According to what is rapidly becoming a reigning orthodoxy, a person’s sex is entirely a matter of his or her subjective feeling. Children at a tender age are thus being encouraged to reject their biological sex, and therapists and physicians have enabled young people to undergo extensive treatments and surgeries to “transition” from one sex to the other. In When Harry Became Sally, Ryan T. Anderson takes a critical look both at the effects of these medical and psychological interventions and at the ideology that underlies them. Rachel Lu writes in her review:

The child who gleefully exchanged her bunny slippers for soccer cleats might end up as a weirdly androgynous, baby-faced twenty-year-old, scarred by surgery and sterile for life. These aren’t the after-effects of some terrible, unexpected accident. They are predictable consequences of elective procedures that are now being performed on minors, on the advice of licensed medical professionals. This is what happens when subjective experience is crowned king (or queen). . . . Surely it is better, whenever possible, to help a suffering child in a way that doesn’t open the way to invasive medical procedures and likely lifelong sterility. . . .

In the book’s most heartbreaking segment, we hear the stories of several people who learned this truth for themselves, in the hardest possible way. These “detransitioners” were once advised by their therapists to identify as transsexuals and undergo recommended treatments. It didn’t help. In time, they discerned for themselves that they were not trapped in the wrong bodies: the dysphoria stemmed from other underlying issues that therapists had overlooked. Those issues remained unresolved. Meanwhile, some felt that the effort to change sexes had only deepened the alienation they were already feeling with respect to their physical bodies. . . . When efforts to uncover the authentic self lead to such gross distortions of reality, it should be obvious that something has gone awry.

That looks a lot like medical malpractice. So why was it permitted to happen? One reason, undoubtedly, is that the transgender cause dovetails so nicely with the agenda of the hard left. Under the Obama administration, activists pressed the transgender cause with all the grace and sensitivity of the mob at Pamplona. Clearly, this is about much more to them than just the social comfort of a fraction of a percent of the population. Transgenderism represents an opportunity to make an ambitious sortie in the ongoing battle against nature. . . .

Culture wars are not the whole story, however. Many activists and practitioners do sincerely believe they are doing something good in championing the cause of . . . people with dysphoria. So should we all. Is it really surprising that this malady would arise in a society that is deeply conflicted about the meaning of sex and sexuality? In an uncanny way, the transgender revolution itself testifies to the enduring significance of manhood and womanhood as meaningful and identity-forming concepts. Sex roles are a source of perpetual controversy, but almost no one favors bland androgyny as a solution.

Established in 2012 and maintaining branches in Europe, North America, and Iran, the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Network claims its goal is merely to show “solidarity” for imprisoned Palestinians. The organization’s leader, however, has admitted to being a representative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a notorious terrorist group whose most recent accomplishments include murdering a seventeen-year-old girl. As Arsen Ostrovsky and Patricia Teitelbaum point out, Samidoun is just one example of how the European Union allows Iran-backed terrorists to operate in its midst:

The PFLP is a proxy of the Iranian regime, which provides the terror group with money, training, and weapons. Samidoun . . . has a branch in Tehran. It has even held events there, under the pretext of “cultural activity,” to elicit support for operations in Europe. Its leader, Khaled Barakat, is a regular on Iran’s state [channel] PressTV, calling for violence and lauding Iran’s involvement in the region. It is utterly incomprehensible, therefore, that the EU has not yet designated Samidoun a terror group.

According to the Council of the European Union, groups and/or individuals can be added to the EU terror list on the basis of “proposals submitted by member states based on a decision by a competent authority of a member state or a third country.” In this regard, there is already a standing designation by Israel of Samidoun as a terror group and a decision of a German court finding Barakat to be a senior PFLP operative.

Given the irrefutable axis-of-terror between Samidoun, PFLP, and the Iranian regime, the EU has a duty to put Samidoun and senior Samidoun leaders on the EU terror list. It should do this not as some favor to Israel, but because otherwise it continues to turn a blind eye to a group that presents a clear and present security threat to the European Union and EU citizens.