Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 358 | Biden Erases Women & Jobs with Executive Orders | Guest: Kara Dansky

Episode Date: January 26, 2021

We'll be going over some of the most controversial of Biden's (many) executive orders that have been signed in the last week. What's concerning about halting the Keystone pipeline and stopping the ban on transgender people in the military? Is there any good news among all these orders? And, attorney and feminist Kara Dansky joins to discuss in detail Biden's executive order on gender identity and the problems it poses for those who actually care about women. -- Today's Sponsor: Annie's Kit Clubs have the perfect subscription box for both boys, and girls. Visit AnniesKitClub.com/Allie & save 75% off your first shipment. -- Sources: Keystone XL general manager: 'Hundreds of guys' have already been laid off after Biden executive order https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/keystone-xl-general-manager-hundreds-of-guys-have-already-been-laid-off-after-biden-executive-order/ar-BB1d5jnC Biden signs order reversing Trump’s transgender military ban https://www.fox13memphis.com/news/trending/biden-signs-order-reversing-trumps-transgender-military-ban/W6I6LMAP6RA4PE34KLLSHI7HW4/ Biden executive order reverses Trump, reopens military to transgender soldiers https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/biden-executive-order-reverses-trump-reopens-military-to-transgender-soldiers?utm_source=top_news&utm_campaign=standard Biden Is Set to Reinstate U.S. Funding for Global Abortion https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/biden-is-set-to-reinstate-u-s-funding-for-global-abortion/ -- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Tuesday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far. Thanks for all of the positive feedback on yesterday's episode. We talked about taking care of babies and cancel culture. What it is, what it isn't, why real cancel culture is completely unsustainable, why it's not just holding someone accountable, but it truly is this kind of totalitarian tyranny and bullying that we should want no pardon and we should be pushing back against. We also talked about Christian nationalism. I was a little bit rushed in the last half of yesterday's episode and I didn't get to talk about everything that I wanted to in regards to Christian nationalism and distinguishing between some of the dangerous aspects of nationalism and real good patriotism.

That's also a fear that I have that people will be kind of slinging these vague terms and vague accusations like Christian nationalism to make people think that they shouldn't be thankful for their country or they shouldn't be proud of their country and to accuse people of idolatry who love their country. That's also a dangerous precedent to set. And so I will talk more about that. I'm also going to bring on a guest who has a very different perspective on Christian nationalism than most people do. But if you're interested in that, go listen to yesterday's episode today, we are going to answer some questions that you guys have had in regards to the executive orders that the Biden administration has signed in the last few days, in the first few days

of his presidency. And then I have a guest on who describes herself as a feminist and an advocate for women's rights, who is very concerned about this executive order that Joe Biden signed that has to do with so-called gender equality and gender identity, what it means for women's sports, what it means for women's privacy and protection in what is supposed to be exclusively female spaces. And we're going to talk about in general this transgender movement, transgender activism, and why from a feminist perspective, she believes this is so damaging. Obviously, we disagree on aspects of feminism, and we talk about that just a little bit.

I think it's really important to get a different perspective on it. I did an episode called the biblical tell us of gender talking about the biblical perspective on gender and so-called gender identity and what sex looks like. How Genesis 1, the first chapter of the Bible is so clarifying is such a good foundation for all of us about that. And so I'll link to that episode as well in this description. But today I wanted to get a different perspective from a feminist on all of this. So definitely, definitely excited to let you guys hear that conversation. But first, let us go through some of these executive orders. They were, I think at this point, as I'm recording this, 34 or 35 executive orders that Joe Biden has signed in just the first

few days of his presidency. And most of these executive orders indicate what a lot of us knew, what a lot of conservatives knew about him going into the election, was that he's not a moderate. He's not a middle of the road guy. He is just as progressive. I would say as Bernie Sanders would be at this point. Now, personally, that's probably not true. He probably does not identify as a Democratic socialist. I think he's a capitalist, at least personally. He probably is a moderate personally in a lot of ways. But we told you guys that him choosing Kamala Harris as his vice president, signaled who he was trying to reach and signaled what kind of presidency this would be. Kamala Harris was the most liberal senator based on her votes when she was in the Senate. We knew that he was going to be a far left progressive, at least in how he leads to the country. And we have seen through his many executive orders over the past few days that that is already shaping up to be true. We're not going to go through all 34 of them, but I want to go through four or five of

what I think are some of the most controversial. I'll also talk about one, at least briefly, that I'm encouraged by, that I actually think at least on the surface is a very good thing. And I'm also going to talk about how last week he stated very proudly and publicly that he wants to codify, codify Roe v. Wade and what that actually means. But first, let's go through some of these executive orders. And so I want to talk about the Keystone pipeline, because a lot of you guys have asked me about that. He stopped construction of the Keystone pipeline. It's a 1,200-mile structure-carrying oil from Canada to the U.S. Now, Canada, being the leftist socialist place that it is, you would think would be in line with anything that Democrat President Joe Biden would do. But they're

actually very upset about this. There was a representative from Canada who was on Fox News the other day saying this is a terrible decision. Like this is not good for Canada. This is not good for jobs. It's not good for the economy. It's not even good for the environment. A lot of people are saying so Canada is also not happy about this decision, especially that the United States did not consult Canada before making this decision. Now, if President Trump had done something like this, there would be Kairons and headlines everywhere about how he has already rocked democratic norms and he has already torn apart our alliance with one of our strongest and geographically closest allies Canada by making a decision without any regard to the Canadian people.

