Christian Nationalism Meets Its Parallel: Introducing Trans Nationalism in America's Ongoing Story

American values vs. identity ideology: Are they claiming the same ground?

CNN's Pamela Brown documentary The Whole Story: The Rise of Christian Nationalism—originally set for February 22 but rescheduled to March 8, 2026, at 8pm ET/PT due to East Coast storm coverage, has previews and announcements generating discussion. The piece examines how some Americans view the U.S. as founded as a Christian nation, with laws and institutions reflecting Christian values. The topic is timely amid ongoing culture-war tensions, and it prompted deeper reflection on belief systems and government.

America’s story is one of expanding who counts as fully equal under the law. That expansion has almost always faced fierce protests—and it has usually made the country stronger. But there’s a difference between removing barriers so people can live freely and embedding one comprehensive belief system into the machinery of the state.

The Historical Pattern: Inclusion Movements That Worked

Look at three big inclusion movements:

• Women’s suffrage. For decades, opponents called it radical, unnatural, and a threat to the family. Suffragettes were arrested, force-fed, and ridiculed. Yet in 1920 the 19th Amendment passed. Women gained the vote. Democracy didn’t collapse—it doubled the electorate and brought new voices into public life. The protests were real, but the change was about equal citizenship, not forcing everyone to adopt a new worldview.

• Civil rights. Segregationists mounted “massive resistance,” closed schools, and invoked states’ rights. The 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act passed anyway. Legal discrimination based on race ended in public institutions. The country became fairer and more cohesive. Again, the core was removing legal barriers so every citizen could participate equally—not requiring private citizens or institutions to affirm a specific ideology.

• LGBTQ+ rights to marry and form families. Same-sex relationships were criminalized in many places until Lawrence v. Texas (2003). Adoption by same-sex couples faced legal hurdles in many states. Then Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) made marriage equality the law of the land. Gay and lesbian couples could legally document their love and jointly adopt children. Most Americans now accept that consenting adults should have these basic rights. The change expanded personal liberty without (at first) compelling churches to perform ceremonies or schools to teach particular doctrines.

These movements succeeded because they were fundamentally about negative rights, removing government-imposed obstacles so individuals could live according to their own conscience and pursue happiness. Protests happened, but the expansions strengthened the American promise of “liberty and justice for all.”

Why Now? The Shift Toward Positive Enforcement

These victories expanded freedom by dismantling discriminatory laws. But in recent years, both progressive and conservative movements have moved toward positive enforcement—requiring public institutions, schools, medicine, and laws to actively affirm and implement specific views on gender, sexuality, morality, or faith. That shift marks where nationalist framings emerge, turning personal beliefs into state-supported doctrine.

Enter the Nationalist Belief Systems

Today we see two different kinds of movements that go beyond removing barriers. They seek to fuse a comprehensive belief system with the identity and operations of the nation itself.

The first already has a name: Christian Nationalism. It’s the view that America’s laws, public institutions, and national character should explicitly reflect historic Christian (usually Protestant) moral and theological commitments. Advocates argue this honors the country’s heritage, “In God We Trust,” traditional definitions of marriage and life. Critics call it an attempt to establish one religion’s values as national policy. Either way, it’s a belief system that feels entitled to public support and shaping of government.

Now I’m coining the parallel term: Trans Nationalism (trans nationalism definition: the ideological effort to embed the belief that gender is fluid, self-identified, and medically/socially malleable into every layer of government policy, law, medicine, education, and national institutions—just as Christian Nationalism seeks to root the nation in Christian values).

Both are sincere, comprehensive belief systems. Both feel they have a moral right to be publicly supported through taxpayer-funded programs, school curricula, federal guidance, and court rulings. And both face protests when their vision becomes mandatory.

Three Concrete Places Where Trans Nationalism Shows the Pattern

1. Youth medical care (“gender-affirming care”) This mixes science, consent, and law. Advocates see immediate affirmation and medical intervention as lifesaving and evidence-based. Concerns raised by critics (including the 2024 Cass Review commissioned by NHS England and protocols tightened in several European countries) highlight weak evidence for puberty blockers and surgeries on minors, plus high rates of desistance and co-occurring mental health issues. When federal agencies, insurers, or schools treat dissent as bigotry and push access as a right, it starts looking like one belief system overriding evidence-based caution and parental authority.

   
   

2. Sports and Title IX The Supreme Court heard oral arguments January 13, 2026, in cases like Little v. Hecox (Idaho) and West Virginia v. B.P.J. on state laws keeping biological males out of girls’ and women’s sports. One side frames it as inclusion and dignity. The other raises concerns about biology-based performance gaps that Title IX was originally designed to protect (as argued in Supreme Court briefs). When government reinterprets “sex” to mean gender identity and rewrites competition categories nationwide, it feels like ideology being imposed on sex-based protections.

   
   

3. Schools: pronouns, bathrooms, privacy, and parental notification Public schools are government institutions. Policies that require staff and students to use preferred pronouns, open sex-segregated spaces by identity, or keep social transitions secret from parents turn one set of beliefs about gender into mandatory practice. We can protect every child from bullying without sidelining parental rights or compelling speech.

The Core Question

Historical inclusion movements expanded liberty for individuals. Christian Nationalism and Trans Nationalism each ask the state to adopt and enforce one belief system as the national default. That’s a different project.

Supporters of either will say, “This is who we are as a people.” Opponents will say, “This is establishment of doctrine.” Both sides feel they’re defending truth and fairness. The healthy American response has always been debate, evidence, federalism, and protecting conscience, rather than letting any single belief system capture the institutions that belong to all of us.

That’s why I’m putting the term Trans Nationalism into circulation. Not to smear people, but to name the pattern clearly and fairly, just as “Christian Nationalism” has been named.