Morning Wire - Texas Battles Gender Transition in Minors | 3.5.22

Episode Date: March 5, 2022

Texas directive makes it illegal to treat children with gender transition procedures, Supreme Court to hear a freedom of speech case related to traditional marriage, and winning the social media war in Ukraine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A new directive in Texas would make it illegal to attempt to medically change a child's gender. What's in the directive and how if LGBT activists responded? I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley. It's March 5th, and this is your Saturday edition of Morning Wire. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case of a Denver web designer who only wants to make websites for traditional weddings. Can a business refuse services based on religious beliefs? We'll look at the arguments on both sides of this Colorado case.

And the invasion of Ukraine is the first large-scale global conflict to be live-streamed for the world to see. We look at the role social media is playing in undermining Russia. This show is brought to you by Good Ranchers. Over 85% of the grass-fed beef sold in stores and online is imported from overseas. You're paying a premium for imported goods that don't even get USDA-graded. That's why you should get all your beef, chicken, and seafood from Good Ranchers. They sell beef that's USDA Prime and Upper Choice. chicken that's better than organic and premium seafood.

Good Ranchers deliver steakhouse quality to your door. So head on over to good ranchers.com slash wire or use code wire at checkout to get their biggest offer ever. $30 off your first order plus free express shipping. Visit good ranchers.com slash wire today. The governor of Texas made headlines last week when he called on members of the public to report parents suspected of giving gender transition treatments to their children. Progressives immediately attacked the governor over his directive. Daily Wire investigative reporter Marade Allorty is here with the details.

So, Marade, what exactly did Governor Abbott say? Yeah, so Governor Greg Abbott issued this directive last week. It was part of a letter he sent on Tuesday to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. He told the agency to, quote, conduct a prompt and thorough investigation of any instances involving minors receiving elective procedures for gender transitioning. Abbot wrote that such treatments could be classified as child abuse. The governor also wrote that licensed professionals who work with children, people like teachers, nurses and doctors, as well as members of the general public, should report parents to state authorities if they believe the parents are putting their child through gender transition treatments. So he's calling for criminal penalties.

Yes, Abbott wants parents who are putting their child through gender transition treatment to be subject to child abuse charges. Also, the governor wrote that anyone who has been calling for criminal who fails to report this type of abuse is subject to criminal penalties as well. Now, that's a harder stance than we've seen from most states. So what's the response been? Well, within the Texas government, there are signs that lawmakers could support something like this in the future, but the governor also received harsh criticism from LGBT activists who argue that medical transition is necessary health care for children who experience gender dysphoria. This week, the ACLU filed a suit against the state in an attempt to block the new policy on behalf of

half of one 16-year-old in the state. On Wednesday, a Texas judge sided with that 16-year-old's family, blocking them from investigation. The judge did not go as far as to stop the state from investigating other reports of children receiving gender transition treatments. However, she did set a March 11th hearing to decide whether to temporarily block Abbott's order. So as of now, the order is not law and it's facing some legal challenges. Correct. And in fact, it's still a little bit unclear how this order would be enforced, because it's been such a contentious issue in the state. In February, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued an opinion saying that existing state law already makes it child abuse to have minors put on puberty blockers or hormone therapy or

receive gender transition surgery. However, some county and district attorneys don't interpret the law that way, and they're already saying they won't enforce Abbott's order. Last year, the Texas legislature attempted to pass a bill that would have made it a felony to provide those kinds of transgender treatments to minors, but the bill failed. That bill would have put these treatments in the same category as physical and sexual abuse of children. That said, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services investigated the issue in 2021

and concluded that gender reassignment surgery is child abuse because it inflicts irreversible harm on children who, quote, lack the legal capacity to consent to surgical treatments. So the issue is far from settled in Texas. And what's the main argument for barring access to these kind of treatments? So the main issue is that it's not ethical to make permanent modifications to children's bodies because they aren't capable of real consent.

