I’m sure I speak for a lot of you when I say I’ve had about enough of Progressives.  Maybe it’s just a question of semantics.  For my money, the word “Progressive” suggests that adherents are interested in, or are working toward, the betterment of a society in which the individual is happier, healthier, independent, and economically secure.  However, a cursory examination of what Progressives have wrought proves this is not the case.  Uniformly, Progressives have succeeded in making people and institutions angrier, less healthy, incapable of independent thought or action, and destitute.  Progressives are sometimes called “woke.”  The newly accepted definition of the word “woke” is, “aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues.”  This suggests that Progressives are acutely aware of and are in touch with reality.  If that was the case, I wouldn’t have a problem with them.  But sadly, they’re not.  Were they aware of and attentive to facts, then they would understand and accept the fact there are two, and only two, genders, not 57 like Heinz.  They also might be expected to be aware of the fact that males are incapable of giving birth.  They not only aren’t aware of these facts, they deny them, and denounce as heretics any who fail to ignore reality as effectively as they do.  This would be bad enough had Progressives not succeeded in cowing compliant politicians and businesses to accept their nonsense.  I say cowing, and not convincing, because I refuse to accept that otherwise rational people really believe this crap.  They are following the path of least resistance, but that path leads only to ruin.  University of Texas Professor J. Budziszewski recently commented on what he called the normalization of disorder and empowerment of lunacy, noting that many purveyors of “woke” derangement are con artists who do so for status, wealth and power.  The Professor noted that pushing unbelievable silly notions causes serious problems, such as, disfiguring and providing hormones to children to “alter” genders; having doctors actually debating whether to surgically amputate limbs of intact people who have decided to “identify” as quadriplegic; and sponsoring “Drag Queen Story Hours” for children.  Simply put, rather than advancing society, by denying reality, Progressives are destroying our society and culture.  And even more destructive is the damage so-called Progressives are doing to women and girls.  Those of us old enough to remember the 1960’s remember “the sexual revolution” and “women’s liberation.”  Females, too long devalued at home and held back at the workplace, found new careers open to them.  In 1970, about 3% of all lawyers and 6% of doctors were female.  Now females make up almost 40% of those professions and 60% of college students.  The enactment of Title IX greatly advanced women’s athletics.  This was real progress, but Progressives are in the process of erasing women as a gender.  The mania of trans-gender politics is out of control, and no good can come of it.  And the best examples of this mania can be found on recent lists of Women of the Year.  When Katherine Hepburn starred in Woman of the Year in 1942, she actually was female.  When contestants on the old game show Queen for a Day were crowned, they were women as well.  But not anymore.  Elle Purnell of The Federalist recently reviewed Woman of the Year honorees named by USA Today, Glamour Magazine and Time Magazine.  The preoccupation with trans-gender mania has rendered the lists both ridiculous and grotesque.  Here are some examples.

U.S. Surgeon General Rachel Levine.

She (He) has the distinction of having been named both Woman of the Year and Man of the Year (By The Babylon Bee)

Newly elected Minnesota State Representative Leigh Finke.  If one picture is worth a thousand words, none of those words would be repeatable.

The very elegant Caitlyn Jenner.  Enough said. MJ Rodriguez, a male stage performer who “identifies as an Afro-Latina trans woman.”  I guess that’s what you would call a quadruple threat.
“Women’s” Weightlifter Laurel Hubbard, who brings to mind the East German women’s Olympic teams from the Good Old Days of the Cold War.And, of course, swimmer Lia Thomas, who has made a mockery of women’s collegiate sports, resulting in true female athletes being denied the benefits promised them by Title IX.

To quote The Federalist, “Nothing says ‘we respect women’ like elbowing them out of their own awards to laud a man who makes a mockery of womanhood.”  The perpetuation of trans-gender mania evidenced by the blatant disavowal of reality of the Left is rooted in an attempt to make the abnormal seem normal.  Which is not to say that trans-gender people should be ignored or dismissed.  They exist, but their recent notoriety isn’t proof of societal progress, but merely a more widely publicized recognition of the plight of unfortunates who suffer from very real psychological problems.  What society owes these people is not the renunciation of all reason, and the denial of reality, but concern, assistance, and protection.  In short, we have a duty to tolerate, and to accommodate them as best we can, but we have no duty to celebrate them.  Our indulgence of that which is lunatic, unreal, and patently absurd is tearing the fabric of society to pieces, weakening us as a nation, and giving aid and comfort to our enemies.  I’ll wrap up with a perfectly ludicrous example.  This week, a trans-gender “woman” sued the TSA, claiming that a TSA search of “her” person at JFK Airport injured “her” testicles.  The Plaintiff said that “she” was left crying for over an hour because “my balls still hurt so bad.”  “She” doesn’t want the TSA agent to be fired though, but would like the TSA abolished altogether.”  Well, at least there’s one thing we can agree with.