Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 444 | The Untold Stories of 'Gender Transition' | Guest: Brandon Showalter

Episode Date: June 24, 2021

Today, we're speaking with Brandon Showalter, a journalist with the Christian Post who covers the spread of transgender ideology and the ways it hurts children. The truth is, the rapid rise of gender ideology is being pushed by a small group of wealthy elites, rather than rising from a grassroots level. There's money to be made for them as well, and the medical industry profits greatly from the demand for medication and surgery. All this results in confusing and sometimes harmful circumstances for kids in the name of "tolerance." --- Today's Sponsors: Annie's Kit Clubs give you a monthly craft retreat, hassle free, with their Creative Woman Club. No searching for supplies or hunting for new projects. Visit AnniesKitClubs.com/ALLIE & save 50% on your first kit! Good Ranchers safely delivers American craft beef & better than organic chicken, right to your door! Go to GoodRanchers.com/ALLIE & save $20, plus get free express shipping! --- 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, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day Show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Hey, guys, welcome to Relatable. Today I am talking to Brandon Show Walter of The Christian Post. His beat is transgenderism and especially what the movement is doing to children. We've talked about the subject quite a lot, but he has a very unique perspective and really has been digging in. into this for a long time and the consequences that young kids are facing in the name of the social experiment that we haven't even thought through the implications of. And as we can already see, the implications, the consequences are very dire. And this is something that we need to know about. This is something we need to care about. If we care about the least of these, if we care about

the most vulnerable, we have to care about this issue. And so this is a fascinating conversation and that I had with him, and I'm really excited for you to listen to it. Without further ado, here is Brandon Showalter. Brandon, thank you so much for joining us. Can you tell everyone who you are and what you do? Yes, my name is Brandon Showalter. I am a journalist with The Christian Post and have been since the summer of 2016, full-time beat reporter based here in Washington, D.C.

And on the side, I like to sing and cook and hike mountains. Awesome, awesome. Something that you focused on a lot over the past few years, you talk about many things, but in particular, I was drawn to your work on transgenderism, transgender activism, and in particular, how this is affecting youth. Can you just talk about where you think we are in this whole, if you want to call it, a movement? Yes, I was first exposed to the transgender movement soon after I started as a full-time reporter. And I hadn't really heard so much about it. My grid for understanding what this was all about was the few transvestites at Mardi Gras. And I mean, I'd heard about it in the news here and there. Wasn't so familiar with the issues. But I noticed pretty soon, you know, about a year after the Obergefell ruling,

happened that all of the LGBT groups had totally moved on. Everything was centered around transgender, non-binary, queer, the letters in the acronym beyond LGBT. And I thought it was remarkable the speed at which that had taken, with which that had progressed. Everything was about that and I just thought, wow, that's fast. And I noticed that language was being shifted within the news media where men were being called she and all of these other things. And I knew a little bit about the medical stuff that was going on. I had heard about people that had a few surgeries, but my take on it was, well, I don't think that's ethical,

but if they're living their lives peacefully and not bothering anybody, I, you know, okay, didn't think it was ethical, but whatever. But it was in early 2017 when I learned at a cross-partisan panacean, at the Heritage Foundation that this was being done to children. And specifically when I learned what puberty blockers were, I've said before, is something inside me just kind of snapped. Immediately there was just this visceral gut reaction that I had, that I just knew it was horribly wrong,

that you don't treat the normal puberal processes as though they are diseases to be cured, particularly in pursuit of a physical impossibility. And so that's when I started falling down the gender identity. rabbit hole, as I like to say. And I've never been the same since. Yeah. We are destroying an entire generation of young people.

We are brutalizing their bodies. And the carnage is increasing. A lot of it's in my inbox. And it's so much worse than what people know. They are not only being indoctrinated in schools and through social media influencers, their bodies are being irreparably harmed. They are being drugged with powerful hormones that are not doing them any good. In fact, they're giving them endocrine diseases and putting them at risk for a whole host of

other terrible medical complications, heart attacks, strokes, cancers, kidney failures. It's bad. Transgenderism is many things. It's incoherent ideology. It makes no sense. It's a lie. But at base, what it mainly is is a medical scandal. Can we go back a little bit into your answer?