Studies have shown that hormone therapies do have irreversible effects, and obviously surgery is also irreversible. Beyond that, there are serious potential side effects of hormone therapy in both men and women, including permanent infertility and a greater risk of stroke, blood clots, and diabetes. The risk of permanent infertility is greater if hormone therapy is started before puberty, and again, it's unclear whether children and teens have the capacity to weigh those risks and comprehend those long-term tradeoffs. Have other states passed laws regulating these kind of treatments? So as of not only Arkansas, in Arkansas, it's illegal for doctors to prescribe hormones to minors or perform gender reassignment surgery on minors.

Last year, more than a dozen states considered similar bills, but the majority didn't pass. So I guess we'll have to see how it does in Texas. Mairee, thanks for reporting. Thanks, Georgia. That's Daily Wire investigative reporter, Marade Ellorty. Coming up, the Supreme Court will hear the case of a website designer who wants to refuse service based on her religious beliefs. This show is sponsored by Naturally It's Clean. When it comes to cleaning your home, you want a cleaning product that is safe, effective, and affordable.

Naturally It's Clean provides the most effective hospital-grade cleaning products for your home while reducing the use of harmful chemicals. Their secret, powerful plant-based enzymes, nature's solution to cleaning. you can receive 15% off your essential four-pack at Naturally It's Clean.com slash morning wire when you use the promo code wire. That's Naturally It's Clean.com promo code wire. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case relating to free speech in art. The case involves a Denver-based web designer who has challenged a state law that forbids her from stating on her website that she only creates wedding pages for traditional weddings

due to her religious convictions. Here with the latest is Daily Wire's Charlotte Pence Bond. So Charlotte, this case sounds pretty familiar, but what can you tell us about the details? Yes, it certainly does. So once again, the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act is at issue. This time, it's not a Colorado baker, as you might remember from a famous case a few years ago,

but rather a web designer. Now, remind us about the Baker case. How did the court rule on that? In the 2018 Baker case, a baker named Jack Phillips told a statement, same-sex couple that he wouldn't make a wedding cake for them because his religious convictions don't allow him to support same-sex marriage. However, he did say he would sell them other goods instead. Colorado law holds that businesses can't discriminate against any customer based on a variety

of factors, including sexual orientation. They also can't announce they're going to do that. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled on the side of the baker, essentially agreeing that Phillips received hostile treatment from the Colorado Civil Rights Commission because of his religious views and that the commission had violated the free exercise clause. But the High Court did not actually rule on freedom of speech in that case, and that's the issue they're taking up now with this new one. The specific question the justices will weigh in on in this new case is, quote, whether applying a public accommodation law to compel an artist to speak or stay silent violates the free speech clause of the First Amendment. Okay, so what are the details of this new case? The designer at the

center of this is Lori Smith. She owns a web company called 303 creative. Smith says she is willing to serve all customers regardless of their sexual orientation. However, the company's planning to restrict wedding-related work to exclusively heterosexual marriages. According to the petition to the Supreme Court, her proposed statement reads, quote, these same religious convictions that motivate me also prevent me from creating websites, promoting, and celebrating ideas or messages that violate my beliefs. So I will not be able to create websites for same-sex marriages or any other marriage that is not between one man and one woman. Doing that would compromise my Christian witness and tell a story about marriage that contradicts God's true story of marriage, the very story he is calling me to

promote. That's interesting how she words it. So making a website would force her to tell a story she doesn't believe. Right. So she's positioning this as compelled speech. Smith hasn't put that message up yet. And Three or Three Creative hasn't even started offering wedding websites yet because Smith knows it would be breaking the law. Instead, this whole thing is her preemptively challenging the law. Here's Lori Smith discussing the case in August. Well, I'm happy to work with all people. There are certain messages I'm unable to promote through my business, which is why I am challenging this law. And here's Jake Warner, an attorney with Alliance Defending Freedom, the firm representing Lori.

You know, what's at stake in Lori's case is this. Does the government have the power to force a creative professional to express a message that goes against their deepest convictions. The High Court will likely hear the case next term, which starts in October. But this could be a pretty big deal. The fact that they chose to take up this issue again, and the question they're looking at with the freedom of speech concerns could mean that they want to make a more declarative ruling on these issues. Right. Very broad implications in this case.

