Over the Rainbow

Why have liberal democracies with proud traditions of democracy and free speech become obsessed with hate speech laws and are anxious about offending citizens' feelings? Is the issue of trans rights simply a matter of being kind to a minority group who already have the same rights as everyone else? The writers and editors in this book examine how concerns about the welfare of a small minority were turned into an ideology that challenges the rights of women, lesbians, gays, biology and science itself, and has gained control of many of the institutions of our society. A new set of beliefs about sex and gender swept across the English-speaking world and Europe over the past decade, disrupting parties on the green and left. The contributors are campaigners from the Greens and US Democrats as well as experts in health, elite sport, law and philosophy to explain its control and disruption to free speech and political debate. Over the Rainbow brings together writers in the fields of community services, therapy and medicine, politics and theory, workplace and sporting culture, and the law to explore the stultifying impact that dogmatic adherence to trans ideology has had on everyday life and culture. The editors aim to educate a general readership in the underpinning theory and philosophy of gender ideology as well as to explain how these ideas were applied within organisations to override free speech and shut down dissent. This new dogma has embedded itself across the English-speaking world and this book includes writers from the USA, Canada and the United Kingdom, as well as Australia to illustrate its rigidity and negative impacts on civic culture. Free speech and civil society organisations have been essential to the success of representative democracy, and the writers in this book hope to contribute to a re-opening of civic discourse.