Although transgenderism has been on the retreat since its peak in 2023, it is still quite alive in blue states like Oregon. Last month, a Portland mother, Allison Roberts, filed a lawsuit against Portland Public Schools after receiving a trespass order because of her protests against gender ideology in her children’s elementary school.

According to reports, Roberts took issue with an assignment given to her 11-year-old that asked students to identify and discuss their gender identity with classmates and teachers, as well as the school’s decision to repaint its traditional rainbow Pride flag into an “Intersex-Inclusive Progress” variant. Roberts alleges that parents received no advance notice of the assignment or opportunity to opt their children out.

Schools exist to educate children, not to claim authority over their understanding of sex, identity, and morality.

When she tried to meet with the school’s principal, she got an unsatisfactory response. She then wrote an open letter opposing the school’s policies and passed it out to other parents outside the school. A clash with another parent followed, and eventually the district issued a one-year trespass order barring Roberts from school property.

It goes without saying that the school principal handled the matter badly. In my experience teaching in public schools, parents with concerns like Roberts’ are heard and usually accommodated. The principal could have asked the teacher to stop giving the assignment or simply allowed Roberts’ children to complete an alternative. Respectfully listening to her complaints about the flags would probably have de-escalated the situation.

Instead, the school treated Roberts like some deranged religious kook, dismissed her concerns, invoked the law, and idiotically made itself the center of a culture war.

On the bright side, the story presents an opportunity to reject transgenderism in schools by confronting the main arguments used to defend it.

The first and most obvious claim is that parents like Roberts are trying to impose their religion on others by rejecting transgender indoctrination. This has it completely backward: Portland Public Schools are imposing their religion by requiring children to discuss gender identity and surrounding them with symbols endorsing a particular understanding of sex and gender. This is the endorsement of a particular set of beliefs and values — what many people would recognize as functioning much like a religion.

DNY59/Getty Images

Of course, the usual follow-up is that leftist ideologies are not exclusive religions bound to dogmas and theories but inclusive agendas based on science and democratic values.

Again, Roberts’ case shows the problem with that framing. Some transgender activists describe disagreement with their ideology as a form of genocide. Claims that biological sex can be overridden by subjective gender identity remain fiercely contested, yet dissenters are routinely treated as though they reject established scientific fact. The result is an ideology that frequently marginalizes Christians and others who understand sex as fixed and binary.

Nevertheless, transgender advocates maintain that it is critical to welcome and affirm transgender children. Transgender young people report depression and anxiety at substantially higher rates than their peers, and advocates argue that acceptance is therefore essential.

This is where the argument becomes harder, not easier.

For those who have personally interacted with young people suffering from gender dysphoria, it is one thing to consider transgenderism in the abstract; it is another to watch a young person take cross-sex hormones and permanently alter a healthy body in pursuit of an identity that may itself change.

Young women can develop facial hair, lowered voices, and other permanent changes from testosterone. Young men who take estrogen undergo their own profound physical changes. Whatever one thinks about such treatments for adults, there is nothing trivial about medicalizing confused or distressed children.

And none of this belongs in a K-12 curriculum presented as though there were no serious moral, medical, or scientific dispute.

There have also been several highly publicized mass shootings committed by transgender perpetrators. Those cases do not demonstrate that transgender people as a class are dangerous, and pretending otherwise would be bad reasoning. They do, however, make especially foolish the insistence that every concern about gender ideology must arise from irrational hatred.

As Roberts’ experience shows, merely requesting the removal of such materials and imagery at a public school may not be enough. Restoring sanity requires removing transgender propaganda from classrooms and replacing ideological instruction with a moral framework that actually helps children flourish.

In practice, this would mean looking in part to my home state of Texas. Besides restricting certain LGBTQ teaching materials and accommodations for transgender identities, Texas lawmakers have banned students from using cell phones and other personal communication devices during the school day.

