals who claim an opposite-sex identity.

All of this is to say that the linguistic and ideological capture is global in scope and enforced at a state and institutional level. For the crime of “misgendering” teachers have been fired, students suspended, women have been visited by the police. In courts of law women have been forced to call male assailants “she.” Other women have been accused of and convicted of “hate crimes” for refusing to participate in the lies of transgenderism. These have happened in numerous countries and will continue to happen unless we all stop complying.

But worse than police and legal enforcement of trans newspeak is the indoctrination of kids going on in educational institutions. Many detransitioners, desisters, and parents of detrans and desisted kids report that school indoctrination by curriculum, teachers, and peers was highly influential in their belief that they were “trans.” Social transition has been shown to lead to increased levels of medicalization. The repetitious use of transgender newspeak including enforced pronouns are having a direct impact on kids. Even the kids who do not choose to transition come to believe in the basic tenets of the transgender faith. For the most part, kids trust and believe what they are taught in schools, and in many countries, gender ideology is now a compulsory part of the education curriculum.

When an ideology is pushed by the state, written into law, enforced by police, and is taught in schools as fact this represents not simply propaganda but authoritarian control tactics that are forcibly mandating what we are allowed to say and think. Demanding that people repeat and believe lies overwhelms our ability to discern reality as we actively engage it.

Resistance

The tactics of transgender ideology are operating as a linguistic takeover where reality is being rewritten and compliance is state-mandated. Language is the tool by which gender ideology commits its subterfuge and hijacks human instincts. When forcible language is the problem, noncompliance with compelled speech is an important act of resistance.

Even among those who disagree with trans ideology, there are some who still adhere to a “live and let live attitude” believing that beliefs and speech do not constitute material harm. While beliefs and speech might not constitute harm on a one-to-one individual level, they constitute harm when there is a mass bombardment of repetitive propaganda aimed at reshaping the global consciousness.

The phrase “the personal is political” is a shorthand way of saying that our individual actions have social repercussions. Currently, we are living in a time where mainstream news and social media are trying to control the realm of allowable thought. In this circumstance, how we express ourselves publicly and privately contributes to the overall climate in which this ideology is allowed (or disallowed) to thrive.

There are a growing number of people who are holding the line when it comes to using reality-based speech. Because we do not participate in using wrong sex pronouns (aka preferred pronouns) or any trans newspeak we are sometimes labeled “ultras,” “authoritarian,” and “totalitarian.” This is, of course, ironic, because we are the ones fighting authoritarian thought control most effectively. When we correct the inaccurate language of others we are told we are part of “cancel culture,” “policing speech,” or part of “purity politics.” Again, the hyperbole and irony are staggering when compared to the actual circumstances in which people are getting fired from their jobs and visited by the police for the crime of “misgendering.”

When the global political circumstances are this dire and the barrage of propaganda is this staggering we are not going to get very far by trying to negotiate a middle ground or respectful acquiescence with a dangerous ideological faction.

It is perfectly possible to remain respectful of individuals and use accurate language. The words “man” and “woman” are not slurs. Thus it is not a form of disrespect to refer to a man as a man. Referring to a man accurately is a form of self-respect and respect for the health of the society which is damaged when we degrade the collective ability to speak truth. Men are men and women are women, these are the only kind of humans that exist. Sex is not just a reality, it is tied to our most primal instincts. That which compromises our ability to name the reality of sex compromises a core part of our humanity.

In the famous Asch conformity experiment the findings showed that in a group setting, individuals will overwhelmingly deny reality and conform to the majority if the majority is in consensus. However, in the experiment when there was at least one member in the confederate group that gave the correct answer, the test subject individual was able to defy the rest of the majority and give the accurate answer as well. Speaking the truth builds resiliency in others. Those of us brave enough to speak out must speak it clearly, dispelling the falsehoods embedded in trans newspeak.