It was only a matter of time before the media began to explain to us that the coronavirus pandemic has been especially difficult for transgender and non-binary people and that as such, we should be paying special attention to gender ideology during this difficult time. After all, trans issues have plunged from the forefront of our politics to a virtual non-issue in the time it took for the virus to cripple Europe and reach North America, which is to say not very long.
Trans activists have spent the last five years accusing those who believe that there are two sexes of “erasing the existence” of non-binary people, and now they have to watch as health organizations and governments record the cases of coronavirus in the male and female populations while the dozens of other mythical genders get ignored. It’s almost as if trans activists are being brushed off the way a usually doting parent might silence a whining child: Hush now, we have no time for that at the moment. Maybe later.
It is fascinating that during a time of genuine emergency, many people just drop the act almost by default. It’s almost as if gender ideology is a luxury that gave the elites something to virtue-signal about before we had real problems. Feminist Twitter is having a good time illustrating the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the fact that those who enable the gender ideologues do not actually believe what they say they believe — at least, not when the chips are down. Headlines are being contrasted to highlight this. On October 25, 2018, for example, the New York Times ran a column titled “Why Sex Is Not Binary.” On April 2, 2020, the paper ran a column titled “Why Are So Many More Men Dying of Coronavirus?” The implication was obvious: why are more men than women dying of coronavirus? Nobody has time to pretend that sex isn’t binary — not right now. We can’t afford to.
