Our Most Popular Essays Ever

October 11, 2018By The Editors

In celebration of our tenth anniversary, we're revisiting the most popular essays Public Discourse has ever published. Although we publish on a diverse array of topics, our most popular pieces tend to be first-person narratives on hot-button social issues, such as marriage, sexuality, and gender. These essays pair personal experience with philosophical analysis and solid social science.

In celebration of Public Discourse‘s tenth anniversary, read the top articles from the past ten years.

June 10, 2015 June 10, 2015 Education & Culture, Sexuality & Family, The Human Person

Transgenderism: A Pathogenic Meme

By Paul McHugh

The idea that one’s sex is a feeling, not a fact, has permeated our culture and is leaving casualties in its wake. Gender dysphoria should be treated with psychotherapy, not surgery.
April 24, 2015 April 24, 2015 Politics & Law, Sexuality & Family

A Warning from Canada: Same-Sex Marriage Erodes Fundamental Rights

By Dawn Stefanowicz

Americans need to understand that the endgame of the LGBT rights movement involves centralized state power—and the end of First Amendment freedoms.
April 27, 2015 April 27, 2015 Education & Culture, Sexuality & Family

“Sex Change” Surgery: What Bruce Jenner, Diane Sawyer, and You Should Know

By Walt Heyer

The dark and troubling history of the contemporary transgender movement, with its enthusiastic approval of gender-reassignment surgery, has left a trail of misery in its wake.
February 2, 2015 February 2, 2015 Sexuality & Family

Dear Justice Kennedy: An Open Letter from the Child of a Loving Gay Parent

By Katy Faust

Take it from the adult child of a loving gay parent: redefining marriage promotes a family structure in which children suffer.
March 8, 2013 March 8, 2013 Sexuality & Family

I’m Gay and I Oppose Same-Sex Marriage

By Doug Mainwaring

While religion and tradition have led many to their positions on same-sex marriage, it’s also possible to oppose same-sex marriage based on reason and experience.
February 6, 2015 February 6, 2015 Education & Culture, Sexuality & Family

The Absurdity of Transgenderism: A Stern but Necessary Critique

By Carlos D. Flores

We should make public policy and encourage social norms that reflect the truth about the human person and sexuality, not obfuscate the truth about such matters and sow the seeds of sexual confusion in future generations for years to come.
January 13, 2017 January 13, 2017 Politics & Law

That Time I Turned a Routine Traffic Ticket into the Constitutional Trial of the Century

By Adam J. MacLeod

Laws that give municipal officials and their private contractors power to issue tickets via traffic cameras confer powers of both criminal and civil law while excusing them from the due process duties of both criminal and civil law.
June 4, 2015 June 4, 2015 Education & Culture, Sexuality & Family, The Human Person

An African-American Woman Reflects on the Transgender Movement

By Nuriddeen Knight

Supporters of transgender ideology believe that they are freeing people from restrictive understandings of gender. In reality, the more our society tries to free itself from gender stereotypes, the more it becomes enslaved to them. By saying that people can be born in a body of the wrong gender, transgender activists are saying there is a set of feelings that are only allocated to women and another set for men.
April 1, 2015 April 1, 2015 Sexuality & Family

I Was a Transgender Woman

By Walt Heyer

The reprieve provided by surgery and life as a woman was only temporary. Hidden deep underneath the make-up and female clothing was the little boy hurt by childhood trauma, and he was making himself known.

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