This just shows his bigotry, the bigotry of America first. That's what we would be hearing about if he had made a decision. without consulting Canada that Canada is saying hurts them. But of course, we're not going to hear that about the Biden administration because the media, as we have seen over the past few days, is just so excited to have an ally again in the White House. And so climate activists, and therefore a lot of leftists are excited about this. They have been trying to stop the construction of the Keystone pipeline. They say that, you know, you're carrying this over indigenous lands.

That's not fair. That we are endangering animals and birds. This is all arguable, by the way. And if you'll remember, a couple years ago, there were protests, I think mostly held by environmental activists and some indigenous people, protests against the construction of the pipeline. And the pictures that we saw after these. people camped out in protest of the construction was just trash everywhere. There was trash everywhere. I mean, it was rancid. It was terrible. And so these people who claim to care about the environment, some of them are protesting and actually are polluting the land through their protests. And so there's

just a little bit of irony there. So obviously the ending of the construction of this pipeline, one of the immediate consequences, is job layoffs in a time where our economy is really struggling, where people need jobs more than ever. This is from MSN.com. A general manager working on the Keystone XL pipeline said that hundreds of guys employed to build the controversial pipeline have already been laid off from their jobs

after President Biden signed an executive order to halt construction. Senator Ted Cruz has already spoken out about it saying during Pete Buttigieg's confirmation, quote, and with the stroke of a pen, President Biden has told those 11,000 workers, these union workers, which the unions were very pro-Biden for the most part,

has told these union workers, your jobs are gone. Canadian prime minister, like we alluded to just a few minutes ago, Justin Trudeau has also stated he is disappointed in this decision. So the U.S. won't use Alberta oil from tar sands. That just reinforces America's dependence on Middle East oil producers. And so that's why people say this doesn't actually help the environment. Like we're still going to be getting oil. We're still going to be spending money on oil production.

But now, rather than bolstering our own economy and the economy of Canada to produce and to transfer our oil, we're just going to be relying on the Middle East. We're going to be relying on these anti-humanitarian regimes like Saudi Arabia for oil. We're just going to be getting more oil from them. So if we're actually worried about the environment and if we're worried, about the humanitarian costs to building this pipeline on what they're calling indigenous lands, then shouldn't we also care about being overly or even more dependent on the Middle East for our oil production?

So that is, that's one of the executive orders that people are having a very hard time with right now, not just because it lessens our own dependence or our own independence and dependence on one of our allies for oil, but also because of the loss of jobs. A lot of these people are working class people who may have voted for Joe Biden because their union told them to vote for Joe Biden because Joe Biden said that he was a pro union. Joe Biden also put a moratorium on fracking. We're talking about the loss of even more jobs. He said in a debate, Kamala Harris said that he was not going to ban fracking. Well, that's pretty much what he's already done.

We told you guys. He's a radical. I mean, he is going to pander to the far left. You thought Obama was liberal? this is going to be a more liberal presidency. He also issued an executive order reversing Trump's ban on transgender people serving in the U.S. military. Now, this might sound good, but there needs to be some clarification. Now, here's what Fox 13 Memphis says in reporting this.

The order will apply to more than 15,000 transgender people currently estimated to be serving in the military, according to the numbers from the National Center for Transgender Equality. The order immediately bars people from being discharged. or denied reenlistment based on their gender identities and orders the correction of previously affected military records. So really the reason for the ban was not just people who have a different gender identity, but one of the problems was, is that people were, these people were transitioning while they were serving in the military and they were being discharged because of that under Trump's so-called ban. And activists are saying, well, that's not.

not fair. Their transition should not only be paid for, but it shouldn't have anything to do with whether or not they are able to serve in the military. LifeSight News, it talks about the problems with Joe Biden's decision to reverse this. The order calls for establishing a process by which transgender service members may transition gender while serving and immediately prohibits involuntary separations, discharges, and denials of re-enlistment, or continuation of service on the basis of gender identity or under circumstances relating to gender identity. It does not specifically address whether reassignment surgeries will once more be offered to gender confused soldiers at taxpayer expense, but conservative critics expect that

announcement to soon follow in light of the Biden administration's overall support for the transgender lobby from preferred pronouns to forcing biological males into girls' sports. And so the problem with this is that the military is not supposed to be a social experiment. The military is supposed to be about effectiveness. It's supposed to be about lethality. I mean, that's why a lot of people are against women on the front lines and women in combat. That's why they're against, for example, I don't even know the proper terminology, but in certain combat situations, mixing men and women because men and women are fundamentally different. women just can't do the same things men can. And the surgeries and the cross-sex hormones that are

