The liberal obsession with transgenderism (and with foisting it on children) has led leftists to go back to a familiar playbook. They are attempting to change the culture radically, even as they claim that conservatives are the ones who started a “culture war” by noticing what they were up to.

The New York Times offered the latest example, claiming that the “religious right” was “defeated on same-sex marriage” and then “went searching for an issue that would re-energize supporters and donors.” This then led them to transgenderism, which, were you to believe the New York Times, was an issue in which liberal activists were simply minding their own business before being beset by artificial conservative protests.

This is utter nonsense, fabricated by liberals who know that they cannot defend on the merits the rapid spread of transgender activism to classrooms and children’s entertainment. The New York Times's timeline starts with the 2016 North Carolina bathroom bill, which was only pursued in response to demands from transgender people that men be allowed into women’s bathrooms.

The escalation of conservative focus on transgenderism was a response to the escalation of fervent transgender propaganda. Bills banning men from competing in women’s sports have been passed in response to men competing in women’s sports and “journalists” such as those at the New York Times celebrating this as some kind of progress.

Bills focused on gender ideology in schools have been passed in response to liberals demanding that children be taught to be transgender or “nonbinary” in schools. Bills focused on parents' rights are going through in response to secret social gender transitions that public educators are urging and withholding from children’s parents.

Would Republicans be passing bills banning doctors from mutilating their children and pumping them full of chemicals if liberals hadn’t decided that it is evil not to mutilate children and pump them full of chemicals to transition them? They probably never would have even thought of such a thing.

Have conservative groups made money off of donations as a result of this activism? Almost certainly. But they did not steer Republican politicians or normal people to this topic. Liberals and transgender activists did that, making absurd demand after absurd demand. Let men steal women's opportunities and even beat up women in women’s sports! Let male rapists serve their time in women’s prisons! Let your 4-year-old child transition or he will literally die! The rapid liberal cultural advance got to the point where Boston Children’s Hospital was saying children could be transgender before they were born.

To frame this as a culture war that was started by intolerant conservatives is not just dumb — it is disingenuous. We are where we are now because of the unceasing demands of transgender activists and their liberal enablers at publications such as the New York Times.

Transgenderism was not an issue until transgender activists and their media allies decided to force everyone to ignore basic biological reality and indoctrinate children with this new and radical ideology. It was not some nefarious conservative plot to solicit donations that led these activists to call child mutilation “gender-affirming care.” Liberals, as always, start the cultural fight, and once again, they whine that anyone dares stand in their way.