When you talked about just how quickly this all happens, you and I know, and probably most people know listening to and watching this, that a Bergerfeld happened in 2015. This is not something that happened 25, 30 years ago where it's just kind of been this slow growth of a movement. But this has all happened very quickly in just less than six years. Why do you think there was such a quick transition from, okay, you know, we just want gay people to be able to get married. We just want gay rights to, okay, let's subvert the entire natural order in our understanding, our scientific understanding, our historic understanding of what it means

to be a man and a woman. What was the reason for that quick switch in priorities? It's a great question. And what's interesting about it is that I've met a lot of, even gays and lesbians, since that ruling, who are adamantly opposed to this shift. So there's a lot of money and there's a lot of power to be had with this movement. I would attribute much of this to the ongoing forces of the sexual revolution. It just grabs power. It devours all kinds of things.

We can't expect any of it to be rational because none of it is. spiritually, I think it is rebellion against God. There's a spiritual component to it, of course. But it is fraught with a lot of contradictions. And the most bewildering aspect of this, as I hear from same-sex attracted people, gays and lesbians, is that youth who are same-sex attracted, whether they've fully identified themselves among the LGBT or not, are now being told that their same-sex attraction is actually something to be remedied

with synthetic hormones and surgical instruments. It's bewildering, but I mean, I hear these accounts firsthand, and they are absolutely horrified. But the other factor that I think is that just cannot be ignored is there is a massive amount of money to be made with this. And so if you go on these hormones, you're going to be enslaved to the medical industrial complex for life. You will never go off of them. And so it behooves us to ask the question, well, who's benefiting from that? It's not a conspiracy theory to think, well, let's follow the money here.

I mean, why, I know you've had Abigail Schreier on your program before, and she asks the question in her book, Irreversible Damage, why is it? That for the first time in approximately 100 years of diagnostic history, suddenly we see these massive numbers. of especially young teenage girls suddenly identifying as the opposite sex and wanting hormones. But this is happening to teen boys as well. It's happening to very young children out of nowhere. And so I think we have to look a lot deeper into the revenue streams as to who's pushing this? Because this did not happen organically. This is not a grassroots movement. This is top down. There are very, very wealthy people who are pushing this. And we need to ask those questions a lot.

more because it's there if you start to look. You know, we talk about on this podcast how it seems to be that children are very often the subjects of progressive social experiments, whether it's the rearrangement of the family, the hubris that we have in the United States to say that basically men and women are interchangeable. It's okay. If, you know, we create a child artificially and then make sure that they don't have a mom or a dad, that's probably fine.

We don't look to human history or to sociology or to psychology. to ask ourselves, well, is that okay if we raise children in a completely different environment that every culture for all of human history has raised them? It's true when it comes to this gender activism and puberty blockers and things like that. It's true when it comes to abortion. That's another social experiment that has been inflicted on kids. It's true when it comes to, quote, comprehensive sex education. You don't need 12 to 13 years to teach kids about the biological functions of sex, but we're indoctrinating them with this very confusing sexual ideology and ideas about sexual identity that I think are very harmful to them. It's true in a

variety of ways. It just seems like kids are just the convenient subject of social experiments and that very few people, at least the people in charge, are taking a step back and asking, hang on, like, what are the consequences on kids for this kind of stuff? Why is it that, for example, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the people who are supposed to care about kids, aren't taking a stance against this kind of stuff, which is so, like you've said, tangibly damaging to these kids and their bodies? The effects on children have to be the absolute worst. I mean, I see, like I think I just said, I see their brutalized bodies in my inbox. The teenagers who, their parents reach out to me in utter horror and desperation. And why children are the subject of so many social experiments?

Again, I would just say from a Christian perspective, from a theological perspective, it's just spiritual warfare. And we see the enemy of our souls just waging war against the image of God. But as far as the American Academy of Pediatrics goes, again, I know I may sound conspiratorial, but I've dug deep into this. and we are seeing the radicalization of so many professions and professional associations. And if radical activists can seize control of a few influential bodies that then govern the messaging to the media, they can completely change the character of a once respected organization. And that's what has happened with the AAP, with the Endocrine Society. while people are sleeping, they accomplish these very awful things by stealth.

The radicals get into these organizations. They tweak the guidelines. They sometimes make subtle changes along the way that seem reasonable, but then they have then engineered a social experiment that just explodes, given the right environment. It really is that bad. We have seen, I've interviewed endocrinologists and doctors who object to this, And what they've told me is that your average doctor just wants to practice medicine, live his or her life, be normal.

They're not into the politics. They just want to do what they were trained to do. Getting into the politics of the professional organization that govern a lot of their public policy and their stances on issues is not something that many are really interested in doing. But those who are know how to get into those entities and then shape the public mind. in keeping with their ideological goals. And so we have to stay watchful because it is not a conspiracy to, when you realize what's happened, to see that there's a very coordinated, synchronized effort that took years of planning, but they've pulled it off. And it happens from the top down.