often used in surgery can hinder someone's ability to be as lethal as possible, to be able to carry out their duty. So anything, whether it is, whether it's a surgery or transition or any other kind of physical hindrance that could possibly cause someone from being less lethal or to to be less lethal in combat should absolutely be looked at. I mean, we're not, we shouldn't be talking about creating some kind of social experiment within the military. The most important thing for the military to be is lethal, to be effective. So anything that could possibly, potentially negative effect someone's lethality,

someone's effectiveness, whether that is distracting the men in the military with having, with being intermixed with females, which we've actually seen studies of that, how that can hinder lethality and hinder effectiveness, not just because they're distracted by each other, but women in general aren't able to fulfill the same physical duties that men are. That's just the biological reality. Or whether it's something like this, someone's transition hindering their ability to be able to do their job effectively in the military. We have to be able to think logically about this. Like, we have to be able to think scientifically about this. This, again, is not just about a social issue. It's about the protection of our country and physically what someone is actually

capable of doing. But the Biden administration is always going to prioritize leftist activism over what actually biologically scientifically makes sense. He also issued an executive order reversing the Mexico City policy. The Mexico City policy, this has been gone back and forth between Democratic and Republican presidents for as long as it has existed. The Mexico City policy prevents U.S. aid money from funding groups that perform or promote abortion around the globe. National Review notes that this particular executive order does seem to be out of step with most Democrats.

70% of Democrats said in 2017 that they opposed taxpayer-funded abortion around the globe. Now, Biden has also said that he is going to work to reverse the Hyde Amendment, the Hyde Amendment was instated in the 1970s, and it protects our taxpayer dollars, our federal tax dollars, from directly funding most abortions. Well, the abortion lobby has said this discriminates against poor women who want abortions. They should be able to get abortions for free. The taxpayer, you know, like you and me, should be forced to pay for people's abortions with unrestricted access. And so Joe Biden has also said that he supports that. Like I said, he also believes in codifying Roe v. Wade. The codification of Roe v. Wade would basically make it

very difficult for states to put restrictions on abortion. It would enshrine and make official the rights to have an abortion pretty much at any time in the pregnancy for any reason. And with the reversal of the Hyde Amendment would also mean that you and I are paying for it. So again, like, I am not trying to be rude or anything or I'm not trying to be prideful in saying this, but when I look at some of these things, I just wonder what the evangelical pro-life people for Biden, who described themselves as evangelical pro-lifers, when they said they were voting for Biden, like, what, what, what? What? Like, what were you? voting for? Were you voting for this kind of superficial promise of normalcy and decency?

Like, what were you voting for? I understand why you didn't vote for Donald Trump. That's totally fine. But like, we told you guys, this was coming down the pipeline. Like, we told you guys, this is what was coming. We told you guys there was going to be a subversion, an official legal subversion of gender in what that actually looks like. Like, we told you guys that this was going to happen. And we told you guys that he was going to be the most pro-abortion president. And this was going to be the most pro-abortion administration that we've seen. We told you guys that. Like every purported value that evangelicals that Christians have, I mean, his executive orders over the past few days have already bucked up against.

And we told you guys this is going to happen. This is not a surprise. And so now I think we're going to see a lot of evangelicals possibly. Either they're not going to care or they're going to say, wow, I'm, you know, I'm really worried. about the Equality Act or I'm really worried about this executive order on gender identity, or I'm really worried about this reversal of the Mexico City policy or the codification of Roe v. Wade. I'm really worried about this when you've spent the past four years directing all of your ire at

Donald Trump and telling people that they're not good Christians if they do vote for Donald Trump and even implicitly or explicitly saying that Joe Biden is the adult in the room and he is the candidate of decency and it would be better to vote for a Democrat who is rabidly pro abortion and who denies biological reality that God created than it would be to vote for a Twitter bully. I mean, and I'm just, it's going to be very hard for me to watch. That's what I'll say. There was another executive order to pause construction of the border wall.

There are various executive orders as well that have to do with immigration. he has signaled that he does not believe in strong borders, and he does not believe that we need greater or more effective border security, and that the pathway to getting citizenship as an illegal immigrant really should just be as easy as possible. And citizenship basically becomes this arbitrary thing. So all of you legal immigrants who you came here legally, and you worked very hard, and you went through the very, very long process of becoming a legal citizen. It really doesn't matter. You know, you didn't have to do that. You could have just come here illegally and you could have

broken the law and you could have had the same end result, probably a lot more quickly. But because you decided to go through the process with integrity and through hard work and with honesty, you had to wait a very long time and possibly pay a lot of money. you could have just broken laws and done it without integrity and gotten it all for free. That is the message that Biden is going to send on immigration. All right. Now I want to talk about, well, I want to talk about the executive order on gender and in particular what this means to women's sports. And that's what we're going to talk about in the upcoming conversation.

