A couple I know well has a Millennial daughter. I’ll call her “Marsha.” For years, she claimed to suffer from a severe case of self-diagnosed gluten intolerance. That fad eventually passed, though Celiac disease is real, and it appears to be on the rise. Nevertheless, Marsha recovered and went back to eating pasta and bread without any problems.

But she and her children have since fallen into a far more dangerous trend.

The transgender fad will fade away. But unlike the gluten fad, innocents are being disfigured for life and denied the pleasures of a normal adulthood — all in service to a runaway social experiment.

Her tween daughter now lives as a trans-identifying boy. And Marsha regularly dresses her preschool-aged son in little girls’ clothes.

These aren’t isolated choices. Marsha has once again been swept up in a social contagion — a phenomenon especially common among her age group. The gluten craze ended with little more than inconvenience. But the transgender trend leads to lasting harm. It encourages confusion, medicalization, and, in many cases, the sterilization of children.

At the height of her gluten obsession, Marsha treated every meal as a kind of dietary emergency. At restaurants, she would lecture the waitstaff about keeping all traces of bread and pasta away from her plate. If a dinner roll appeared by mistake, she wouldn’t just set it aside — she’d demand a completely new entrée, claiming the first had been “contaminated.”

She spoke and acted as if gluten carried radioactive properties. Today, her delusions have grown worse.

Marsha now believes her daughter is her son — and more tragically, she has convinced the child of the same. This is not just a personal fixation. It’s a mind virus, and it’s spreading. And it’s doing real, irreversible damage.

Legitimizing a ‘mind virus’

Elite academic and scientific institutions, now fully aligned with the political left, refuse to entertain any discussion of “rapid onset gender dysphoria” or its potential as a social contagion. Scientific American openly celebrates efforts to silence dissent. The American Psychological Association, joined by 61 other organizations, condemned any researcher who dares suggest that rapid onset transgender identification is real or that it’s affecting children.

When studies present data showing that “transitioning” may harm children’s health, the scientific establishment doesn’t engage with the findings. It demands retractions.

Compare this to the response a few decades ago, when anorexia and bulimia surged among young women. At the time, scholars rightly identified the trend as a social contagion. No sane person would have suggested that someone could be “assigned anorexic at birth.” And no ethical observer would have urged friends or family to support anorexic behavior by celebrating starvation as self-expression. That would have been seen not as compassion but as cruelty — and possibly a sign of mental illness in its own right.

Marsha’s pattern — first falling for the gluten fad, then embracing transgender ideology — shows why this trend deserves the same scrutiny. The signs point to another social contagion. Only this time, the cost is higher.

Photo by Jason Davis via Getty Images

Marsha’s parents seek to maintain a presence in their grandchildren’s lives. They want to help those children keep a foothold in reality while monitoring that no permanent damage is being done to their grandchildren. Puberty blockers and sex-change operations on minors are illegal in the state where Marsha and her children live. Many people are praying that Marsha’s current obsession won’t result in irreversible, lifetime bodily harm to her children.

Victimhood carries cachet

Many describe the transgender craze as a “woke mind virus” for good reason. It targets people like Marsha — white, straight, and desperate for meaning in a culture that elevates victimhood.

In an era where claiming oppression earns social status, Marsha fits nowhere. So she compensates. Over the years, she has loudly backed every progressive cause that allows a straight, white savior to feel virtuous: gay rights, Black Lives Matter, and whatever comes next.

But the need to feel oppressed is powerful. During the 2020 race riots, Marsha took to social media to tell her followers she felt “shaken” and “scared.” She claimed someone had stolen a BLM flag from her front porch in the dead of night. According to Marsha, her home security camera caught the grainy image of a figure — white, male, roughly 6', wearing a mask and baseball cap. By sheer coincidence, her compliant husband also happens to be white, male, roughly 6', and never puts up a fuss.

Now, with a “transgender” child, Marsha has finally secured what eluded her: a place near the top of the victimhood hierarchy. She eventually recognized that rainbow-flag-waving white allies had become punchlines in the very activist circles they tried to impress. But a trans child? That’s a ticket to credibility — admittance to the club, with VIP status.

Unlike gluten hysteria, the transgender fad won’t end with harmless dietary quirks. It leaves children scarred, sterilized, and denied the ordinary joys of adulthood. Marsha may see herself as a kind of brave victim. But she’s a willing carrier of a destructive social contagion — and her children will suffer the lasting damage.

