This past Friday and Saturday, Alaska Family Council (AFC) invited de-transitioner Chloe Cole and author Logan Lancing to speak about their experience and expertise fighting the inundation of Queer Theory in American culture. AFC provided two opportunities to hear from the normalcy defenders: at a BBQ dinner on Friday in the Valley or over dessert on Saturday in Anchorage.
Candidates for Governor Bernadette Wilson, Nancy Dahlstrom, and Treg Taylor were in attendance as well as Dave Donley, who is running for the Anchorage Assembly, and State Representative Julie Coulombe.
Love Leads the Fight
AFC leaders Jim and Kim Minnery and Tim Barto unabashedly centered the four-hour long event on Jesus Christ and biblical principles. The event began and ended with prayer and carried a theme of warrior-like faith throughout. Emphasizing the need for Christians to defend biblical principles during a time of increasing secularization in America, Jim Minnery quoted G.K. Chesterton: “The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him but because he loves what is behind him.” Jim then stated: “Love is what puts us in the arena.”
Logan Lancing: “The War on Normal”
After announcements about AFC’s recent work and initiatives, TPUSA-UAA President Jack Thompson introduced author Logan Lancing. Logan shared his research on Queer Theory, helping listeners understand what Queer Theory is and the role it plays in education according to its own proponents. According to Kevin Kumashiro’s 2002 article “Against Repetition: Addressing Resistance to Anti-Oppressive Change,” the goal of education is not to help children understand the world around them, but rather to cause children to experience mental crises that prompt them to create their own realities. Kumashiro puts it this way: “Educators have a responsibility not only to draw kids into a possible crisis, but also to structure experiences that can help them work through their crises productively” (74-75).
As Logan continued to quote a plethora of queer theorists, the consensus among academics favoring Queer Theory became clear: Queer Theory promotes whatever contradicts a society’s understanding of normalcy and seeks to instill the philosophical principle that reality exists only in the mind of the individual, who may shape reality in any way and must assert the validity of that reality on anyone who opposes it. Logan sums this up as “the war on normal.”
Chloe Cole’s Testimony
Following intermission after Logan’s intense speech, Candidate for Governor Shelley Hughes introduced the 21-year-old keynote speaker Chloe Cole. Hughes again grounded the event in a Christian worldview, stating, “Kingdom principles are common sense principles.”
With notable courage and eloquence, Chloe Cole shared her personal testimony of transitioning at 12 years old and then de-transitioning at 17. Chloe explained the main reasons that led to her initial gender transition: 1) she was assaulted at school shortly after she began puberty, 2) her impression of becoming a woman was highly negative and hyper-sexualized, 3) internet access exposed her to the transgender community, 4) her therapists presented gender therapy as the only solution to her distress. Her parents were skeptical of the hormone therapy, but the doctors scared them with an ultimatum: “you can either have a dead daughter—because she will kill herself—or an alive son.” Chloe stated she was never suicidal, and the ultimatum was pure manipulation.
As a junior in high school, Chloe’s feelings about her gender transition began to shift. She said that at first, she was happy living as “Leo” and that her classmates and teachers accepted her transition and treated her as any other boy. However, as she began to think about what she wanted her adult life to look like, she could not shake a strong desire to be a mother, to bring forth life from her own body.
When she decided to de-transition, all the support she had received when she transitioned evaporated. Her doctors refused to help. Her friends abandoned her. The trans community, who had welcomed her so warmly, now regarded her as an enemy. They told her she had wasted her parents’ love and acceptance, wasted important “healthcare” that could have been used for “a real trans kid,” and that she herself was a waste of life and she should kill herself.
However, Chloe never gave up. She began speaking out across the nation on the dangers of gender-denying care on minors. While she never regretted her de-transition, Chloe still felt a hole in her heart. She had scars from her double mastectomy, and she had scars on her soul. These wounds led her down a dark path of frequent truancy and drug use. She testified that she experienced true healing only after she accepted Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord of her life. “Through my relationship with Christ, I have experienced health in my body, mind, and soul,” she stated.
Defending Normalcy
Logan Lancing and Chloe Cole are two defenders against the ongoing assault of normalcy in American culture. It is not merely a modern assault, but one that has been relentless since the beginning of human history. Humanity is faced with this fundamental question: who is God? Queer ideology proclaims that the individual is God and that the individual has the right to live in whatever reality that the individual’s psyche chooses to create. Christianity proclaims that the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is God and that the individual lives in the reality that this external deity has designed.
At the end of the day, everyone worships either an external deity, or they worship themselves. Alaskans are faced with the same choice. Such a foundational choice is deserving of intentional, sober, and respectful attention and conversation.