But I also do want to say that there is one executive order that I actually actually, that I actually appreciated. So there's an executive order aimed at boosting Biden's by American efforts. It increases how much of a product must be made in the U.S. For it to qualify is made in America. It will also create a website for Americans to see what contracts are being awarded to foreign vendors in a position with the Office of Management and Budget to implement federal procurement effort.

And so I don't know necessarily what this is going to accomplish. but anything that promotes or encourages buying American products, I think, is good. I was also encouraged that the nominee for the Secretary of State, who is probably going to be, I think his hearings are going to end today, he will probably be confirmed that he reaffirmed what Trump's Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo said about the U.S. Muslims in China. He declared it a genocide and accused China of crimes against humanity, which is obviously a very serious charge to level. The nominee for Biden, Secretary of State, agreed with that characterization. So I think that's good. Like, I am not scared at all to cheer on this administration if they put America first when it comes to, when it comes to job creation, which obviously we know that they're not doing that, because they're

talking about raising the minimum wage to $15, which is going to crush small businesses. And they're also talking about raising taxes, which will crush the middle class. They're also getting rid of the Keystone pipeline, which is taking away jobs. But where they do try to focus on American jobs, I will applaud them. Where they do condemn China, our greatest economic and in some ways safety threat, it's hard to say military threat because we're still the strongest military power in the world. but our biggest threat in many different categories, as long as they're strong on those things, I will applaud them on the things that they're doing well.

So this particular executive order, at least superficially, I actually do appreciate. So lots of other executive orders, this is, you know, we've talked about how this phrase is so overused, or this word is so overused, unprecedented. It really is an unprecedented number of executive orders that are being signed right now, not just to reverse everything that Donald Trump has done, but to enact new orders and new measures as well. They also reversed Donald Trump's executive order banning critical race theory at the federal level. So now critical race theory will take its place back in training sessions in the federal government. You guys know how I feel about that.

We've talked about critical race theory and how damaging it is many, many times. But of course, that's what they're going to do. They got rid of the 1776 project, which was a counter to the fallacious and false 1619 project, the mythical 1619 project. Of course, they are going to be pushing critical race theory and identity politics and things like the 1619 project and all of this craziness that is very damaging and divisive for society. Meanwhile, they will be saying that they are the unifying force bringing people. together. There's a lot more to talk about about the first two days of the Biden presidency, but now we're going to talk about the executive order that has to do with so-called gender identity and how it affects women and girls. And I'm going to speak to Kara Danske. She is an attorney

and a member of the steering committee of the women's rights campaign, the U.S. chapter. Kara, thank you so much for joining me. I am really excited to get your perspective on this executive order, first I kind of want to back up and just start with the basics, the fundamentals of what to a lot of people is a crazy and confusing conversation. When this executive order talks about not being able to discriminate on gender identity, what does that phrase even mean? It's a great question. And thank you so much for having me. You know, unfortunately, our society seems to have adopted the notion that there is such a thing as gender identity and that it merits protection in the law. So I would say two things. One, I would say that really gender identity

doesn't mean much of anything. When you really dig down into the particulars, it's a made-up ideology that has no grounding in material reality whatsoever. It is fundamentally anti-science. and it really doesn't merit being protected in civil rights law. Now, to the extent that so-called gender identity means anything, what it means from a feminist perspective, which is where I come from, gender, as far as we're concerned, is a caste system. Gender is a set of sex-based stereotypes, which we're all really familiar with. It's the notion that girls are supposed to like pink and boys are supposed to like

blue, that men are innately aggressive and women are innately nurturing. And these are sex-based stereotypes that feminists have been fighting for centuries to destroy. And to the extent that gender identity means anything at all, it means a person chooses to adopt or identify with the sex-based stereotypes of the opposite sex. And from a feminist perspective, that's extremely harmful. because we don't want those sex-based stereotypes to exist at all. From our perspective, if a man wants to wear a pink outfit, he ought to be able to do that. If a woman wants to wear pants and become an attorney or a CEO, she ought to be able to do that. We want to get rid of sex-based stereotypes.

And to the extent that so-called gender identity ideology exists, it would enshrine those sex-based stereotypes in society and what President Biden's order does is enshrine them in the law. And we think that that is horrible for women and girls. But even going back, really at its core, when you really examine it, gender identity doesn't mean anything. It is not grounded in material reality in his anti-science. Right. And we would acknowledge that something, an anomaly like intersex, obviously exists. Something like gender dysphoria actually exists. I mean, these are diagnoses that really exist,

people feeling uncomfortable in their bodies. But what you are saying is that this idea that we are just able to declare what gender we are, independent of our sex, has no basis in reality and therefore should have no holding in our law, correct? Yeah, and it's important to bring up the real topic of intersex. It is true that there are people with what is commonly referred to as intersex is sometimes referred to as disorders of sexual development or differences of sexual development. And what that means is that there are some people, a very small minority of people, who have chromosomal anomalies, right? Women have X, X, X, X, Y chromosomes. And there are some people who have different chromosomes. chromosomal makeups. It's a very tiny minority of the population. And from what I understand of the science, I'm not a scientist, but I have read a lot about this and spoken with scientists and doctors. If anybody has a Y chromosome, that person is still male because the Y chromosome triggers a certain