No, American society does not want to see children have their puberty blocked, their healthy puberty blocked with untested hormonal agents and then put on a lifetime of drugs and be enslaved to being a medical patient. Nobody wants that. But a few key individuals and a few key institutions have engineered that outcome. And there's a lot of money and a lot of power, again, that's attached to all of that. And like you said, not to want to be conspiratorial, but when you do think about where this is coming from, of course, like you and I agree from a spiritual perspective, we know where it's coming from, that this is spiritual warfare. It's also the result of godlessness. When you reject the idea of any kind of moral lawgiver, everything does become

arbitrary. Even things that, you know, atheists, for example, may have claimed are not arbitrary because the science proves it. But what we are finding is that even science itself is becoming subjective when the gatekeepers of science become political, then there is no objective truth, not just moral truth, but also scientific truth. Everything becomes up in the air. It's that, you know, Orwellian line about two plus two equaling five just because the party says so. And so this is kind of the direction of godlessness, the direction of progressive movements, totalitarianism. But I also, and maybe this is a cynical conspiratorial part of me, and I'm not trying to be that way.

but in just looking for answers, I wonder how many of our foreign enemies at least are enjoying watching the weakness that we are creating in our youth, not just by destroying their bodies by this social experiment, but also corrupting their minds. Kids who become this sexually confused and this confused about what it means to be male and female, how to use language, gendered language, kids that are that confused, it's hard for me to see them becoming well-adjusted, critically thinking adults. And to me, if I were, you know, a foreign power looking to take down America, I would be really pleased at what's happening in America's schools and in America's institutions to try to weaken kids in that way.

It's a good point. It really is. You are destabilizing the minds of the next generation in and just in an unbelievably horrible way. Right. And sometimes I get asked, you know, some people are like, why are you so obsessed with this issue? You know, why do you report on it so much? And in addition to being assigned by my editors to cover it, I think that, again, with the medical stuff, is bad enough. But the way in which this movement assaults knowledge itself, it assaults our very means of communication. language shapes thought.

We can't communicate at all if we can't even agree on the basic terms of the most basic things. I may as well be speaking Urdu with a Brooklyn accent to someone who believes that a man can become a woman or that someone is, it's actually possible to be born in the wrong body. It makes no sense. And so it divides our society, it weakens our society. And yes, I imagine that foreign adversaries, our children, this on because there's no stability at all. We can't even function. But I'll also say, too, that this movement is global. There is a larger, and I believe, diabolical movement to target children

with this nonsense that's truly nightmarish. It's all across the Western world. It's in Latin America. It's even in Africa. It's especially bad in the developed West, of course. This is largely a rich person's phenomenon, but there are very vulnerable people being lured into this through all kinds of schools and other ways. But this is global in scope because the medical industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the global LGBT rights groups, with the exception of the LGBT alliance, are all pushing this fervently because there's a lot of money to be made and there's a lot of power to be had. Hey, this is Steve Deist. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political.

They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this Steve Day show right here on Blaze TV.

or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. And isn't it just so interesting because you were saying this is global and I was thinking at first, I was like, well, it seems to be more Western. And I think that we both agree that it's at least started.

It's a result of privilege, honestly. It's a result of having luxury. It's a result of being able to access these kinds of procedures. It's a result of having a lot of time on our hands. And it's something that it doesn't seem like we will see in somewhere like China. I just read recently that they are doing these kind of masculinity camps to defeminize men.

I'm not saying that's good. Obviously, I have a lot of problems with China and how they treat their people. But contrast that to what we're doing here in the United States, making a lot of gender confused girls and boys. There seems to be probably some motive behind that too. but it's interesting that a lot of the progressives that support this idea of transgenderism. Like you said, there's so many contradictions in it, you know, they also see the Western world as bad. They see America as bad. They see capitalism as bad. And they see everything Eastern is good. Well, the Western world is exporting this confusion to Eastern world, to the Eastern world, not the other way around.

