How Progressive Nonprofits Went Over the Waterfall
Another splendid essay by self-described progressive Eliza Mondegreen who witnessed from within how progressive nonprofits were seized by the ideological frenzy of a rising cohort of junior staffers deeply invested in a pseudo-politics of identitarian deference and grievance that seized the white collar workplace in the 2010’s.
When trans activists wrapped their cause in the language of civil rights, they sought to exempt themselves from scrutiny and debate. It’s hard to imagine a more effective way to shut down inquiry among self-identified progressives and progressive organizations. Anyone who resisted or even asked basic questions risked being cast in the background of this image:
Even the most apologetically stated concerns or reservations—about males in women’s prisons, women’s sports, and women’s refuges, about the effects of overwriting sex in the law—were instantly dismissed as the bigoted ravings of a privileged mob. The real conflict between sex-based rights and demands couched in an inner sense of gender identity got buried. Trans activists taunted progressives: who wants to end up on the wrong side of history? ------ A strange sort of arms race kicked off, where whoever could brainstorm the most byzantine ways someone could feel marginalized or excluded by anything we wrote or said—or (decreasingly) did—won by demonstrating a superior sensitivity.
You know the drill: You should read the whole thing.
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