Woke pastor teams up with Al Sharpton to revive Target’s woke agenda

Dr. Jamal Bryant, a liberal black preacher at a Baptist megachurch in Georgia, is angry that Target stores have dropped the secular left’s diversity, equity, and inclusion initiative. And so, along with Al Sharpton, he has urged black people to boycott Target.

Bryant is leading a deceitful political scam while insisting he is a man who seeks to help black people. DEI has never been about that. Instead, proponents of DEI play the race card, using black Americans to advance what amounts to a godless agenda. Worse, in pressuring Target to restore DEI, this man of the cloth is undermining the gains Christians have made in getting the retailer to remove homosexual-themed children’s clothing from their stores.

Should Bryant’s boycott grow enough to overwhelm complacent Christians, it could possibly provide Target a new political lifeline (and excuse) to reverse course on DEI.

As many will recall, back in 2023, Target made national news when conservative influencers and media outlets reported how the national retailer was using customer profits to target children with a marketing campaign promoting pro-homosexual-themed apparel. This was bad enough by itself.

You boycotted, Target listened

What added insult to injury was the way Target seemed to be riding a wave of some organized propaganda campaign pushing drag-queen story hours — where perverse men dressed in women’s clothing would read books to children — often while behaving in lewd and suggestive ways.

As a result, a tsunami of public outrage ensued, and an untold number of Americans immediately decided to boycott Target stores.

It made a difference: Target got the message that the bulk of its consumers reject the woke agenda. In June 2024, the retailer announced that it would no longer sell children’s apparel as part of its “Pride Collection.” Even though Target still sells merchandise that promotes the homosexual lifestyle, the removal of this apparel from the children’s departments is nonetheless a victory for morality.

This victory was followed by President Donald Trump’s executive order against DEI in January, which prompted Target to join other major companies — including Walmart, McDonald’s, and Ford — in announcing it would end several corporate DEI initiatives.

A counter-boycott

This is when the left-wing preacher Bryant stepped into the breach to stage a counter-boycott that attempted to mimic what conservatives had done.

Protesting against the corporate practices that include selling homosexual-themed paraphernalia to children is an odd move for a man with the title of preacher — one would hope he is in agreement with biblical values.

Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images

In fact, Bryant has never publicly denounced Target’s previous practices. Yet, he’s chosen now to speak up and fight for Target to restore DEI. And so has Twin Cities Pride, a homosexual activist group, which also lashed out at Target for ending its DEI initiatives.

Seeing that Bryant is taking the same side as Twin Cities Pride, it’s hard not to conclude that Bryant’s passionate drive to pressure Target to reinstate DEI is motivated by his full-throated agreement with the far left’s secular agenda.

There’s more proof of this.

Woke, not Christian

Not long ago, Bryant appeared on a podcast and engaged in a heated exchange about political and spiritual matters with Pastor Mark Burns, a black conservative pastor who has gained fame for his support of President Trump.

The takeaway from some online viewers was that Bryant did not align with the standard scriptural interpretation that the Bible supports only traditional marriage and opposes abortion.

To make matters worse, Bryant seems to be making inroads with Target CEO Brian Cornell. In a symbolic gesture of agreement, Cornell reached out and met with Al Sharpton because of Bryant’s boycott.

It’s important to note that Cornell was also CEO of Target back in 2023 and had initially refused to back down from selling rainbow-colored onesies for infants and T-shirts that say, “Pride Adult Drag Queen ‘Katya,’” “Trans people will always exist!” and “Girls Gays Theys.” He was so adamant about pushing the homosexual agenda on kids that, in response to conservative backlash, he told the press that he thought it was “the right thing for society.” Cornell also admitted that this agenda is directly linked to Target’s DEI initiatives: “The things we’ve done from a DEI standpoint, it’s adding value,” Cornell said.

Hold the line

Based on these comments, can there be any doubt that Target would love to restore DEI, including its children’s “Pride Collection”? Of course not. But the social pressure against it is finally having an effect. That is, it was until Bryant and others began to get louder.

Let there be no doubt: Should Bryant’s boycott grow enough to overwhelm complacent Christians and conservatives, it could possibly provide Cornell a new political lifeline (and excuse) to reverse course on DEI. If that happens, you can bet that all perverse children’s merchandise will return to store shelves.

Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared originally at Chronicles Magazine.

Woke '60 Minutes' host Scott Pelley claims diversity is now 'illegal' in progressive rant at Wake Forest commencement

CBS News and "60 Minutes" host Scott Pelley delivered a speech to university graduates that was pro-free speech and seemingly against President Donald Trump's administration.

The 67-year-old spoke at Wake Forest University's commencement on May 19 in what was an incredibly performative address, discussing fascism, free speech, and even Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

'Diversity is now described as illegal. Equity is to be shunned. Inclusion is a dirty word.'

After several jokes bombed with the audience of heat stroke-adjacent graduates, the crowd cooked in the 84-degree weather as Pelley flamboyantly raved about his work in astronomy, his travel to the United Kingdom, and his interview with the Ukrainian leader.

Pelley then warned onlookers that many would not like what he had to say before delving into commentary about how the "sacred rule of law is under attack" in the United States.

"Journalism is under attack. Universities are under attack. Freedom of speech is under attack, and insidious fear is reaching through our schools, our businesses, our homes, and into our private thoughts," he said.

The reporter then seemed to direct his words at Trump and his administration, albeit without naming the sitting president.

"The fear to speak in America," Pelley said, emphasizing the audacity of the idea.

Waving his arms in the air and gesturing as if he were in a Broadway play, Pelley accurately stated that "power can rewrite history with grotesque, false narratives."

"They can make criminals heroes and heroes criminals. Power can change the definition of the words we use to describe reality," he continued.

Then, revealing his progressive bias, Pelley claimed that "diversity is now described as illegal. Equity is to be shunned. Inclusion is a dirty word."

The Texan added, "This is an old playbook, my friends. There's nothing new in this."

President Donald Trump addresses graduates at West Point in Michie Stadium, May 24, 2025. Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

In response to a clip of the speech, Fox News reporter Guy Benson pointed out that "60 Minutes" aired a glowing segment about Germany's anti-free speech policies in February, noting that it included "ZERO dissenting voices" and not even "one quote against censorship."

During the segment, CBS host Sharyn Alfonsi asked a panel of German lawyers if it was a crime in their country to insult someone in public.

"Yes. Yes. It is," was their reply; they also agreed it was a crime to insult someone online.

Josephine Ballon, one of the prosecutors, also said, "Without boundaries, a very small group of people can rely on endless freedom to say anything they want, while everyone else is scared and intimidated."

Pelley's remarks at Wake Forest could not be categorized as anti-free speech, though, and actually mirrored a typical pro-America diatribe.

"Your country needs you and needs you today," Pelley told the audience. "America works well when we listen to those we disagree with ... and have common ground and compromise."

However, the host's words included a progressive twist at almost every turn — and perverted the reality of who or what is standing in the way of true free speech.

"One thing we can all agree on, one thing at least," he said. "America is at her best when everyone is included."

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Trump and Musk tag-team to deflate the woke power structure

President Donald Trump's crusade against DEI advocacy and “woke” social philosophy is not only rhetorical — it’s reshaping our institutional culture.

This reversal follows years of aggressive momentum in the opposite direction. Diversity officers flooded campuses and corporate offices, enforcing a rigid ideological orthodoxy. Student activists didn’t just protest disfavored speakers; they blocked them from speaking altogether. Meanwhile, employees at major media outlets and tech companies pressured their bosses to align with their own political demands, often through coordinated campaigns of public shaming and internal revolt.

If we take the time to understand history, we can prepare ourselves for some highly potent threats.

In recent months, the DEI juggernaut has improbably slowed and nearly ground to a halt. Various organizations have announced changes in policies or reductions in the number of positions devoted to woke initiatives.

Most notable, perhaps, was Meta's announcement that it would stop throttling political content and engaging in censorious fact-checking practices.

The reversal is viscerally shocking because the major platforms had become comfortable using censorship tactics, silencing anyone who dared to deviate from the approved narrative — even banning Trump.

Why the sudden change?

One explanation for the rapid change is that Trump's decisive victory in the 2024 presidential election gave permission to various elites to discern a new consensus in the broader society.

I believe there is something more significant than some kind of radar telling executives that the woke movement somehow overreached. Certainly, it is the case that social movements go too far and have to consolidate their gains before further advance. But there is something different here that everyone should consider.