The phone ban gets children off screens and forces them to interact with the people around them. They cannot as easily retreat into online worlds where anxieties and pathologies can be cultivated in isolation. They have to engage with reality.

Texas lawmakers have also required public school classrooms to post the Ten Commandments. The law has faced constitutional challenges, although the Fifth Circuit in April vacated an earlier preliminary injunction against it. Other litigation continues.

Unlike transgender flags, which signal allegiance to a contested secular ideology, the Ten Commandments clearly articulate a moral code centered on reverence, honesty, respect for others, and self-control. These are useful guidelines for any classroom.

Despite their roots in Judeo-Christian Scripture, many of the principles contained in the Ten Commandments can be understood and practiced by anyone. They provide a moral framework ordered toward human flourishing and are far more useful to children than slogans about gender identity.

At least Texas is moving in the opposite direction from Portland.

Allison Roberts should not have been treated as a threat merely for objecting to what her child was being taught. Her lawsuit will determine whether Portland Public Schools crossed a legal line. The larger argument belongs to every parent: Schools exist to educate children, not to claim authority over their understanding of sex, identity, and morality.

The sad, strange death of Fred Meyer: My hometown supermarket’s downward spiral

In 2019, I moved back to Portland, my hometown, to help with a family health situation.

I rented an apartment near where I grew up. I began doing my food shopping at the local Fred Meyer supermarket, which I remembered from when I was a kid.

When I saw the sign and the locked gate, it felt like an assault. It was another closing door. Another innocent pleasure snatched away.

It was fun to go back to “Freddy’s." It was in a quiet, affluent neighborhood, so the store was always neat and clean.

They hired local high school kids to work there. As part of their job, they would always greet you, or ask if you needed help finding anything.

I found this incredibly charming. After living in Brooklyn and Los Angeles for many years, to have these nice young people smiling and asking how my day was going ... well, once I got over the shock, I came to appreciate it.

Toilet paper

A year into living there, COVID began. At first, the only real problem this created was a toilet paper shortage. But being sane, reasonable Oregonians, my neighbors and I restrained ourselves. No one was panic-buying Charmin Ultra-Soft at Fred Meyer.

But soon after, the pandemic got serious. The government announced “two weeks to stop the spread.” Everything closed. People stayed in their homes. Supermarkets were one of the only places you could go.

At Freddy’s, the teenagers quickly disappeared. The grown-up workers who remained suddenly looked nervous and scared.

As the pandemic dragged on, Fred Meyer was forced to advertise for new employees. The company offered generous bonuses. Soon there were retirees working there and borderline homeless people.

The tone of the place changed. Customers would hurry in and out. People would freak out if you stood too close to them. Everyone was suspicious of each other. It had become the exact opposite of what it had been before.

The mask wars

Then masks became a thing. First, they made people feel safer. Then they became a new source of division and conflict.

Fred Meyer was now in survival mode. Store hours were cut. The store limped along with reduced staff. There began to be rows of empty shelves. I think they actually did run out of toilet paper at one point.

That summer, the George Floyd protests began and became a nightly occurrence in downtown Portland.

At Fred Meyer, you’d occasionally see young protesters and members of Antifa on their way home to their parents’ houses in the suburbs — after a night of throwing rocks at the police.

One night, I encountered two young kids in black bloc. With great excitement and fervor, they told me about being tear-gassed by the “fascist police.”

They might have been the same kids who had been bagging groceries the year before.

Vibe shift

When the worst of COVID had passed, Fred Meyer recovered somewhat. It reinstated its original hours. It seemed to have steady employees again, though I noticed the kindly people who worked there in 2019 had been replaced in 2022 by sullen, silent workers with neck tattoos.

There were no bright-faced teenagers. Nobody said "hi" to you. The place was not as clean as it once was. Shelves continued to be empty. You couldn’t count on certain items being available. You had to adopt a “buy it when you see it” shopping strategy.