gene that develops into a male body. Right. So what you're referring to is intersex is real, certainly. And yes, my understanding is that there are people who are uncomfortable in their bodies. But I also just want to say there's nothing unusual about being uncomfortable in our bodies. Most people struggle a bit with puberty, especially girls. And there's nothing unusual or strange about one being uncomfortable in one's body. But that doesn't make a person actually the opposite sex. Which is one of the dangers and especially when it comes to this movement as it pertains to children. Is that a child who expresses any discomfort in their body or any discomfort with, like you said, gender stereotypes, maybe a girl who wants to, you know, only wear pants and not

wear dresses. That was me when I was younger. I never wanted to wear a dress. I wanted to wear a white t-shirt and jeans. I liked bugs and snakes. And I just wasn't in to the frilly. stuff nowadays that is almost seen as well. Is that young girl confused about her gender? Is she confused about her identity? Should we talk to a psychologist? Should we perhaps use cross-sex hormones in order to suppress puberty or to delay puberty? So we can talk about who she really is. I mean, it's kind of scary to think about that there are a lot of kids. There are a lot of girls and boys who have different interests in adult fit maybe the typical gender stereotype. that has been constructed that you talked about in the beginning, who now are being told,

even sometimes by pediatricians and psychologists and parents, well, that must mean that your body is wrong. That must mean that your biology is wrong. And to me, that just seems like it would be so damaging for adolescents who don't really have gender dysphoria, but are almost being pressured into changing their bodies just because they don't fit this narrow definition of what it means to be a boy or a girl, right? Yes, and you're right to say it's very scary. It is extremely scary and I think that a lot of people are really under-informed about what is really going on here. And what is going on here is that you're absolutely right. Children in schools are being told that if they're uncomfortable in their body, then perhaps they are the opposite sex. And parents are not getting the information that they need to really navigate this very difficult situation. It is, it is scarier than most people understand. We are dealing with a situation in which children, as you say, are getting puberty blockers at alarmingly young ages.

And we do not know the long-term effects of puberty blockers on otherwise healthy children. It's worth understanding that puberty blockers were created and first administered for people who have what is referred to as precocious puberty. These are kids who just start puberty early. And their medical professionals feel like they're starting puberty at an age where they're not psychological. prepared to handle those kinds of changes. So doctors will halt the process of puberty until the kids are at an age and at a psychological level of development where they're in line with their peers and they're psychologically prepared to handle it. Nobody's disputing the validity of that. The problem here is that we're talking about children who are otherwise

normal, we would say, sort of developmentally, and they're being given puberty blockers. And we do not know the long-term effects of this. One thing that we do know is that the overwhelming majority of children who are given puberty blockers go on to take cross-sex hormones. And, you know, this results in some serious health effects. We know that this is more likely to cause cancer in children and young adults. And we know that it causes permanent sterility. And this is happening in children who are not prepared to make the kinds of decisions that are, society is pressuring them, as you said, to make. And there's some of your viewers may not know.

There's been a really helpful development in the UK in a case involving a young woman named Kira Bell. She's in the UK and she was given puberty blockers at a very young age, went on to take cross-sex hormones, then turned out to regret all of that and sued the gender identity clinic that she was sent to and she won her case. And a court in the UK has now ruled that children under 16 cannot legally consent to these kinds of medical interventions. And that case is now on appeal. But it's a very positive development for kids in the UK. Right. Absolutely. I mean, we understand, it's just kind of common sense that there are a lot of things that children can't consent to,

that they're just not able to kind of make those long-term decisions. That's why the family is important. That's why parents are important. That's why the strength of families is important because parents are instilled with that responsibility of good stewardship of their kids to help them and guide them and to navigate these very confusing questions. And when you kind of surrender that responsibility that you have as a parent to this social experiment that says, well, let's try to change my child's biology because she doesn't want to

wear a dress or something like that or because she learned about this at school and is now confused. Like you said, it becomes very frightening. I'm encouraged by what we saw in the UK. I hope and I could see this kind of snowballing where people are at least able to say, okay, let's not make our kids a social experiment. I want to talk about how this order in particular and this movement in general has an effect not just on the kids who are getting these puberty blockers at say 8 to 11 years old, but also female athletes, young girls in female only spaces, locker rooms, bathrooms, This executive order basically says if you get federal funding, you're not able to say that boys who identify as girls can't go in the girls' bathroom or running track against girls, correct?

What's the implication of all of that? Yeah. So I want to talk about the order, but just going back to the question of parents and how frightening this is, I'm aware of cases in which parents have lost custody of their children. Children have been removed from their parents' homes in cases where the parents do not go along with the so-called affirming approach. It is impossible to state how alarming this is and how much danger we are all in because the ideology of so-called gender identity has taken over throughout all of our social institutions, including the law, including government, including journalism, including academia. every single institution has been completely captured by this. And it trumps other rights, too. It trumps parental rights.