Charlotte, thanks for bringing us the story. Anytime. That's Daily Wires, Charlotte Pence-Bahn. With Russia's invasion of Ukraine, millions worldwide have turned to social media platforms, where images of the conflict have flooded in, offering unprecedented access to outside viewers. Here with more on how social media has impacted global perception of the war and how platforms have fought back against Russia's efforts to suppress information is DailyWire's Cabot Phillips.

So Cabot, to start, what kind of impact has social media had on the war? Well, it's hard to understate the importance of these platforms, both in positive and negative ways. In the past, the only real way to find out what was going on in the war zone was to rely on the ground reporters who obviously are limited in what they can document or on military officials themselves who are notorious for releasing misinformation in an attempt to control the narrative. But now, anyone with a smartphone can become an on the ground reporter and because of that, we're being made aware of bombings and troop movement in real time as they're happening. So not only does that make it harder to keep large military operations a secret, which has obviously

benefited Ukraine, but it also makes it almost impossible to cover up war crimes and other human rights abuses. It's one thing to read in the newspaper about a bombing that killed a dozen civilians. It's a whole other story when you see a video on your Facebook showing the bodies. It's hard to quantify just how impactful that it is on the global perception of a conflict and how much that's impacted what's going on in Ukraine. So we know Putin has wanted to control the narrative during this conflict. How does social media impact his ability to do that? Yeah, Putin is notorious for controlling the flow of.

of information and using the media to spread propaganda to benefit his regime. In the past, including just this week, he's jailed journalists who've crossed him and threatened news outlets in the country that questioned his leadership. And traditionally, those tactics have worked. They've been largely effective, but this time has been different. From the start, his message to the people of Russia has been that Ukraine is a, quote, neo-Nazi regime full of an oppressed people supposedly longing to be reunited with Russia. But because of social media, ordinary Russians have been able to see what's actually going on in Ukraine. They've been able to hear directly from President Zelensky

and actual victims of the invasion. And that's allowed them to see how untrue Putin's message has been. And it's definitely creating an environment of Russia where there's more pushback than you'd expect. Yeah, let's talk about that. What kind of pushback have we seen? Well, it might sound trivial, but a growing number of popular social media influencers in Russia quickly begin to speak out against the war. and it does seem to have had an impact, particularly with younger Russians.

For example, Max Galkin, he's a Russian comedian and TV personality, posted a message saying, quote, no to war to his 9 million Instagram followers. Yuri Dud, a Russian blogger with 5 million Instagram followers, posted a similar anti-war message. We even saw an anti-war post on social media from the daughter of Vladimir Putin's press secretary. She's a fashion influencer with a quarter million Instagram followers. Ukrainian influencers who often have a sizable portion of Russian followers, because they share the same language, have also used their platforms

to share the reality of what's going on in Ukraine and how it conflicts with Putin's account of things. Earlier you mentioned some of the ways social media has impacted the situation negatively on back that force it could. So obviously, one of the things that make social media so valuable in a situation like this

is that anyone can become a reporter. But that's also what can make it dangerous. We've seen multiple examples of false reports racking up millions of views and shares before the truth gets out. For example, countless outlets reported on a group of 13 soldiers who told a Russian warship to go expletive themselves before fighting to the death on a small island. That story was massive on social media, but according to Ukraine's Navy, it's untrue. The soldiers might have sent that message, but did end up surrendering and are all, quote, alive and well, according to their military.

Right, that really created a lot of buzz and confusion. Yeah, I'm sure a lot of us saw that on our timelines or feeds. There were also reports of a Ukrainian pilot known as the Ghost of Kiev, who supposedly shot down half a dozen. dozen Russian jets in one day. Supposed footage of the incident racked up millions of views, but one of the main clips that went viral actually came from a video game, and the existence of the pilot is now up in the air as no current military officials have confirmed this story. We also saw similar stories involving viral videos of soldiers kissing their families goodbye that actually came from years ago. So it is important during times of conflict like this to

take everything with a grain of salt, especially in the early days. Always good advice and good stuff. Thanks, Cabot. Anytime. That's DailyWire's Cabot Phillips. If you like this episode and are interested in hearing more, subscribe to MorningWire on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening, and give us a five-star review. That's all the time we've got this morning.

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