The great management thinker Peter Drucker’s first book was called “The End of Economic Man.” One of the key insights from his book was in recognizing similarities between fascist and communist approaches to controlling a society. Both evolved single-party structures that ran parallel to already existing government and corporate (even if state-owned) institutions. That means that while a police force or factory or school would have a hierarchy of leadership, there would be another chain of authority that was political accompanying it. The parallel party authority had the responsibility of ensuring that the prerogatives of policing or producing or educating never won out over the political imperatives.

Whether we are talking about Nazis or Soviet communists, the same dynamic was operative.

Anyone aware of those powerful forces and realities that existed in Germany, Russia, and in other places should be able to readily see that the various philosophies (race, gender, anti-Israel, climate, etc.) uniting under the banner of woke have been cohering into a similar kind of movement in the United States. With gathering momentum, they constructed parallel powers within American institutions.

Those wielding the woke authority have been pushing hard to make their priorities the strongest and most undeniable in any organization. It was the same for Nazi or communist ideology. This is true even in some American churches where Black Lives Matter and Pride flags often seem to have displaced the cross and the Bible almost entirely.

This argument doesn’t rely on comparisons to Nazis or totalitarians for shock value. I’m not trying to score an easy win through historical name-calling. Instead, I offer a straightforward observation: Powerful movements in the 20th century gained influence by capturing institutions. Today, we’re witnessing similar strategies from modern social movements.

If we want to avoid building a society where ideological activists dictate how every institution operates, we must stop enabling their rise and expansion.

Thanks, Elon

Some American elites — perhaps most notably Elon Musk, who took real social and professional risks — seem to have recognized the threat. Whether they act out of principle, instinct, or self-preservation, they’ve begun to push back.

This doesn’t mean CEOs will start waging open war against the woke movement. But we are seeing a quiet deflation. The cultural balloon has started to lose air. Enough people remember the mistakes of the last century to help steer us away from the edge of the woke cliff.

Former Secretary of State George Shultz once remarked of the political battle of ideas and initiatives, “It’s never over.” That’s true. Even if the woke alliance suffers setbacks, there is little doubt that some other event or some other charismatic figure will manage to infuse life into something earlier believed to be moribund.

But the good thing is that if we take the time to understand history, we can prepare ourselves for some highly potent threats because we know what human beings have done before and can perhaps inoculate ourselves against intellectual viruses with particularly destructive impact.

Agree to disagree? More like surrender to the script

Wouldn’t you know it? It was bound to happen.

You’re chatting with a friend about this, that, and the other thing — carefully steering clear of politics, just like always.

You both know you don't see eye to eye when it comes to today’s contentious political landscape, so you do your best to keep things light. But then, out of nowhere, the forbidden topic appears. It sneaks into the conversation, innocently enough — until suddenly, it’s front and center.

I knew my friend Jeffrey didn’t like Trump, so I always tried to avoid politics when we talked. But somehow, I found myself on the phone with him getting a lecture on “how bad Trump is for democracy.”

What happened?

All I did was mention a film I thought we both appreciate: “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.”

With people in general justifying the absolute obvious craziness of the far left by being silent and looking the other way, we can announce a brand-new term: ‘political immaturity.’

I genuinely believed it was a safe topic. We’re both Christians, both admirers of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his courageous stand against Hitler and the Nazis. We also share respect for Eric Metaxas, whose book on Bonhoeffer many consider the definitive biography and which inspired the film adaptation.

Plus, Jeffrey knows I was Metaxas’ radio producer for many years. So really, I thought we were on solid, non-controversial ground.

But Jeffrey immediately jumped in to point out that Bonhoeffer’s descendants don’t support Eric Metaxas — because Metaxas supports Trump. That, in his view, proved just how awful Trump is and, dare I say it, how Hitler-like. From there, it was only a short leap to his inevitable conclusion: Trump is bad for democracy.

I calmly responded that descendants of historical figures, while entitled to their opinions, are just as influenced by the culture of their time as anyone else. Then I added what I considered the most glaring problem with his argument: the United States isn’t a democracy — we’re a constitutional republic.

I suggested that, in many ways, democracy can be a lousy form of government. After all, it allows 51% of the people to impose their will on the other 49%, forcing them to live under rules they didn’t choose and might not benefit from. In my quick tutorial on democracy versus the American system, I didn’t even get into the brilliance of the framers’ creation of the Electoral College — a safeguard that gives individual states real power and influence.

