How I Came Out as Gender-Critical

“Would you like to write an op-ed for the Washington Post about what’s going on in your school?” my well-connected journalist friend asked me over the phone.

I’d been fighting Arlington (VA) Public Schools’ determination to funnel the GLSEN Model School District Policy on Transgender Students (which obliterates rights and protections for girls and children) into our system for months, mostly anonymously and behind the scenes with the Arlington Parent Coalition team. But now I had the chance to have a national audience, as long as I’d sign my real name to the op-ed.

I wrote the piece.

Hours before the deadline, I sat in front of my computer with the cursor blinking on top of the SEND button. My finger hovered over the ENTER key as my mind catalogued all of the bad things that could possibly happen to me if I came out publicly as someone who questioned the gender cult.

Would trans-rights activists come after me? Might they vandalize my home or my car? Were they vicious enough to go after my kids? What if they tried to get my husband fired from his job? What if I ever needed to find a job in my woke-to-the-core county?

I knew I’d lose friends and gain enemies. My recently-developing writing career, at which I’d labored for more than two decades, would probably go down in flames.

My finger continued to hover, anxiety-ridden about what could happen if I sent the piece to the editor.

But then I came upon the linchpin question: “How are you going to feel 24 hours from now if you don’t submit this article?

I answered myself: “I will know for the rest of my life that I am a coward.”