This is not happening. I don't think organically in Africa. If it's happening, it's happening because rich people, in the West and in the United States are trying to export it there. And yet the people here who hate colonialism and colonization and imperialization and Western ideas are all for it. It's very confusing to me. You're exactly right. It is the most contradictory phenomenon I've seen. Broadly speaking, the left, again, because I know many voices on the left are adamantly opposed to this gender identity madness that we're speaking of today. But there is a global push by the left, broadly speaking, to push a radical sexual revolutionary

ideology on the entire world. It is incoherent. It disrupts and tears apart families. It is incredibly destructive. But again, I just reiterate, there's a lot of money to be made when it is exported. And so we need to follow the money and we need to contend against it because, and I said the other day to a friend, that most people in most nations, they just want to live normal lives with their families, with their friends. They don't like this kind of sexual radicalism,

but it is the elites and unfettered decadence, like you were just saying, I agree with that completely, that is the fuel behind this. I mean, normal people with who are busy working their jobs and you know, raising their families don't spend their time thinking about how they can confuse children sexually and push all kinds of perversion. on other societies. This is not something that the average person does or wants to do. Yeah. And I think also it capitalizes on American and Western tolerance, which in so many ways is great. That is how we have created this very diverse nation that is supposed to be, and it once was kind of united in values. But I remember hearing Ronald Reagan say that America is

the only place in the world where you can, you know, you can be born in another country and live there for 45 years, but you move to America, you become a citizen, and you are an American. If you lived in Nigeria for 45 years and you came to America, became a citizen, you are an American just as much as the person who was born here. And that's not true of any other country in the world. If I moved to France right now, I would not be considered French. I'd always be considered an American. And so the tolerance that America has showed in so many ways is wonderful, but it is also manipulated and capitalized on with these movements, because, like you said, most people are well-meaning, but they don't want to push back because they don't want to be

exclusionary. They don't want to be rude. But let's talk about that kind of, I think I would call toxic tolerance, tolerance towards evil. And what kind of consequences those are having on young people? You said you get stories all the time of parents who maybe were tolerant or their schools were tolerant or people around them were tolerant and they ended up brutalizing their bodies because of the quote tolerance that has been allowed and has ended in this kind of violence towards kids? You're absolutely correct. The tolerance has become sort of the word that is wielded to accept all kinds of things that we know instinctively are wrong. And we should have no tolerance for really destructive bad ideas. We should debate them and scrutinize them. And I do think it is

used against us as Americans. We certainly have our problems here. We're not, we're not, we're not a perfect nation. And, you know, immigrants have faced some racism and difficulty coming here, but it absolutely is true that you can become an American right away. That is a wonderful thing about our country, and we should applaud that and celebrate that. But speaking to sort of this broader tolerance thing, we do have an obligation to speak up, especially as Christians, against what is wrong. And we need to be bold in this hour because when it does come to the sanctity and the integrity of a child's body, I mean, can we, can't we say that we have some core values that a child should not be drugged with permanent hormones? And I mean, these are basic things.

I mean, people need to listen to their gut. Because I think the law of God's written on everyone's hearts, whether or not they know Christ, you know, we're Christians. But the instincts are not to be dismissed. And, you know, this idea that we have to just accept everything, well, no. Since when do we just check our brains at the door and say that, yes, you are free to be here and live here and we welcome you? but there has to be order too. Yeah, talk about some of the stories that you've gotten from parents and their kids who have gone through some of these treatments.

Well, I'll just say brace yourself. They are tremendously horrible. I am currently working on a story where I've been interviewing mothers of teenage boys. Some of these boys have become convinced that they're not only female but also lesbian. and it I mean it just insane stuff but they these boys actually believe it and so that's the kind of confusion that's being sewn into their minds and that's bad enough but I'll just I'll share with you a few examples I've spoken with many mothers I do hear from some detransitioners these people who once identified as transgender and then the damage that

has been done to their bodies through the hormones or a disfigure surgery and they just regret it and it turns out that all that they were promised, this is going to allow them to live an authentic life proved not to be true. I got a call from a mother, this is one of the first stories I did. Through a school presentation, her daughter became convinced that she was the opposite sex. And four years of absolute hell, the mom took her to a gender therapist, at first thinking that that was the wise thing to do. And thankfully, she managed to desist.

But it was four years of utter anguish where everything around her, her daughter in this social environment, was telling her that she was a boy. She was celebrated at school, as seen as the most brave and popular kid. There's so many social reinforcements of this madness. And so the mom is losing weight. She's losing hair. She's stressed and angry all the time. It tears apart family.

She had to move away from her neighborhood because the neighborhood she lived in was all affirming of her daughter. All of her life was just upended. And that's a mild story. I've corresponded with another mother whose daughter ran away from home when she was a teenager, went to a very liberal state, changed her name and legal gender in court when I think she was 17, got her breasts amputated and underwent a radical hysterectomy without her consent or knowledge, without the mother's consent her knowledge. And most recently, she had a phalloplasty surgery.