To my surprise, Jeffrey actually agreed with me on that point. But then he pivoted, arguing that Trump was just doing whatever he wanted — like sending back all the “asylum-seekers” who crossed the border during Joe Biden’s presidency.

I asked him how he knew all 15 million migrants (give or take) were asylum-seekers. Who vetted them? And I reminded him that Trump had nearly been blocked from deporting even the worst of the worst — violent criminals — by an unelected judge from ... well, somewhere.

Then I said, “It’s hard to imagine the words ‘Christian’ and ‘Democrat’ even appearing in the same sentence these days.”

That didn’t go over well.

I listed just a few of the issues Democrats continue to support. I left out the wide-open borders — which my friend seemed fine with, even after I brought up the rise in sex trafficking, fentanyl deaths, and inner-city crime — and focused on other examples. I mentioned sex-change procedures for children, drag queen story hours in public libraries, and men competing in women’s sports.

That’s when Jeffrey cut me off.

“Of course I don’t agree with those things,” he said.

And then came the words every far-left friend says when he's on the brink of losing an argument to inconvenient facts: “Let’s just agree to disagree.”

End of discussion.

Since Jeffrey is a friend, I let the conversation fizzle out. We exchanged a few more pleasantries and then said our goodbyes.

But not long after I hung up, I realized how disingenuous “agree to disagree” can be in a discussion or debate. That phrase shuts down dialogue. It signals that neither side will reconsider his position and, worse, that neither side is allowed to keep making his case or challenging the other’s facts.

What struck me even more was how casually Jeffrey used the phrase — not just with me, but seemingly with his own party. It was as if he could personally find things like child gender surgeries or men in women’s locker rooms repugnant — especially as a Christian — but still wave it all off because Democrats “stand up for the little guy.”

To avoid making waves, many Christians stepped onto the slippery slope of so-called “political correctness” years ago. The idea was simple: Being on the “right side” of politics meant standing up for marginalized people. And what Christian wouldn’t want to be seen doing that? After all, didn’t the Bible and the saints speak out for the disadvantaged?

But over time, political correctness evolved. Or rather, it escalated. “PC” gave way to “woke,” and suddenly we were all expected to embrace a new worldview — one in which anyone with a shred of sanity and compassion would naturally join the swelling ranks of the awakened. Christians, of course, were included in that expectation — if they knew what was good for them and wanted to belong to the era’s grand new “Awokening.”

So what’s next?

With people in general justifying the absolute obvious craziness of the far left by being silent and looking the other way, we can announce a brand-new term: “political immaturity.”

When you ignore common sense to do whatever you are told is “correct” and “woke,” you have not matured into rationally thinking for yourself. You might start with a wish to "go along to get along," and now you are being led around and told what to think and do like somebody's child.

The only hope for America over these next few critical years is a true Great Awakening to the truth within the church that can lead to a foundational restoration within this great country.

Optimistically speaking, if we take this route, future generations might look back and say with joy: “Wouldn’t you know it? It was bound to happen!”

Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared originally at American Thinker.

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Her son wears dresses, her daughter’s a ‘boy,’ and it’s all for status

Legitimizing a ‘mind virus’

Victimhood carries cachet

Woke pastor teams up with Al Sharpton to revive Target’s woke agenda

You boycotted, Target listened

A counter-boycott

Woke, not Christian

Hold the line

Woke '60 Minutes' host Scott Pelley claims diversity is now 'illegal' in progressive rant at Wake Forest commencement

Trump and Musk tag-team to deflate the woke power structure

Why the sudden change?

Thanks, Elon

Agree to disagree? More like surrender to the script

Here are the top 3 LEAST patriotic members of Congress

Ask yourself the one question that separates patriots from pretenders

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Sheriffs in Democratic strongholds partner with ICE to back Trump's deportation surge

Sex-changing frogs and infertile humans: Will MAHA target infamous herbicide contaminating America's water?

Legitimizing a ‘mind virus’

Victimhood carries cachet

You boycotted, Target listened

A counter-boycott

Woke, not Christian

Hold the line

Why the sudden change?

Thanks, Elon

We’ll keep you informed with top stories for conservatives who want to become informed decision makers.