The most recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) was an anti-trans hatefest, but even by their low standards, the effort by D-list speaker Michael Knowles to get attention was revolting. "There can be no middle way in dealing with transgenderism," he declared, successfully beating Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in the headline-attracting contest. "For the good of society, transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely."
It was a well-crafted troll, garnering not just outrage, but creating an opportunity for right-wingers to pretend Knowles wasn't saying what he was obviously saying. Sure enough, when progressives pointed out that Knowles' rhetoric is genocidal — that you can't eradicate "transgenderism" without eradicating trans people — there was a tedious and predictable explosion of disingenuous umbrage-taking on the right. They are just talking about the "ideology," they insisted, eliding the fact that the "ideological" belief in question is that trans people have a right to exist.
