Guest Commentary: Moms for Liberty and the Gender Police

by Robert Bulman

Beth Bourne, the chair of a Moms for Liberty chapter in California, recently accosted several drag queens in the lobby of a hotel while she was on vacation in Hawaii.  In a video of the encounter that went viral, Bourne angrily confronted the drag queens, asked for their names, interrogated them about their personal appearance, expressed concern that they might influence her son to wear make-up and “grow fake boobs,” and asked hotel staff to call the police.

This Moms for Liberty chair wanted to call the police because there were men wearing dresses in a hotel lobby. While her animated objection to the presence of gender non-conformity in the hotel lobby has been ridiculed online as “unhinged,” Bourne’s behavior is consistent with the underlying principles of Moms for Liberty.

Moms for Liberty is a right-wing “parental rights” organization that wants to restrict instruction about gender and sexuality in American public schools. They particularly object to policies that affirm (or, as they say, “groom”) transgender identities. While they assert that “there is no right way for a child to be a boy or a girl,” the theoretical foundation of their anti-trans activism suggests otherwise. In the lobby of that Hawaiian hotel, a mom for “liberty” very dramatically exposed the impulse for a strict enforcement of traditional expressions of gender and sexuality that lurks just beneath the surface of anti-trans activism. This intolerance for gender non-conformity is fueled by a conspiracy theory that Moms for Liberty refers to as “gender ideology.”

To explain “gender ideology,” Moms for Liberty prominently features the work of James Lindsay who views it as an articulation of queer theory, a relatively obscure academic field that arose out of gay and lesbian studies in the 1990s. He salaciously describes queer theory as the “doctrine of a sex-based religious cult” that “primarily targets children” in order to “queer” them into identities that destabilize “normal” expressions of sexuality and gender. Lindsay claims that queer theory is part of a Communist plot to infiltrate American institutions, confuse children about their gender, and overthrow American society.  He believes that Moms for Liberty is the “tip of the spear” in the resistance to a full-fledged Maoist-style cultural revolution.

Because they don’t believe that transgender identities are authentic, anti-trans activists assert that the source of a transgender identity must be imposed from external sources. Things like rainbow flags, gender-neutral pronouns, books with LGBTQ characters, and drag queens become suspect as the cause of the transgender phenomenon. Groups like Moms for Liberty respond to concerned and confused parents by amplifying the conspiratorial accusation that teachers, therapists, doctors, librarians, drag queens, and Democrats must be part of an elaborate left-wing scheme to brainwash kids to adopt transgender identities. As Beth Bourne forcefully warned in a video that she posted of herself online: “Watch out! The schools, the libraries, the elected officials, the trans activist groups – they are coming for your children!”

Moms for Liberty is part of a broader political effort to capitalize on the fear of transgender identity as if it were a new phenomenon. But transgender people have always existed. Just as gays and lesbians fought a long hard battle to attain cultural acceptance and full civil rights in this country, we are witnessing a similar process at work to acknowledge transgender people as full and valued members of society.  And the increase of young people identifying as nonbinary or transgender in recent years is not the result of drag queens or conspiratorial indoctrination by Marxists in the public schools. It is far more likely due to young people feeling increasingly safe to express their authentic selves in public. There will always be bumps in the road as we experience social change—and reasonable people can disagree about things like the best medical practices for trans youth—but that does not mean we are experiencing a cultural revolution that justifies suspicion of and hostility to public expressions of gender nonconformity.

Since Moms for Liberty endorses the idea that “gender ideology” poses an existential threat to our children and the country, it is not surprising that their rank-and-file members would aggressively challenge gender nonconformity in public. The threat to children, they fear, can come from anywhere at any time. Beth Bourne was not acting rogue in that Hawaiian hotel lobby. She was fighting back against what Moms for Liberty says is a dangerous, radical, and widespread conspiracy to confuse children about gender and to destabilize their identities for nefarious political purposes.

The authoritarian response to gender nonconformity should concern us all. If you veer from traditional expressions of gender and sexuality it is a sign to anti-trans activists that you may have been brainwashed by “gender ideology” and are a threat not only to children, but to the stability of the country. And if you don’t conform to their narrow view of gender expression, they are prepared to call the police on you.

Originally published by Newsweek.

Robert C. Bulman received his Ph.D. in Sociology from U.C. Berkeley in 1999. He has been a professor of sociology at Saint Mary’s College of California for 25 years.  He researches and publishes in the areas of educational inequality, adolescence, film, and American culture. He is the author of Hollywood Goes to High School: Cinema, Schools, and American Culture.