The cognitive dissonance in the progressive movement is strong.

The headline itself is essentially a complete rejection of the trans movement's delusion that a man can become a woman with a dress, some blush, and a can of Bud Light.

Author Rose George isn't even subtle about it. Here are some quotes from her piece (you can access it through MSN as well without the firewall):

There's also the fact that some scientists still project findings from research on men onto women, seeming not to realize that women aren't just small men: Women are different down to the cellular level, meaning that many of our immune responses, experiences of pain, and symptoms (including, for instance, those that accompany a heart attack) may be different from men's.

A confident assertion that sex isn't "solely biological" might surprise scientists who understand sex to be determined by chromosomes and anatomy.

I found [author] Clancy's preference for terms such as people who menstruate over women and girls troubling, too, in a book that seems intended to argue for the importance of studying the biology of females — and correcting a history that ignored the uniqueness of their medical experiences as women and girls.

Care to take a guess as to what word never shows up in this article, not even once, and not in any of its forms?

"Trans."

Yes, this is an article the cornerstone of which torpedoes one of the most hotly contested cultural contagions we've seen in a generation and yet it's as if it's 1975, disco rules the airwaves, and the only thing that's Trans is an Am.

That's because this article isn't about the trans insanity gripping our culture, it's about the medical establishment's lack of understanding and seriousness about the genuine uniqueness of women's biology, particularly the subtleties and complications surrounding menstruation. This of course includes fairly heavy doses of criticisms about the manner in which such research remains male dominated and still ignores women's specific health needs.

And that is how this article is allowed in a progressive magazine as man bashing remains their bread and butter, justified or not (I mean, it's not as if the health industry has exactly covered itself in glory lately). It's also how they can completely ignore the elephant they themselves just brought into the room.

Regardless, no one can read this article and misunderstand the implications of its premise. The point certainly wasn't lost on readers. My favorite comment from Twitter was as straightforward as it was simple.

Of course, the trans-narrative enforcers could not ignore the grave danger such wrong-think presents to their faith.

George was having none of it.

I checked out her Twitter profile.

Adult human female.

I first came across this description when reading Kara Dansky, the radical feminist who has made it her mission, at great personal cost, to stand firm on the reality that women really are different from men, no matter how many TikTok videos they make to the contrary. Naturally, this has gotten her labeled a "TERF" or "Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist."

Make no mistake, George is clearly in this camp.

So how do progressives square this circle? How do they reconcile as clear a rejection of the foundation of trangenderism as this with their overall belief system?

They don't.

Cognitive dissonance isn't something to be defended or explained, it's something to be embraced as a tactic.

That's because it isn't about having a coherent philosophy, a set of guiding principles that inform their views and about which they can debate premises and desired outcomes.

It's about power.

You can say things that in another context would get you labeled a hate-filled hatey McHatred but as long as it is in the service of the goal, the real goal, it quite literally doesn't matter.

Of course, this does not exactly create a stable base… just look at the fractures in the LGBTQ+ "community" which is turning out to be a community much in the way the Donner Party was a community.

And that will be the battle. It's not about philosophy, not among the people who count. Philosophy is just a tool.

It's about power.