Disney's gender controversy: here's what's really behind the corporate politicking

It is no arrogance on my part when I say that you could drop me in the center of any city on Earth and I would figure it out quickly. With concrete under my feet I can immediately glean how it works, how it operates. But not here. Not at Disney World. No.

Here there is no little walk to the bodega or the pizza place. Bring plenty of cigarettes with you if you come, trust me. I half expect them to be like prison currency, and suddenly that form of economy makes all kinds of sense. It’s simple, you know what you’re getting. 

I came to Disney World because for some reason its corporate honchos, the men and women – if I may call them that – have decided that this company and this place should be a tip of the spear of our new gender ideologies. At first blush it makes no sense. Isn’t this the place that people come to escape the grind of politics and culture wars? 

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Here in the land of polo shirts and shorts, parents with weird fear in their eyes because they just can’t keep up with their hysterically excited children, have heads on swivels. But this does not seem like a progressive demographic. So why doesn’t Disney just keep its mouth shut? Why does it insist on picking a fight over Florida’s new, wildly popular, education law meant to protect our youngest children from adult conversations about sex and gender?

I have a theory. To call Disney World a controlled environment is insufficient. Nuclear power plants, or top secret military  labs, are controlled environments. This is something more. And it provides a visceral insight into why corporations are so eager to bow to progressive trans ideology. 

Corporations crave rules. Efficiency requires them. There has to be one answer, known to all the thousands and thousands of employees – or cast members as they are cloyingly called here. Nuance regarding gender doesn’t fit into that scheme. 

In today’s world in which people born as men live as women, and vice versa, Disney needs a simple maxim. 

In today’s world in which people born as men live as women, and vice versa, Disney needs a simple maxim. Preferably one that generates little heat, one that all the guests – or whatever we are called here – can simply nod along to. The corporate leadership at Disney assumes that the maxim they require is one that accepts gender fluidity and opposes Florida’s law. But not so fast.

When a tiny fraction of Disney employees demanded that their bosses throw sticks and stones at Gov. Ron DeSantis for this new law, I can see how they saw it as a slam dunk. I can understand why they didn’t expect a backlash. But the backlash came. Maybe not for their bottom line, but for their reputation.

I talked to a guy and his wife over a slice of something like pizza. The longtime Disney visitor was here with his wife, 21-year-old son and the son’s girlfriend. I talked with him about New Yorkers moving to Florida. He said, "I don’t want them New Yorking my Florida." Fair enough, Jack. But Brooklyn isn’t the problem here. Disney is.

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I explained that the squeaky wheel gets the oil and that far from being squeaky he was eating $25 fake pizza. And he got it. Everyone does. I gathered that this guy no more believes that men can become women than that his son will have a substantial job in the near future. In both the cases he – admirably, I might add – keeps his mouth mostly shut.

And therein lies the rub. The executives at Disney don’t give a mouse’s ear about trans ideology. They just don’t want trouble. Who does? And if the guests, or patrons, or whatever corpo jargon is used, share that feeling, as they probably should, then of course Disney will dive full on into gender nonsense just to keep the squeaky wheels at bay. 

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And thus, Disney becomes the magical kingdom of gender fluidity, even if the hordes of happy families don’t really buy it. It's more important that they buy the sweatshirt and Mickey hat. And buy them they do. 

Until that changes, don’t expect Disney to dismount their progressive high horse. It’s the best of both worlds for corporations. And just at the moment, that doesn’t seem likely to change. 

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