I think this was last year or the year before, where they slice off flesh from the arm to fashion a fake penis. And she's had another associated surgery. This girl is now very unhappy, cannot hold a job, struggles to maintain employment, few friends. She's been absolutely brutalized. I've seen pictures of this poor girl. She's been lied to for so many years.

everybody that should have helped her, social workers, teachers, doctors, lawmakers, they failed her. And I mean, I hope she doesn't die, but that's the kind of course that we're setting young people on. These were minors, and these are minors that often have mental health issues, social anxiety. We don't need to be slicing up their bodies to fix their problems. It's just, it makes no sense. and I mean I cannot tell you what it really is I would love to just trade places with someone who doesn't get what I do and for them to see the pictures that I do because it really that just puts it to light I can't share them on social media because they will be banned they

will be blocked and I wouldn't do that anyway because these are really kind of grotesque pictures these are pictures that are sent to me in confidence but I feel like some days I've just stared into the abyss of evil. Of evil. I don't make this comparison lightly, and I hesitate even now to do it, but I feel comfortable enough to say it because I have had Jewish friends and readers reach up to me

as they've been reading my coverage. And they say things to me like, and this since chills up my spine, this is eerily familiar. When they think about experiments that were done on Jews during the World War II era. I mean, that's what they tell me. And so when I consider that that's the kind of thing that I'm reporting on,

it certainly feels like a sacred calling because I believe unashamedly as a Christian, but just as a human being who values good science in the integrity of the human body and that doctors should do medicine in order to heal and not to harm. And this convoluted definition of harm under which all of this is being done is so crazy. And medical ethics has almost completely collapsed. But this is just not acceptable. And until the public gets that transgenderism, as I said earlier, is a medical scandal, I don't think it's going to change.

We've talked about bathrooms in our society. We've talked about women's sports. We've talked about the harms to women's rights and all that's important. But again, I would just stress, transgenderism is a medical scandal. Yeah. And we also need to, I think, as Christians or, you know, as we've talked about the different people who see a problem in this movement, we shouldn't be afraid, as you do so well to argue our position on its merits. I think a lot of times conservatives and certainly Republican legislators will argue on the basis of freedom or on the basis of logistics.

And so, for example, the bathroom issue, they might talk about privacy rights or when it comes to competition. They might talk about, you know, religious liberty like Christian schools should be able to decide who goes into the bathroom or who competes on certain teams. And yes, those are all good arguments to have. but we shouldn't be afraid to also confront this in the moral sense or talk about this just from on the basis of reality that, hey, men and women exist. Biology exists and men and women are different. They're not interchangeable. And biology actually matters, and the human body is good.

And it is the Christian worldview, of course, that informs us. I don't know if you, Brandon, have read, love thy body. by Nancy Piercy. Have you read that? I have. Nancy is a friend. Yes, and she's so wonderful. We talk a lot about that book on this podcast,

but she kind of talks about the underlying philosophy behind this, that the mind and body are separate, and that the body is just kind of this, you know, clump of cells, this physical object that we can treat as arbitrarily as we want to based on our social whims or based on what we think and feel in our mind. The Christian worldview says, no, the body matters. God made your body with purpose. God made your body with care.

And it's good. God made them male and female, and he saw that it was very good. So the church and Christians need to be willing to and courageous enough to argue about the subject on its merits, on moral and even theological and, yes, scientific grounds. Do you agree? Absolutely. I could be there as a Christian. can, I absolutely believe that there is no higher affirmation of the human body than the fact that

Jesus became one. God became flesh and dwelt among us. That's what I believe is a Christian. And you are your body. Your body is you. You get the body that you get and nobody has ever been born in the wrong one. What we are essentially dealing with is neo-nosticism. And I think N.T. Wright has actually spoken on that a little bit. And I think I've read an editorial word. he called it what it is. And yes, this idea that somehow the mind can be or should be separated from the body is a totally pagan idea. But it's one that even a lot of non-Christians don't believe in. Many feminists and some gays and lesbians too, they know this. Like, we all know this. It just makes basic sense. And so, yes, Christians do need to show a lot of courage. And I have been very disappointed

and seeing Republicans especially capitulate to the demands of the Chamber of Commerce who care more about, you know, how this movement is not going to be good for business if you try to fight it or whatever. And that's just shameful. And in fact, I think that's more shameful than the Democrats who are pushing this nonsense. Because if you don't believe in anything but the bottom line of what might be good for the economy of your state, you don't have any principles and you have no business being a lawmaker. There are a few courageous legislators that are trying to stand up, and they need to be supported.