Soon after, Freddy’s began instituting new security measures. The company put in gates you had to pass through going in and out. You could see yourself in a video monitor as you entered. Plainclothes security people sometimes stood guard at the exits.

It was obvious why. Unsavory characters had begun to appear at the store, especially at night, though there was no reason for them to be in that neighborhood.

You’d see broken-down cars in the parking lot with strange people sitting inside them. Were they doing drugs? Or maybe sleeping there overnight?

Early one morning, a car was set on fire in Freddy’s back parking lot. The suburban fire department came and put it out. It made the local news. There was no word on what happened or why.

To its credit, Fred Meyer still doesn’t have armed guards on site. But it’s coming. I’m sure.

Jean-Louis Atlan/Getty Images

The nursery

One last thing: Fred Meyer has a large open-air nursery attached to the grocery store. It’s full of flowers, houseplants, and gardening supplies.

It’s a first sign of spring when it opens in April and marks the beginning of winter when it closes in October.

But just this week — mid-August — staff began locking the outside gates. Now the nursery is only accessible through the front entrance. Were people stealing the flowers?

When those gates were open, I often entered the store via a stroll through the cheerful nursery. It was a highlight of shopping there.

Closing doors

When I saw the sign and the locked gate, it felt like an assault. On me personally and on the entire community. It was another closing door. Another innocent pleasure snatched away.

And who exactly could you blame for this? The government, the store, the social democrats, the understaffed police?

Back in 2019, when those smiling high school kids asked me how I was doing, I always said, “Great.” Because I was great. Because Freddy’s was great. Because America was great.

It’s probably good they aren’t there any more. I don’t know what I would say to them.

Want to sell your book? Vilify the Christians who raised you.

Last year, here in Portland, I went to an author event at my local bookstore. The book was called "On Fire for God: Fear, Shame, Poverty, and the Making of the Christian Right." It was a memoir by Josiah Hesse.

The event description said the memoir was about Hesse’s “bleak and difficult childhood in a small, rural Evangelical community in Iowa.”

My guess is that his literary agent or his editor understood how hungry mainstream publishers are for books that attack and slander the Christian faith.

Apparently, Hesse suffered mental anguish as a child when he was told by church elders that he was going to be tortured in hell for his sins.

Breaking with his church and family while still in his teens, he struck out on his own, eventually becoming a successful writer and journalist. Now he had written a book exposing the Christian right.

Dissing Christians

Hesse was doing a national book tour. He was traveling the country doing interviews and podcasts. He had just been featured on National Public Radio.

Needless to say, the mainstream media loved this book. A full frontal attack on the Midwestern evangelicals is always welcome in their circles. Especially if the author escaped the oppression of the church and found shelter in the safe spaces of progressive liberalism.

The book event began with Josiah Hesse making a grand entrance into the bookstore’s event area.

I didn’t know what to expect from such an author in terms of appearance, but I was definitely not expecting the rock-star shag haircut, the crisp white shirt, the shimmering black dinner jacket, or the elegant cravat around his neck.

Had this guy come here on his yacht? His face had definitely been moisturized. He looked like he could be in an ABBA tribute band.

Getting to know the author

Hesse took the stage and began his talk. He described growing up as an evangelical Christian.

As a young man, he was sensitive and imaginative and didn’t fit in. His parents, meanwhile, were loyal evangelicals. His dad believed in the “end times” and the eventual rise of the Antichrist.

In his teen years, Hesse’s feelings of alienation from his family and community got progressively worse. It didn’t help matters that he developed a taste for wearing high heels and trying on his mother’s clothes.

Small-town boy

So it turns out that Josiah was gay! Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Eventually, he did what so many young gay people do: When he was old enough, he moved to the nearest big city. In this case, Denver.

There, he scraped by, working odd jobs and picking up writing gigs. Over time, he was able to develop his talent and eventually got a literary agent and published a book called "Runner's High" at a major publishing house.

