One of the leftist slogans that most gets my hackles up is “Trans rights are human rights.” Whenever I hear it, I grumble to myself that they’re not entitled to any more rights than the rest of us humans are. That’s a reaction, though, not an analysis. On his Friday show, though, Matt Walsh used a British story about lesbians and in vitro fertilization to frame perfectly the reason neither “trans rights” nor LGBTQ rights should be used as a bludgeon against us under the rubric of human rights.

The underlying story is a couple of years old, so I’m not quite sure why it popped up on Walsh’s radar, but it sure is a good springboard for an important point. The problem, according to the LGBTQ cohort in England, was that lesbian couples were being “taxed” or otherwise discriminated against when it came to fertility services.

Here’s the story: A lesbian couple wanted to start a family. The way it works in England is that, if a heterosexual couple—you know, the kind that is designed by nature to start a family—fails to conceive after two years of trying, the National Health Service will give them in vitro assistance.

However, if you’re a lesbian couple—which means that nature never intended you to have procreative sex—the NHS requires the woman who will carry the baby to prove that she is, in fact, infertile. This process can be costly. (Apparently getting a guy to donate sperm on a regular basis via a turkey baster is not on the table to prove infertility.)

Image: Lesbian women and baby by freepik.

An ”influencer couple” resented this process, claiming it constituted a gay tax. Therefore, the women launched a campaign to end the requirement that lesbian couples must prove infertility (a medical condition) before taxpayers fund in vitro fertilization treatments. If you’re wondering, within less than a year, they won: “The British government has committed to a 10-year strategy to end discrimination against ‘female same-sex couples’ seeking fertility services.”

The issue, of course, is framed as a “human rights victory,” which is where Matt Walsh comes in. He picked up on that language and did a magnificent monologue about the fact that the LGBTQ cohort is not demanding human rights. It is, instead, demanding super-human rights; that is, rights that go beyond normal humanity. I thought his analysis was spot-on and very important to understanding the left’s policy demands.

The entire monologue about this NHS policy, which I highly recommend, begins at 53:58. The specific part of the monologue that I thought was most important begins at 59:50. I’ve also included a transcription.

Ep. 1223 - Woke Corporations Are Now Pushing 'Fat Liberation' pic.twitter.com/wBP9bg0FcV

— The Matt Walsh Show (@MattWalshShow) September 15, 2023

Same-sex couples claim that they want the same rights as everybody else. But really, they want new rights. They want special rights. They want special privileges that nobody else gets.

[snip]

In the name of equal rights, they demand special rights. It’s a tale as old as time, or at least as old as the LGBT movement itself.

So, to understand this dynamic, you have to understand its underpinnings. Traditionally, the Western world has viewed a human right as something fundamental to our human nature. By our nature, we have rights. All men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. So, through the creator, by our nature, we have rights. This is what's always been meant by the doctrine of human rights. 

But the LGBT movement comes along, and they reject this idea completely. They do not claim the rights that we possess by our nature as human beings. They claim rights over and above nature. They claim rights over nature itself. In fact, they say that our nature, rather than giving us rights, actually infringes on our rights, and so they demand rights that transcend nature itself.  

Nature, or really Nature’s Creator, has decided that new human beings can only be conceived by one male and one female. By our nature, two women can never create a child, can never make a family, just as two men can never create a child, can never make a family. That's just how it is. This is the is the way it’s been set up.  

Claiming to be persecuted by this fact is like claiming that you're persecuted because you can’t fly or you can’t breathe underwater. It might be nice to fly. It might be nice to breathe underwater. You might wish that you could. But the fact that you can't isn’t any kind of infringement against you. It’s simply reality. It is what it is. You might have the desire to sprout wings and fly, but you don't have the right to sprout wings and fly.  

But the LGBT movement says that it somehow has the unalienable and fundamental right to do things that are impossible. It has the right somehow to transcend nature itself. A man declares that he has the right to be a woman. Two women declare they have the right to conceive children. But the man cannot be a woman, and the two women cannot conceive children. Because it’s impossible, it’s just impossible. It's not how nature is set up. Whether you like it or not, it just isn't so.  

So, then, they insist that if they can’t do these things, society must step in, we in society, must help them pretend that they can do what they really can’t do. It’s our responsibility to call the man a. woman, even though he isn’t. It’s our responsibility to fund fertility treatments for the two women so that they can create a baby in a Petri dish and pretend to be a family. Nature itself has deprived them of the ability to do what they feel they have the right to do, and so society must compensate. This is what the LGBT camp always means when it talks about rights. It is the fundamental arrogance and entitlement that underlies the entire movement. 

We need to internalize what Walsh says if we are to push back against the cultural bullying that we’re experiencing now—a form of bullying that is leading us ever deeper into the anti-humanist neo-paganism plaguing the West today.