But I think people of goodwill, regardless of your party affiliation or your political leanings, are going to need to align together and resist this because it's just so unbelievably destructive. And if we can't care about the health and welfare of children, what do we care about at all? Mm-hmm. Right. And I know that this is a very, this is a peripheral part of it, but I can't help but think about this issue also, not just from the perspective of a mom. And obviously, I care about the future of my kids and them entering restrooms with people of the opposite sex and competition and safety and all that. And then also being introduced and indoctrinated with these very confusing ideas, I worry about all of that. But also, you know, as someone who is pregnant, I'm also simply just offended by a lot of this movement. Like when I see, you know, the WHO or NIH saying that we need to start saying chest feeding or gestators or birthing people, I mean, that really offends, that really offends me. Pregnancy and birth and sustaining the life of my kids has, you know, it's been one of the

hardest and most challenging, but also the most unique and miraculous things that I've ever experienced. And to say that that's not unique to my womanness and that my womanness isn't unique to me, that really offends me. And I don't know. I'm sure that there are a lot of women, Christian or not, who feel the same way. Do you think so? Oh, absolutely. It's, this is so offensive. It's not only just your basic intelligence, but it's just so vulgar and crude to refer. to human beings, male and female, by, you know, a nickname for their body parts. Or it's just, and what the irony is is that what transgender activists often do is accuse us of being obsessed with genitals.

Right. Well, what do you care so much? I'm just like, you know, look, I think genitals are great because they're a part of the human body and it's a miraculous thing. So, yeah, okay, I'll own that. I am obsessed because I care about all these wonderful things that we need to care about. And I think human sexuality is a wonderful thing. I mean, but the implication that they're trying to make is that we're a bunch of dirty perverts who just spend our time thinking about what's going on downstairs in the underpants of people who are confused about their gender.

And it's a manipulative rhetorical device. And so I just say to people don't fall for it and just turn it back and throw it back in their faces and say, no, you will not tell me that I am a front hole or a chest feeder. This is stupid. It's lame. Yeah. And don't be intimidated by it. And yes, it is offensive. I mean, I, women are bearing the brunt of this scourge.

There's no question about it. It obviously is affecting boys and men in some disastrous ways. But as, as my feminist friends frequently point out, this movement is awash in ferocious misogyny. Yeah. It is virulently anti-woman. And I think that's just from, again, from a spiritual perspective, I see the devil's fingerprints all over that because women, you know, are wondering.

creatures. They give life. They bring life from the world. And I think it could even be argued from the Bible that Satan hates women more than he does men because Eve is the crown of creation. She was the last thing God made. There's just a wonder to a woman. And I'm just not surprised at all that women are bearing the brunt of transgender activist wrath. It's brutal for them. And my heart goes out to them. And we need more men to stick up for them and to carry the torch and fight this. are mostly fighting this. And sadly, when they tell people about how they are abused by transgender activists, I mean, many have been doxed and harassed and sent violent threats, rape threats, death threats. They aren't believed, but it's happening. And it's vile.

You're absolutely right. I love what you said about men sticking up for this too. I think not to speak against all feminists. Certainly, there are a lot of feminists who agree with us on this, but this has almost been a feminist mantra, for example, in relation to abortion, no uterus, no opinion. You don't get to speak on women's issues unless you are agreeing with the mainstream. And so I do think some men have been taught that they need to shut up when it comes to issues that are hurting women, even affecting their daughters. But you're absolutely right. We need men to stand up to this because at the end of the day, like what we are confronting is some kind of masculine assault on women. And I, you know, I asked a sexologist who is not a Christian and who is very progressive in a lot of ways but sees the

problems with all this. Why is it? Like, why are women bearing the brunt? Like, why is there so much conversation about changing the language around pregnancy and breastfeeding? And why is there so much conversation about entering women's bathrooms and women's sports? And she just said, well, you know, she kind of stopped and she was like, well, I don't want to get in trouble by saying what I want to say, but think about what you know about the two genders and how different they are. And I think that would tell you why that is. Yes, because women are always the victims when it comes to male domination. Like, women are always the weaker sex when it comes to that. And so just in the very practical and historical sense, it's easy to see why women are bearing

the brunt of this, because we are women. But also, like you said, from the spiritual sense, it goes back to the garden. We are still being asked today, did God really say that he made the male and female? Did God really say that you're unique and different? Did God really give you that role? And I think women are being deceived. Yes. And I also think that we do need to build bridges with people, I mean, people who do not share our theology, certainly. And at base, at the Christian Post, we did a 2017 series on this issue because we saw how it was taking off in culture, and so we wanted to address the many angles from which to engage this, including the theological angles. But I think that, and again, in addition to being a medical scandal, this is an assault

on the divine imprint on every human being. I believe, as a Christian, that we are made male and female in God's image, and that maleness and femalness are that divine imprint. And so transgenderism assaults that in the most brutal fashion. But even if you don't believe in any of that, you just believe in that human beings are sexually dimorphic. We are male and female, scientifically. And that's a basic fact. And we should care about that.