Watching him talk, he seemed like an upbeat guy. He told funny stories. He didn’t seem traumatized by his Christian upbringing. He was just gay. And now he was a successful writer who was gay.

Joe McNally/Getty Images

Family ties

I also noticed the “breaking with his family” part of the story wasn’t quite as severe as promised. In his talk, he described returning home, hanging out with his dad, meeting up with old friends, reconnecting as best he could.

It was an interesting and relatable story.

So what happened to the evil Christian right? That’s what the book was supposed to be about. Where’s the trauma? Where’s the abuse? Where are the scars?

The Portland audience seemed restless and disappointed. Where was the evil? That’s what they came for. WE WANT OUR CHRISTIAN EVIL!

Not following the script

I haven’t read the book, so I don’t know for sure what’s in it. Hesse did quote some statistics during his talk.

These statistics seemed designed to reassure the anti-Christian audience that he was on their side. Trump is bad. Conservatives are neanderthals. Christians are brainwashed and in some cases predatory.

But I was skeptical. I didn’t believe Hesse was really this simpleminded. He was clearly an intelligent guy. He wasn’t super political. He didn’t hate his family, or his town, or his old friends.

He had moved away from his rural community, as any talented gay person would do. He found his people in Denver. And now he was writing books and living his best life.

Go where the money is

My guess is that his literary agent, or his editor, or maybe Hesse himself understood how hungry mainstream publishers are for books that attack and slander the Christian faith.

They especially love books that confirm the stereotype: “small-town Christians = bigots + racists.”

These memoirs are so popular that there’s a formula:

The author is abused and humiliated by the sadistic locals.
The author breaks free of their bigotry and finds his way to the “good people,” i.e. college-educated liberals in coastal cities.
There, the formerly oppressed author can flourish and be his true self: gay, or nonbinary, or furry, or poly-whatever.
Everyone lives happily ever after.

That’s the genre that Josiah Hesse’s "On Fire for God" supposedly belongs to. (See also "Educated" by Tara Westover, another memoir with almost the exact same storyline.)

Did Josiah strictly adhere to that formula? More or less. My main impression of the author: He looked happy. His writing career was going great. He was on a national tour. He was staying in nice hotels. He was wearing a cravat.

And I’m sure his publishers got what they wanted too. Another book that confirms that educated people, good people, moral people are uniformly against the Christian right, which is apparently an ongoing threat to our nation.

The only problem is: Whenever someone writes a book about the “dangerous Christian right,” it turns out he is just describing another small town in Iowa — usually, a town where, if you actually went there, you would find kind, decent people who, when you brought up the “Christian right,” wouldn’t even know what you were talking about.

Jesus in the temple (of progressivism): What I learned watching Portlanders debate a street preacher

Recently, I stopped to grab a pizza slice in the Hawthorne district of Portland. This is a trendy neighborhood, full of vintage shops, vinyl record stores, hipster cafes. The vibe is very liberal progressive.

As I approached the pizza place, I heard someone talking over a loudspeaker. I assumed there was a protest going on. Or a Pride event.

A green-haired woman said: 'Are you sure God is a He?'

But then I saw what it was: A street preacher was proselytizing and holding a big sign that read, "SINNERS REPENT! OR BURN IN HELL!"

Potty mouths repent!

I’d never seen one of these guys in the wild. Not in Portland. I’ve seen them on YouTube, where they often get into fights with people. Or sometimes, they get attacked.

As I got closer, I could read the large sign and its long list of hell-bound sinners:

Perverts
Fornicators
Homosexuals
Adulterers
Potty mouths
Drunkards
Thieves
Liars
Used car salesmen (yes, this was on the list)

The street preacher was a skinny, youngish guy (30?) with a trendy mustache. He wore a cap that said in big letters, "OBEY GOD."

He was standing on the corner, just outside my pizzeria. At the moment I went inside, he was being yelled at by a short, angry, gray-haired man (50?). I didn’t hear what was being said. I went inside.

