I’ve been reading various articles about transgender ideology lately, and one thing mentioned in many of these articles is the concept of “social justice” movements and how their “goalposts” (for lack of a better term) are constantly moving. What this means is that activist movements emerge with a particular goal, but then once they achieve this goal, move forward to a more ambitious goal, and then another, and then another, ad infinitum. In this way, successful activist movements cause the “frontier” to keep moving. The movement keeps winning, succeeding, gaining ground, while its opponents continue to lose, fail, and lose ground.
This, of course, isn’t a bad thing in and of itself. Movements can have ideologies and goals that are either good or bad. The proponents of a movement might be in the right, or their opponents might be in the right. That depends entirely on what the movement is all about and what its goals are.
What is a bad thing is when a movement, throughout this entire process, denies that it has gained any ground at all. Despite winning victory after victory, and gaining more and more ground, the movement claims that things are “as bad as ever.” I’ve noticed this phenomenon happening a lot regarding several movements with which I disagree. And quite frankly, it’s a form of gaslighting towards the opponents of the movement. Opponents, who lose more ground every year and are thwarted in their goals time and time again, are portrayed as always getting their way, and therefore having nothing to be upset about. The members of activist movements claim that they (or the people they claim to champion) are the only ones who have a right to be upset. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.
An example of this is the gay rights movement, which began by advocating merely that being gay be legalized. The goal of this movement was for gay people to be able to live their lives without fear of being arrested and/or jailed. Once this goal was achieved, the gay rights movement pushed for increasing levels of social acceptance, and then for legal protections that were the same as what would be given to straight couples. It was demanded that gay couples be allowed to adopt children, to form civil unions, and eventually to marry. As the infamous Masterpiece Cake Shop case illustrates, the gay rights movement demanded that businesses be legally required to serve gay couples just as they would straight couples. As queer people have gained nearly universal social acceptance, and same-sex marriage has been federally legalized, the focus has turned to trans rights. Today, LGBTQ+ advocacy centers around not only increasing social acceptance of trans people, but also increasing the availability of trans-related medical procedures for people of all ages. Gay rights organizations, their goals having been realized, have, well, transitioned (no pun intended) to trans issues as their next frontier.
Race-based movements have followed a similar trajectory. What began as a movement to abolish slavery turned into efforts to secure voting rights, citizenship, and equal treatment under the law for black people. In the 1960s, protesters were marching in the streets for equal access to public accommodations such as buses, restaurants, schools, and water fountains. At some point in this process, demands for equality of opportunity transformed into demands for equality of outcomes. Demands for protection from discrimination turned into demands for discrimination against others. Equality became “equity,” affirmative action became the norm in schools and workplaces, and political correctness silenced dissenting views. All while activists claimed that the current state of things was merely “the new Jim Crow” and that no meaningful improvements had been made for black people. Now, among the goals of “anti-racist” movements is the obliteration of all statues, memorials, holidays, place names, and monuments honoring historical figures who had anything to do with anti-black racism in any way. This is an issue that is very important to me, because I’m an autistic person who happens to be white, and whose special interest is history and statues. Race-based movements started out with goals that no one in their right mind would disagree with. But after achieving these goals, they gradually morphed into mean-spirited campaigns to invalidate the struggles of others and to actively inflict harm on people who are truly oppressed and disadvantaged, such as myself.
Logically, it makes sense that a movement would do this, because if a movement admits to having achieved all of its goals, then it would be admitting that it no longer has any need to exist. This would understandably be a difficult pill to swallow for people who have built their identity around advocacy for a particular movement, as well as for organizations that have offices, employees, fundraising apparatus, and infrastructure dedicated to their advocacy work. But to enjoy success while pretending otherwise, is not fair to a movement’s opponents. Getting your way while claiming to be as oppressed as ever is inexcusable gaslighting of those who think differently than you do. Too often, movements for social justice transform into movements for injustice, demands for equality turn into demands for preferential treatment, advocacy for inclusion becomes advocacy for exclusion, and protests against oppression and discrimination morph into demands for oppression and discrimination against others.