And it's not, we're not obsessed with anything, you know, perverse or unimportant when we're trying to defend reality. And I do think that, especially your third wave feminism, is in support of all this, but I've learned a tremendous amount from my radical feminist friends who see that women on the basis of their biology, I think it's spiritual too, but, you know, I as a Christian am certainly opposed to prostitution, to surrogacy, to the sex trade, to pornography, all of these scourges that disproportionately harm women. We need to care about that and recognize the myriad ways in which women are harmed gravely so.

and be people of goodwill and contend against this. Yeah, and continue to be a refuge for women. Nancy Piercy also talks about in her book how the church throughout history has been a refuge for women who were the victims of various kinds of objectification. And I think affirming the uniqueness and the beauty and the made in the image of godness of the female body and of women is a way that churches can continue to be that refuge. because honestly, sometimes it's the only thing that I feel like is giving me my sanity, that I do ascribe to a truth that is higher than what the NIH says or what the American Academy of Pediatrics say,

what this administration says, that I don't get my truth from the so-called party or from Big Brother. It's the only thing that sometimes grounds me that, okay, there's an eternal reality, an eternal moral lawgiver that says what is and what is it, which is also why I think there's such an assault on Christianity too, because it is the resistance between sanity and insanity, or it's the barrier between those things. Can you give parents, or just people in general, encouragement, advice? How do they push back on this when it comes to their kids' school, when it comes to their churches, when it comes to everyday life? Like, how do they stand up against this just in the small spheres that they occupy? Well, first, I just want to say that I agree completely with what you were just saying there and we need virtuous

men to be a refuge in those churches because there are some churches that have not been safe for women. But yes, I mean, we absolutely need that. And I could not do the reporting that I do if I didn't have the Lord. If I wasn't informed by that higher truth that you were speaking of just there. And for people who have managed to resist this, I just salute them so much because If I didn't have that undergirding me, it would just destroy me. It's because it really is that bad. And I'll say that to sort of segue into parents who are concerned. I cannot tell them what to do specifically,

except, especially if they're Christians, ask God and then just obey, but do something. And do not be afraid to describe the grisly realities in visceral detail as they are, because the house is not only in fire and the fox is not just in the chick in the hen house. Our children are being devoured. So somehow you've got to speak up in whatever context and trust that your little action means something. So I don't care what people do. I mean, just gather together and start speaking the truth, be willing to lose friends, but tell the truth in unvarnished fashion and just speak it and start.

making noise and be willing to pay the cost. It will be hard, but it's absolutely horrible what is happening to our children. I mean, I was talking with a feminist friend, and we were talking about this and just how, what can we do to message the public to make them get that we're not all crazy, because we do sound crazy when we're talking about pharmaceuticals pushing this to give, Because everybody knows their local pharmacists and they think they're nice. They don't think that there can be that kind of high-level wickedness and corruption. But it's really real.

You have to believe us. And so the one thing I will say that parents need to do is really get educated. You can follow my stuff at the Christian Post. I would very much recommend the 11th hour blog, which is by a woman named Jennifer Beulik, who has done stunning work into the revenue streams that are fueling this. Madeline Kearns at National Review has done terrific. reporting on this. The Federalist is also a great source of information. The Women's Liberation Front and the Women's Human Rights Campaign are some feminist groups that are contending against

this very bravely. There are voices out there if you look. You may not find them on Google, but they're out there. And so educate yourself. That's the biggest thing. You have to understand the issue as it really is before you can contend against it in any meaningful way. But once you understand it, be as bold as you can possibly be, because the bodies of children are literally on the line. Yes, and amen. And be emboldened by everything that you just said in the realization that not only are you on the right side of this, you're on the right side of morality, you're on the right side of science, you're on the right side of reality, but also that the vast majority of people, when you really get down to these issues, agree with this. Now, of course, they would say,

like you and I would say, of course, transgender people deserve rights. Of course, they're made in the image of God, of course, they're worthy people of dignity and all of that. But when it comes down to the safety of our kids, transitioning at the age of kids, what we're teaching our kids, entering girls' spaces, most people say, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm not okay with that. So also be empowered by the by the fact that this is the majority opinion, right? But you have to speak up because if you don't, the very few who have seized control of so many entities and so many institutions will set the narrative and they will govern how things are done so don't expect other people to do it a lot of people have thought oh well this will get taken care of we have you know institutional checks and