Once I had my slice, I sat by the window so I could further observe the adventures of the street preacher and his sign.

By then, the short, angry guy had left. What had he been yelling about? He was probably outraged that a street preacher would dare come plant himself in the middle of the liberal Hawthorne district. And it was June! It was still Pride Month!

We need to have a dialogue

Once the short, angry guy was gone, things calmed down. But other people continued to stop and gawk at the street preacher or engage him in conversation.

For a while, a young woman (25?) was questioning him. She wasn’t yelling, but she seemed pretty worked up.

The street preacher listened to her and seemed to consider what she was saying. I was surprised by how intelligent he looked. Also, he was a reasonably good-looking guy. He wasn’t the pot-bellied, crew-cut fanatic one might expect.

Does God exist?

By the time I finished my pizza slice, a new crowd of people had formed around the street preacher. I went outside and joined the group. I wanted to hear what people were saying.

A middle-aged man wearing cargo shorts and Teva sandals was asking the street preacher questions: If there’s a God, why are there wars? Why is there poverty and disease? And how could God send anyone to burn in hell for eternity? Doesn’t God forgive? Doesn’t He love everyone equally?

To me, these questions sounded like what a 14-year-old would ask. Which made me wonder to myself: “Is everyone in Portland 14?”

Passage Publishing; Washington Post/Getty Images

What would Jesus do?

Another bystander joined in. He said that Christ didn’t go around denouncing people for their sexual preference. How could the street preacher carry a sign criticizing any people? Jesus would never do that.

The street preacher’s reply was something like: “The true God is a rigorous God. A righteous God. A God who does not tolerate sin. A God who does not excuse liars and perverts. God wants us to be godly. He wants us to live godly lives.”

A green-haired woman said: “Are you sure God is a He?”

The street preacher said: “God is our heavenly Father. He knows what is best for us. It is not our place to negotiate with Him. It is our place to obey Him.”

Classic liberal beliefs

That quieted the nonbelievers for a moment. But then other people chimed in. They espoused the classic liberal belief that “tolerance” and “acceptance” were always best. Who are we to judge?

But the street preacher stuck with his “rigorous” God idea. God had given us simple instructions. It was up to us to follow them. If you think you have a better plan than God ... if you think you know better than God ... well, good luck with that!

So who won the debate?

I don’t think anyone changed their minds during these discussions. But it was interesting to watch. People were respectful of each other at least. That was nice to see.

The main thing I took away from the debate was how poised the street preacher was. He was deep in enemy territory. But he never lost his cool. And he had clear and succinct responses to every question.

It was the Hawthorne atheists who couldn’t really articulate a coherent position. The best they could come up with was: “If God exists, why are people sad?”

Nor could the onlookers match the street preacher’s moral conviction. They were relativists. They couldn’t say what was “bad” or “good.” Anything could be “good,” if that’s what you were “into.”

Which worked fine in nonbinary, morally ambiguous Portland. But it wasn’t going to win an argument with this street preacher. Not today. Not even with the entire Hawthorne district backing you. This guy was taking on all comers. And he was not backing down.

'Culturally Specific Corrections Counselors,' a 'Construction Diversity and Equity Fund,' and Race-Based Shelter Referrals: Portland Proposes Budget Larded With Racially Discriminatory Programs

Multnomah County, Oregon, which includes the majority of Portland, plans to spend nearly $300 million on explicitly race-conscious programs over the next year, documents reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show, including a program that aims to house minority veterans "at rates equal to or greater than their white peers."

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Is it finally time to abandon my ultra-liberal hometown?

I’m looking at new apartments this week here in Portland, Oregon. It’s time for an upgrade.

This has triggered a debate I often have with myself: If I’m going to move, why not leave dysfunctional, far-left Portland altogether?

Had I become so comfortable with the bad vibes of Portland that I would stay here indefinitely, out of inertia or laziness or not wanting to start over?

