Since the October 7 terrorist attacks in Israel, students at many American Universities have taken to protests celebrating the intifada, and calling for Palestine to overthrow Israel “from the river to the sea.” In some cases Jewish students have been hounded and locked inside buildings. Jewish owned business near several universities have been targeted with harassment and stormed by mobs. As a result, this week the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania were called to testify before Congress regarding anti-Semitism on their particular campuses.

The hearings themselves were astounding. A friend of mine who was there in-person texted me and encouraged me to watch the live-stream, which I did, and couldn’t believe what was happening. Time and time again, the presidents of those schools dodged questions, evaded moral clarity, and made far-fetched arbitrary distinctions. While I could give lots of examples, here is the most egregious:

I recently came across TIME Magazine from the week I was born—January 7, 1976. The issue was devoted to the “Women of the Year,” and on the cover was the Rev. Alison Cheek. She broke the so-called glass ceiling by becoming the first female Episcopal priest to lead/perform  the Eucharist.

Cheek was part of the “The Philadelphia 11,” a group of female priests all ordained in Pennsylvania, long before that was acceptable in the Anglican church. It was immediately met with howls of protests. This was coming after the fall of Saigon, and after the zenith of the hippie movement. The “mainline denominations” were at a tipping point, one that is much more recognizable in the hindsight than I’m sure it was at the time. Many people protested such a brazen show of rebellion by the Philadelphia Episcopal church—compounded all the more because the Anglican Church had rejected calls to ordain women.

While some Anglicans may have protested the Philadelphia 11, Cheek leaned in, leading Eucharist services and making her position very public. The world of course celebrated the church’s compromise—as I mentioned, she was featured on the cover of TIME.

Last month, Minnesota introduced legislation making it a “trans-refuge” state. If the legislation passes, it would become a crime for parents to refuse to give their children “gender affirming” care, and parents could lose custody of their children if they refuse to play the gender games.

Minnesota is not alone. Laws like this are popping up all over the country. What’s behind them? Well, like all cultural phenomena there are many factors at work. However, one often-overlooked influence in the transgender movement is modern secular psychology.

Like many (all?) of the sciences, psychology has been co-opted by transgenderism. Nowhere is this better represented then in the DSM-5-TR, the latest version of the so-called “Bible of psychology.” The DSM is the handbook used to diagnose mental disorders, and while it is not considered inspired, it is treated as the definitive book on psychological diagnoses.

Tomorrow in Washington DC, a few miles away from the church I pastor, will be a rally called the “Trans Day of Vengeance.” The event will be led by the “Trans Radical Activist Network,” and has been promoted by political leaders around the country. Supporters of the “Trans Day of Vengeance” say that the Trans Community is under attack, and their protection can only come through retribution.

This week has exposed a seething, violent hatred towards those who won’t fly the rainbow flag over their homes, churches, and on their social media accounts. That the Day of Vengeance takes place the week of the Nashville shooting is no coincidence—or if it is, one of the leaders of the trans movement called it “a happy coincidence.” The media has shown its hatred for the church as well—with major outlets even strongly implying (if not outright declaring) that the church is responsible for the shooting at its own school. The White House expressed support for the calls for vengeance on those that oppose the trans movement because, in their words, “the trans movement is under attack.”

What does the White House mean by “under attack”? When the layers are peeled back, what this rhetoric means is that the current administration perceives laws in places like Tennessee, Florida, and Kentucky as “threatening” and “erasing” trans people. What is in those laws that justify “taking vengeance?” In short, those laws ban “gender affirming” surgery on kids. They ban the teaching in public schools that kids can be born in the wrong body, and need to mutilate themselves in order to feel themselves. This is what is at stake—the government’s insistence to teach kids that the way to happiness is through self-harm.