And obviously it's not in the best interest of the child when you think about our foster care system. And unfortunately, in a lot of cases, the abuses and the neglect that goes on there to think that taking a child from the loving home and the caring home and the attentive home of their parents, even parents who think that, okay, you know, I'm not going to go along with this newfound gender. to think that that could be good for that child. I mean, it just shows you that this is ideologically driven. This is not about the well-being of these kids. Absolutely. And, you know, as you said earlier, you know, it's just worth emphasizing, I come at this from a feminist perspective,

and I agree with you 100% on what you just said. So maybe turning to the order, it might be helpful to go back to last June with the Supreme Court's ruling in the Bostock decision. Is that okay? Yeah. be ground this? Yeah, let's definitely do that because this is what the executive order is based on.

So the Supreme Court last year first combined a couple of cases. It combined two cases in which gay men had been fired from their jobs because they were gay. And it combined those two cases with a case called Amy Stevens, in which a man named Amy Stevens demanded recognition by his employer to be considered to be a woman. And so the court conflated these three cases. It's ruling that the gay men should not have been fired for being gay. We would argue is great from the perspective that it is wrong to fire someone for being gay. We are all in favor of protection of sexual orientation in employment law.

But then what it did is it also ruled that it constitutes sex discrimination in the employment context to fire someone based on so-called transgender status. The Supreme Court never defined what transgender status might mean, so we don't know. The other thing that's important to note about the Bostock decision from last June is that the court was very clear that its ruling was limited to employment discrimination. Now, there were many of us at that time that said, well, that's not going to work, because for practical purposes, a lot of people are going to interpret this as applying outside of the employment context. And that is exactly what this executive order does. It says,

inaccurately, that Bostock ruled that gender identity is protected. Bostock didn't actually rule that. The language that the Bostock decision used is that people are protected in employment based on transgender status, again, without defining it. And the Bostock Doc decision limited its ruling to the employment context. One thing that this executive order does is state inaccurately that gender identity is now protected in all sorts of other contexts. It uses some tricky language. It says under the reasoning of Boss stock, the gender identity protection applies in Title IX and in other contexts. And that's just inaccurate. It's a complete misrepresentation of the Bostock decision.

So Bostock happened and our view is that Bostock was terrible for women and girls. Notwithstanding that, as bad as that was for women and girls, the order takes it even further. And I just want to, sorry, I just want to know from my audience to remember that when Bostock was decided, Justice Gorsuch, a conservative constitutionalist justice, is what swayed the decision in this direction, which a lot of conservatives were very disappointed in. So I just want to remind people that this is not just a matter of liberal versus conservative, that there was a conservative judge that was appointed by President Trump, our justice, that decided that went with the concurrence for the Bostock decision.

So I just wanted to note that for everyone. That's right. Thanks for that clarification. So I just think it's really important to understand. We talked about what gender identity is. We didn't really talk about what it isn't. One thing that gender identity, whatever it is, it is not sexual orientation. And I think it's important that everybody really understand that all of the lesbians and gay men that I know do not want to have anything to do with this so-called gender identity movement.

They just don't want to be affiliated with it because same-sex-attracted people are attracted to other people on the basis of sex. Opposite-sex people are attracted to people on the basis of sex. This is all grounded in material reality. It has nothing to do with so-called gender identity, whatever that means. Right. And we need to understand that it is simply not possible to protect women and girls in the law, in sports, in same sex or in sex segregated spaces, in prisons, in domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers, homeless shelters.

We cannot protect women and girls and also say that gender identity is a category of people worthy of civil rights protection. They are just not compatible. So we just need to understand that if we're going to. to have laws and policies that protect so-called gender identity, what we are doing is obliterating women and girls as a sex-based class of people in the law. And obviously the reason why that's important is because of something that I think a lot of transgender activists deny, and that is that there are fundamental biological differences

between men and women. The reason why we raise so many concerns about biological men entering women's spaces and we don't so much, quite as much talk about biological women entering mid-spaces and the danger of that is because there is a potentially a physical threat, especially when you're talking about physical competition and track or something like that. There is a physical advantage that biological men have over the average woman that poses a threat to her, that can be a danger to her. And I actually talked about that once and the response that I got from someone, which I just think is so detached from reality, but is indicative of how a lot of activists apparently think. And this person told me that that was internalized misogyny, that there's no reason why a woman wouldn't be able to beat a man in track. There's no reason why a woman wouldn't be able to defend herself in a situation in which a man entered what is supposed to be a private, exclusively female space. That's just me affirming gender stereotypes about women being the weaker sex. It's almost like we're not even allowed to talk about the biological advantages that men,

even those who identify as women and, you know, maybe taking cross-sex hormones, have over women. Why this detachment from reality? It's not even almost as though we're not allowed to talk about it. It is exactly that we are not allowed to talk about it. But feminists will keep talking about this. And you're absolutely right. Men do retain physical advantages over women in sports. And I also just think even if that weren't true, and it is, men retain physical advantages over women in sports, even if they're taking puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones.

