This week was very instructive when it comes to what you can and can’t say about the transgender movement. On Thursday, we learned that Hasbro is discontinuing the “Mr.” Potato Head toy in favor of a gender-neutral potato that children can adorn in any way they choose. Earlier in the week, Amazon deplatformed author Ryan Anderson and his trans-critical book, “When Harry Became Sally.” Oh, and lest we forget, the House passed the so-called Equality Act, which is pretty much the last nail in the coffin for girls-only sports (to say nothing of any other female-only spaces).

All of this is fine and good, according to our betters in the media. What’s NOT okay? Actually believing, in the year 2021, that putting on a dress and mutilating your genitals does not a woman make.

Washington Post headline from Thursday: Marjorie Taylor Greene blasted for attacking colleague’s transgender daughter: ‘Sickening, pathetic, unimaginably cruel’

Oof, that sounds really terrible. MTG at it again with her wackiness, huh?

Well…not really:

After a contentious debate on the Equality Act, which would extend civil rights protections to the LGBTQ community, Rep. Marie Newman (D-Ill.) on Wednesday raised a transgender pride flag outside her office — which happens to sit directly across from the office of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), one of the bill’s most vocal opponents.

“Our neighbor, [Greene], tried to block the Equality Act because she believes prohibiting discrimination against trans Americans is ‘disgusting, immoral, and evil,’” Newman, who has a transgender daughter, wrote on Twitter with a video of her hanging the flag. “Thought we’d put up our Transgender flag so she can look at it every time she opens her door.”

Okay, so as we can already see, Rep. Newman fired the first shot. She’s the one that decided to cast MTG as the big, bad villain for…um…having a different opinion about transgender issues. She’s the one that hung the flag outside her office and then taunted her on social media.

Greene responded by hanging up a flag of her own that said, “There are TWO genders: Male & Female. Trust The Science!”

Seems like a fair clapback, but not according to Democrats. According to Rep. Sean Casten, Greene’s poster is “sickening, pathetic, unimaginably cruel.”

This is how we characterize an assertion that would have been completely uncontroversial just a few short years ago.

But Greene wasn’t the only Republican to offend the transgender lobby this week.

Headline from the Daily Beast: Rand Paul Launches Into Transphobic Rant Against Trans Nominee

The outlet slapped the article with a big label – “GROSS” – just in case readers couldn’t guess where they were coming from using the headline alone.

Here’s the lede:

Dr. Rachel Levine, the first transgender person to be nominated for a Senate-confirmed position in the federal government, had been seated in her confirmation hearing to become the nation’s assistant secretary of health for a little less than an hour when she was grilled about “genital mutilation” of minor children by a Republican committee member.

“American culture is now normalizing the idea that minors can be given hormones,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said on Thursday, likening standards of care for transgender minors to castration and female circumcision and blaming increasing rates of trans-identified youth on “the social pressure to conform and do what others do.”

“Do you believe minors are capable of making such a life-changing decision of changing one’s sex?” Paul asked Levine.

Yes, it is now “gross” and “transphobic” to suggest that maybe it’s not a great idea to let children make life-altering decisions about their bodies based on an LGBT trend that only achieved social acceptability, like, the day before yesterday.

The real news out of Paul’s segment of the hearing is that Levine never once addressed his concerns about children with any actual answer. In a sane world, THAT would be what the media reported on, not the senator’s “transphobia.”

But then, in a sane world, Levine wouldn’t be up for this position in the first place.