'As The World Goes Mad,' Florida Is Still Where Woke Goes To Die After DeSantis Bans The Gender Mutilation Of Minors

On Wednesday, Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) continued his crusade against wokeism by signing numerous pieces of legislation collectively known as the "Let Kids Be Kids bill package," which establishes laws against the mutilation of minors, sexually explicit performances around children, and an expansion of the Parental Rights in Education Act (PREA), among other bills. 

What the newly signed pieces of legislation do is the following. SB 254 prohibits sex reassignment surgeries and experimental puberty blockers for children; requires adult patients who are receiving these medications or surgeries to be informed about the dangers and irreversible nature of these procedures and to give written informed consent; provides courts temporary emergency jurisdiction to step in and halt sex reassignment procedures for out-of-state children present in Florida; and creates a pathway for individuals to obtain damages when they were injured or killed after receiving sex reassignment surgeries or medications as minors. 

HB 1069 protects students from having to declare their pronouns in school while also prohibiting classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in Pre-K through 8th grade, expanding the original parental rights bill. Additionally, HB 1438 protects children from sexually explicit performances in all venues, and HB 1521 ensures that Florida’s bathrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms are safe places for women.

“Florida is proud to lead the way in standing up for our children. As the world goes mad, Florida represents a refuge of sanity and a citadel of normalcy,” explained Gov. DeSantis during the bill package signing. The governor is correct to counteract wokeism in this way. Transgenderism and many new social phenomena seem to have a correlation with social contagions and social media. As Rich Lowry has discussed, "Between social media and fashionable gender theories, we are making teenage girls depressed, anxious, and trans." 

There has been little discussion of these questions, at least in the United States. In a short while, it seems many ideas that were confined to academia and small discussion groups have captured the public discourse, and the matter is treated by our intellectual and policy elites as settled.

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An example of this occurred back in July 2022 when Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) was accused of transphobia by Berkeley professor Khiara Bridges for simply not accepting and questioning the premises of gender ideology. 

It is what the writer Douglas Murray calls "the madness of crowds," in which the rush to change and miscalled progress shuts down any room for rational debate and discussion. For example, after Gov. DeSantis signed the bills to protect minors from mutilation, exposure to sexually graphic content, and exposure to radical ideologies, The New Republic declared in a headline that "Ron DeSantis Signs Law Allowing Trans Kids to Be Taken From Their Families." This hysterical claim has been convincingly debunked by Noah Rotham.

Regardless, in many countries in the Western world, the trend has been to "wait and see" with regard to gender dysphoria and other celebrated social phenomena of the Left. 

In the United Kingdom, for example, gender clinics were shut down, and countries such as Sweden have restricted the mutilation of children and teens, euphemized as "gender-affirming care." In the United States, other states besides Florida have taken action against gender ideology. Texas also banned gender-affirming care, for example. 

Taken together with opposition from religious leaders from America's two largest religious denominations, such as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Southern Baptist Convention, as well as the successful boycott of Bud Light, it seems there is ample progress for a counterrevolution against wokeism. Gov. DeSantis, however, has taken the lead in the fight against wokeism with results and building an extensive electoral coalition in Florida. That's what winning looks like.