Conservative Success Is Tied to Protecting Women and Emboldening Men | The American Spectator

Over the past century, American women have been blessed with freedom, making us the envy of the world. It is no accident that the majority of legal immigrants to the U.S. are women. Even former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted in 2015, “[T]here has never been a better time in history to be born female.”

However, both women and men have come under attack from an extremely toxic worldview that undermines our progress and obscures the truth of women’s unique dignity. Gender theory infected our nation in the 2010s, intensified during the COVID pandemic, and reached new extremes during the Biden administration. Its supporters have worked to upend universal and timeless natural law, placing women in harm’s way while also emasculating men.

The Attack on Women

The public proliferation and popularization of gender theory over the past decade represents the biggest blow to women’s rights in my lifetime. Yet rather than resisting this ideology — which undermines decades of our many advancements — most progressive feminists have remained silent or, worse, openly embraced it. 

Subscribe to The American Spectator to receive our latest print magazine.

Everywhere we look, the damage from the lie that men can become women is unmistakable. Women are losing out on sports scholarships and trophies that should rightfully be theirs while also being forced to share locker rooms, prisons, and domestic violence shelters with men. Careers have been derailed, families destroyed, and women and children deeply harmed.

Although this nightmare began in the 1930s at the Frankfurt School, which also brought us critical race theory, it did not proliferate beyond academic lounges until the 1990s. Academics finally got their wish in the pre-COVID era as American public schools, following Great Britain, planted and nurtured the idea that kids could be born in the wrong body and could magically change their gender or even their sex.

Prepubescent girls who felt uncomfortable with their bodies were rushed into puberty blockers and mastectomies before they could even apply for a driver’s license. They were promised that the drugs would simply “pause” puberty, but instead they were left with irreversible consequences, including deep voices, infertility, and reduced bone density.

This toxic worldview even made people afraid to answer the question “What is a woman?” for fear of being shamed, harassed, or labeled a bigot simply for acknowledging biological reality.

Thankfully, with President Donald Trump’s election, we have begun to unwind the chaos. The course of a nation — its triumphs or failures — starts at the top.

During the Republican primary, Trump made his stance on women’s rights clear when he signed Concerned Women for America’s Presidential Promise to American Women. He pledged to “uphold the truth that women are exclusively female” and promised that, under his administration, “the status and dignity of women and girls [would] not be compromised in law or policy.” 

Further, he agreed, “That sex is binary is a scientific reality, and all federal agencies will be directed to uphold this fact in every policy and program at home and abroad. A person’s claim of ‘gender identity’ does not overrule their sex.”

Undoubtedly, voters in the 2024 presidential election were sick and tired of the transgender madness and wanted a leader who would stand up for biological women’s rights. An exit poll by Concerned Women for America found that 70 percent of voters shared this conviction. Clearly, they viewed Trump as the candidate who would uphold the sex-based distinctions that protect women across every area of society.

After his inauguration, President Trump moved quickly, signing an executive order establishing that there are only two sexes — male and female. The order requires government-issued identification to reflect biological sex and protects single-sex spaces such as women’s shelters and prisons.

States are also moving in the right direction, no doubt bolstered by the new administration. To date, twenty-seven states have passed laws to protect children from the harms of so-called gender-affirming care.

The Trump administration also worked quickly to protect women’s sports. Under the Biden administration, women had been slapped in the face by a radical Title IX athletics rule that stripped female athletes of federal protection against sex discrimination in sports. In response, Trump signed the “No Men in Women’s Sports” executive order, which upheld Title IX’s original intent and banned biological males from competing in women’s sports, therefore protecting female athletes’ opportunities and safety. Underscoring the importance of this action, research by Concerned Women for America found that trans-identifying males have stolen over 1,941 gold medals from women and girls in the United States.

The fight for female-only sports continues, however. In July, the Trump administration filed a lawsuit against the California Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation for violations of Title IX. It is seeking a permanent injunction against the state’s policy of allowing biological males to compete in girls’ sports.

The “bathroom wars” of recent years — in which school districts have allowed students to use the bathroom they identify with rather than the one that matches their biological sex — are also still front and center. The Department of Education has rightly interpreted that Title IX prohibits sex discrimination, and, as such, biological males and females must have sex-segregated bathroom facilities. However, there are some school districts that are refusing to comply, including five school districts in Northern Virginia, putting the safety of female students at risk.

The Trump administration has made tremendous progress for women. But it is appalling that we even had to fight for this at all. Just over one hundred years after the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote, the definition of a woman was up for debate. Thankfully, President Trump is restoring what was too easily lost under the last administration.

The Attack on Men

Ultimately, national success is bolstered by strong families. And strong families depend upon strong men and strong women. Children growing up in homes in which two parents (male and female) are married are more likely to thrive and less likely to experience a wide range of problems, not only in childhood but also in adulthood.

By Bill Wilson for The American Spectator

And yet masculinity has come under attack, with it constantly being smeared as “toxic.” Senator Josh Hawley from Missouri captured the situation well when he said the Left “want[s] to define the traditional masculine virtues — things like courage, independence, and assertiveness — as a danger to society.” Men cannot provide a stable foundation for their families when their strengths are constantly emasculated and deemed harmful. Women want strong men, and true masculinity is the opposite of toxic.

Men have been so thoroughly emasculated that some have overreacted by following faux-masculine influencers like Andrew Tate, who stands completely opposite to conservative values. Tate has not only been charged with sex trafficking in Romania, but he is also openly in favor of creating pornography and exploiting women, and he teaches young men to do the same.

Men are inundated with pornography, weed, sports betting, and other vices that seek to captivate them, but all of which ultimately cause destruction.

Men need to be empowered to be strong, to embrace marriage and remain faithful husbands, and to have children and build families. Our nation cannot truly be great again until our men are great again.

A now-famous picture from the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan shows a baby being lifted over a wall with barbed wire to U.S. Marines. One of the soldiers involved in the rescue remarked that helping that baby to safety was one of the “greatest things” he’d ever done in his life.

During the recent Minneapolis school shooting at Annunciation Catholic School, it was reported that one young boy threw himself over his friend to shield him from the bullets.

These stories are as far from toxic masculinity as they can get.

President Trump won with strong support from young men, who recognized a leader who fights for them and wants to build up our men, not destroy them.

Decisive Action for American Families

Crucial to the well-being of both men and women is the sanctity of human life, and the Trump administration has brought a pro-life mindset to the White House. President Trump signed an executive order enforcing the Hyde Amendment, secured the release of pro-life prisoners jailed for peaceful protests, and rallied congressional support to block Medicaid reimbursements for abortions. The latter action has dramatically led to the closure of twenty-five Planned Parenthood clinics across ten states in anticipation of lost government funding.

No president has moved so decisively to protect Americans, uphold faith, and restore common sense. Future generations will marvel at how quickly the conservative movement gained ground and rectified the ills of the Biden administration. But we are only several years away from a new presidential election, bringing the potential for conservative policies to be reversed.

Ultimately, the foundation for conservative success rests on protecting women and emboldening men, and we should carry these goals into all of our efforts. 

Penny Young Nance is CEO and President of Concerned Women for America, the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization, and author of Seven Rules for Success in Business and Life: A Woman’s Guide.

Subscribe to The American Spectator to receive our fall 2025 print magazine.