It's the Brian Lara show on WNYC. Good morning again everyone.

I got a promotional mailer recently

from the conservative Hillesdale College

in Hillstale, Michigan, advertising their school, and looking for donations.

The very first line of the letter says,

if we're going to save America from the growing threats of socialism,

transgenderism, and Marxism, there's only one way we can do it, education.

And I thought, okay, fine, a college that offers an education

based on political conservatism, they're allowed.

We're a politically diverse country.

It's a private college.

People can get educated in the context that they choose.

But then I thought about that opening sentence.

And I thought, which one of these does not belong. Which one of the three things that they

claim they're trying to save America from? Socialism, Marxism, and transgenderism. Now, socialism. Marxism and

Socialism and Marxism you can believe in them or not okay fine but transgenderism Transgenderism how you experience your own body as an ism, a belief system, a political philosophy,

that's just hate speech, to my eye. It's like saying we should save the country from left-handed ism or blue-eye

ism. The trans people I know didn't choose what gender they experienced themselves to be by way and competing isms like some audience member in a political debate.

So here's a college that's fundraising off the idea that one of the three big threats to the country is a belief system that isn't a belief system.

Maybe they should be saying, our college helps make America safe for otherism,

labeling people who are different from the majority or different from you

as threats to the social order.

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