They do. They retain physical advantages just in terms of size alone. And other things like bone density, lung capacity. Hormones don't change any of that. Right. But even if that weren't true, women need to have the right to say no to men under any circumstances for any reason or no reason at all, including in the bedroom, in our bathrooms and on the playing field. We have to be absolutely relentless about this. Women have the right to say no to men. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's probably a point that is lost in all of this. And it also seems like

there are many people who are comfortable with living in this cognitive dissonance that, for example, we can say that Kamala Harris is the first female vice president. And so we obviously acknowledge that sex is significant, that it actually means something, that it's not just her gender identity that makes this a special event or a special accomplishment. We still call people, I would say normal, most people in society still refer to people by gendered pronouns and the gender binary of he and she and her and him. And yet when it comes to something like this executive order, when it comes to activism, we push all of that common sense away and we start embracing this dissonance, detached from reality language of, well, gender identity is

this very fluid thing that has nothing to do with sex. And like you said, it also confuses things like homosexuality. I saw someone the other day. Call out Miley Cyrus. Miley Cyrus said, you know, I'm attracted to women because of this part of their anatomy and it's better than this part of guy's anatomy. And, you know, transaction. And she used fairly cruise language, characteristically of Miley Cyrus. She did. She did. And people were upset about that, not because I guess of her attraction, but because she associated certain anatomy with women and certain anatomy with men. And this person who was trying to refute her said, no, no, no, no, no. Homosexuality is really about being attracted to gender identity, not about being

attracted to anatomy. And I just, like you were saying, I just don't think that's true. This all seems very unsustainable to me. Like, it's just going to come to a head at some point. One can only hope. The dissonance that you talk about is absolutely astonishing. I hope. have been following this issue for years. And because of my feminist activism and my feminist background, I have known how devastating this all is to the rights, privacy, and safety of women and girls. What I did not see coming and what most of us did not see coming is the speed and force with which this ideology has completely captured all of our institutions. And you're absolutely right about the dissonance. So just another example, also yesterday, Kira Knightley, the actress

from the UK announced that she will no longer, she will no longer be filmed doing sex scenes that are directed by men. And the thing of it is, this has nothing to do with so-called gender identity. This is just her making a statement about what she is and is not willing to do on on camera. Right. And every single person who read that story knows exactly what she means.

Yeah. She knows, we all know that she is a woman and we all know what she means by a sex scene and we all know what she means by sex scenes directed by men. When we have conversations like this, normally, when we're not talking about so-called gender identity, everybody knows what a woman is and everybody knows what a man is. But all of a sudden, when the phrase gender identity comes onto the scene, people act like they're all of a sudden confused. But in reality, no one's really confused. It's just the dissonance. It's the dissonance that you're talking about, which is just astonishing.

It's forced confusion, which I think a good portion of the sexual revolution, at least from my conservative perspective, is a lot of forced confusion. And it's damaging, like you said, not just to individuals, not just to people's safety and privacy, but also to families, to children, to people's minds, something that has really been settled science for as long as humans have been around is now being called into question. And we're already seeing the damaging societal ramifications for that. And what I hope is that, you know, I always say that truth is like a beach ball. You can try to push it under the water, but eventually it's going to pop back up. To me, this is such an irrefutable reality, the reality

of male and female, that the beach ball is going to pop back up one way or another. It's just a matter of how much damage is going to be caused in the process. Do you agree? I completely agree. I think that you and I could probably have a very interesting conversation about what is meant by the sexual revolution. And I'm sure that you and I probably disagree about a lot of things that that's entailed in that. And that's fine. I'm happy to talk with people who disagree with me on a lot of things. But I guess I just want to say that what feminists were doing during the second wave of feminism in the 1960s and 1970s was not about denying the category of women. You know, you and I might disagree about a lot of things about second wave feminism, and that's okay. But one thing we have to be

very clear on is that feminists never tried to suggest that women don't exist. It's the exact opposite of that. And now it's all just been perverted. Yeah, I think my argument would be when it would be around like what women were purportedly liberated from. And I think that trying to minimize gender, harmful gender stereotypes is good and obviously affirming people's sex, even if they don't fit into narrow categories, is really good. I think I take issue with the parts of feminism that say, well, women need to be able to be exactly like men. and we need to get away with this idea that women are more nurturing or women tend to like these things. When in general, a lot of those descriptors are true.

And when we try to tell women, no, you can be like this and you can be exactly like a man, to me, it's almost inevitable that it leads to kind of the confusion that we're seeing right now, that, okay, if we get rid of all unique descriptors of men and women, then there's going to be a whole lot of confusion. So I'm not saying I have the answer to the balance of that, but I can also see how the logic of feminism has led to where we are right now. I mean, I can understand the argument that you're making. And I would disagree with it because I don't think that feminism was saying that. It also becomes a little bit difficult because there are different kinds of feminism and we have to get into like, you know, labels of this type versus that type and all sorts of things that I don't think we have time for. So I think that what we're talking about right now actually leads to a really interesting conversation about how in our society today people can talk with one another, right?