This is my chance to move to a different city. Or another state. Somewhere with fewer drug addicts and criminals roaming the streets and fewer democratic socialists roaming city hall.

I grew up in Portland. I have lived here off and on throughout my life. During my most productive years as a writer, I lived in bigger, more media-oriented cities, mainly New York and Los Angeles.

But I’ve always loved coming back to Oregon and assumed I would settle here when I retire. Portland always felt like my place. I love the tall trees, the gentle rain, the misty Oregon coast.

Free radicals

Unfortunately, over the last 15 years, Portland has become a hotbed of radicalism and political intolerance. So much so that it has affected my daily life.

I’ve always socialized with creative types. But in Portland, the artistic community is often more hysterical than the violent protesters in the street.

Once it became known I was conservative, I lost about 80% of my writer friends. And maybe half of my other friends. This social exclusion was especially bad during the years around #MeToo, and then COVID, and of course the constant presence of Trump derangement syndrome.

Un-friendzoned

The result is that living here has been like living on a desert island. I feel unwelcome at art events. I avoid literary parties and gallery openings.

One egregious example: I didn’t attend the celebration of life for one of my most important literary mentors, a beloved Portland poet who encouraged me as a young writer and helped advance my career.

I owed so much to this man, and I couldn’t go to his funeral!

Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Tiny bubbles

Recently, I saw a TikTok video by a woman whose family had moved from Seattle to Wyoming.

Her message was simple: “No matter how much you think you are aware of the bubble you live in, when you get out of these far-left cities, a whole new world opens up to you.”

This hit me hard. Had I become so comfortable with the bad vibes of Portland that I would stay here indefinitely, out of inertia or laziness or not wanting to start over?

My own private Idaho

One reason I’m reluctant to move to a red state is I’m not sure I would fit in.

Take for example, Boise, Idaho, the closest red city to Portland. I’ve visited there many times. It’s clean. There are no homeless. The people are super nice. It’s very “churchy” and family-oriented. There’s a large Mormon population.

But could I adapt to such a place? I’ve lived in liberal cities MY ENTIRE LIFE. I have never lived in a place like Boise. Would I find people who understand my sense of humor? People who like the obscure music I listen to? Or read the books I read?

Yes, the people of Boise would share my core values. But would they share my urban tastes?

Go east, young man

I had a Republican friend here in Portland who moved to Florida during Trump’s first term. At the time, that seemed like a drastic change.

For a couple of years, I emailed him every few months to ask how he was doing. He had settled right in. Florida was great. He loved it there.

As he grew more comfortable in Florida, I grew less comfortable in Portland. Now, in 2026, moving to Florida 10 years ago seems like a genius move. I am humbled by his foresight.

The great escape?

So what should I do? Be the latecomer, arriving in Tampa or Austin or Nashville a decade after all the smart people already moved there?

I guess it’s never too late. I could still escape.

But what about the tall trees, the gentle rain, and the misty coastline I love so much? What about my roots in the place where I grew up?

Robert E. Lee didn’t abandon his home state of Virginia in the face of a civil war. But Virginia was famous for its proud history and strong cultural heritage.

I’m from Portland, famous for people with orange hair who don’t know what gender they are.

Fall into the gap

I’ve always assumed Portland’s current political extremism would fade over time. Sooner or later, people would calm down and return to some form of normalcy.

But whenever I try to connect with my former liberal friends, I quickly learn that the derangement is stronger than ever.

So, should I stay or should I go?

These are the decisions we have to make during these difficult times — as we struggle to maintain our sense of ourselves and of where we came from.

Disabled Woman Sues Multnomah County After Race-Based Program Denies Her Rent Relief

A disabled woman is suing the homeless services department in Multnomah County, Oregon, after she was denied rent relief due to her low score on the county's race-based prioritization rubric, which awards more points for requesting "culturally specific services"—including "BIPOC"-focused housing—than for having a disability.

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