Like I heard what you just said and I can understand your argument and disagree with it. And I don't hate you. You know, I don't. I definitely don't hate you either. Yes. I feel like there are a lot of ways in which our society has lost the ability to have. decent conversations with people with whom we might disagree and, you know, we might change each other's minds. You know, I don't know. I'm open to that possibility. I would welcome more conversations like this.

But when it comes to the topic of gender identity, people who push back against it are generally shut down. You know, I think you mentioned my Tucker Carlson appearance. I related a story to him about how about a year ago, I and a couple other women wanted to have a conversation, a public conversation, in a public life. library about how so-called gender identity is destroying the rights of women and girls. And I'm not kidding when I say that as we left, literally hundreds of people ran after us and threatened us. And, you know, it's just astonishing. I know women who have, I literally know women who have lost their jobs because they speak up for the rights, privacy, and safety of women and girls. And the, um, the tyranny of this is just, is, is really destructive. to civil society and to humanity.

And I think it speaks to how bad the idea is. Bad ideas have to be forced. Bad ideas have to come tyrannically. Bad ideas have to be bullied into the populace and have to, I mean, I think this executive order goes against popular opinion. I think it goes against what most people know is good and right and true for society. And yet, because of the tyrannical. nature that you just described because of the bullying sometimes at these lobbying groups, I think a lot of

politicians and just private citizens are forced to conform. And like I said, it's not a good idea if it doesn't allow for the airing out of other ideas too. So thank you for what you do. Thank you for being willing to speak out, even when it's unpopular, even when it can feel dangerous at times. can you tell people where they can find you and how they can support what you do? Sure. Please visit women's declaration.com. Check it out. See if you like it. If you like it, sign on to it. You also might want to check out the 11th hour blog. That's the number 11, 11th hour blog. This goes into extraordinary detail about the funding that is fueling this movement. And yeah, just check us out. There's actually a lot of information out there. It's just very difficult to find.

but you can find it. But go to women's declaration.com as a starting point. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. Thank you. I appreciate it. All right, guys.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode and that conversation. Obviously, there's a lot more to be said about all of this. I think the thing that we worry about as Christians is obviously parental rights. Obviously what this means for our kids. And the subversion of reality, not. just biblical truth, which like I said at the beginning of this episode, as we've talked about before, is so fundamental to our worldview that God created the male and female, really that God is just in charge, that he created the universe, that he says what is and what is it, what's right

and what's wrong, what's male and what's female. And he made them male and female, and he made them very good. And so it is a fundamental tenet of Christianity that we affirm that which God says is very good, that we therefore affirm God's authority over the world, over our bodies, over our so-called identities, that the world is his. That's why my favorite him is, this is my father's world. When chaos and confusion are waging, when we have gotten so far into postmodernism and the denial of absolute truth that we can't even say what a woman is, something that has been established since the beginning of human existence that hasn't been arguable in any sense of the word. Now we've decided with all the human hubris in the world

that this is up for debate at the expense of the protection of children, the cohesion of the family, and the preservation and the privacy of women. And so we've got to stay grounded in the truth, biblical truth, moral truth, natural truth that we can observe with their eyes and ears. And this also matters politically as well because the more we look to the state or the more we look to the popular party or the mainstream dogma about what is true and what is not? What is scientific reality and what is not? The more vulnerable we become to being overtaken by totalitarianism. We talked about yesterday that totalitarianism, it doesn't start with the state.

It doesn't start with politics. It's a cultural revolution that happens. It starts on the private level. It starts on the interpersonal level. It starts in the pulpit. It starts in all of our interactions in daily life. And it starts with the subversion of truth. Hannah Arendt, who is an author who wrote about the origins of totalitarianism in the mid-20th century, she says this quote, which I think is just very profound. The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, i.e. the reality of experience, and the distinction between true and false, i.e. the standards of thought, no longer exist.

We see that this is true. And George Orwell's 1984, that if the party says two plus two equals five, then it has to equal five. And you, as just a mere agent of the state, have no ability, have no existential right to be able to say, no authority to be able to say that two plus two actually objectively equals four. That's a dangerous place to be. I think that we see bits of this actually on the right and the left. This doesn't just have to do with gender. it has to do with truth in general. And so we have a blessed privilege as Christians to know truth, to know the source of truth,

to know where it comes from, to appeal to the authority of all things when we are confused and when the world is confused. And that is what our comfort is that this is our father's world. He created it. He says what is and what is it. He says what's right and what's wrong. He says what is male and what is female. And even in the craziness of all these executive orders and maybe in leadership and decisions

we don't like, we can trust. that he is still as much on his throne and as much in control as he has ever been. And I'm thankful for that. All right, we will be back here tomorrow.