you know mechanisms that will keep a lot of this radicalism out of my sphere that's not true yeah yes it is absolutely much worse in i think liberal blue states but i get calls from the Ruby Red deep south. Anywhere there's Wi-Fi, this movement is affecting your kids. Yep. And so it's everywhere. And so start speaking up while you still can. I don't mean to sound like Chicken Little, but it really is that bad. Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of people I've got people in my life, I know that they say, well, that's not going to happen here. That's not going to be taught at my kids public school. You can't assume that. Yeah. You can't assume that. You know, the encouragement that I give people that's right in line with what you just said is, you know,

Solzhenitsyn, I think, has been a big encouragement for a lot of people, the Soviet dissident, who there are a lot of quotables by him, but one that I think I've heard repeated over and over again recently is just to live not by lies. And so I think it's, my advice is just as simple as yours. Refuse to tell lies. Refuse to accept lies. Protect your kids from lies. Refuse to believe lies and where you see a lie being said, say something. Don't be afraid to say, that's not true. And do not buy in to this worldly redefinition of what it means to love your neighbor, absolutely love your neighbor, be hospitable and kind to all of your neighbors,

no matter what they look like or how they identify. Love does not mean the tolerance or the acceptance of that which we know is not good and right and true. It's never loving to lie. It's never, ever loving to lie. Don't let anyone force you to lie. you've lost your freedom once you agree with that. Yes.

And it was Orwell that said freedom is the ability to say two plus two equals four. And so to keep our own sanity. Yeah, go ahead. No, that sums it up. It's absolutely perfect. I mean, I, especially as a journalist, you will never get me to lie. I will not. I will always tell the truth.

And whether that's about someone that I respect or like, if I see corruption, I will say so. And we need to love the truth again and just not be afraid to describe things as they are and be willing to offend people. Now do so in love, but sometimes people need to be jolted out of their stupor. And if ever there was a human rights atrocity, a crime against humanity, this is it. I'm not being hyperbolic. We, it is no, I mentioned the 11th hour blog and Jennifer B. who's done this stunning research into the money. One of the things that I've heard her say, and I have to just give her a shout out now,

is that no self-respecting, this is about love and self-respect, that no self-respecting government or country or culture or civilization would ever allow children to be drugged and butchered. No, no more. We're done.

Right. This has to stop. Yep. Yes, and amen. Well, thank you so much. Thank you for your courage. Courage begets courage. And you speaking out does more than maybe you even realize.

And I know a lot of people are encouraged by this conversation. So people can follow you at the Christian Post. Can they follow you on social media as well? Yes. I do keep my Facebook for friends only. I just, that's a rule that I have. But I am on Twitter, Brandon M. Show. I've wondered how long I'll be on Twitter

because they are now censoring anybody who is critical of that used to just censor radical feminists who said men cannot be women. But I think the Daily Citizen, out of focus on the family, was just taken down because they said that a man could not be a woman. But the Biden nominee was a man who thinks he's a woman. And that's now, they got porn on Twitter and violent stuff on Twitter. But, you know, saying a man cannot be a woman is apparently offensive to the Orwellian newspeak of the day. So I'm there for now. But you can definitely find me at the Christian Post.

we haven't been taken down. And we will never stop speaking the truth at my publication. And I'm grateful to my editors for their principled stand on this. Well, I'm very thankful for that too. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us. Thank you, Allie. I appreciate the opportunity. Really do.

Thank you. Thank you. So I hope you guys enjoyed that conversation. I do want to add it in there. And I meant to add it in that conversation. Of course, there are people who have the disorder of gender dysphoria. but it is a disorder. When your mind feels like it doesn't match your body or your mind feels like you are in the

wrong body, it's actually transsexuality was the real term until recently when we started having these new definitions of gender identity, which of course are not actually grounded in reality, but are grounded in a progressive social movement that tries to make men and women arbitrary. But that kind of disorder, that kind of dysphoria is, of course, really. this deep and long-lasting perpetual discomfort in the body that you were born with. Of course, we don't believe that the way to rectify that is to actually assault the person's body. But through love and through care and through counseling, we do believe in caring for that person.

And of course, loving that person and helping that person. But from a Christian perspective, we believe that the body was made with purpose, that it is good, that it is created in God's image. Remember, it's not just, we don't just see the importance and the value of the body in the creation account, or even just in the amazing miracle that we have Emmanuel, that we have God made flesh. That shows the importance of the body, but also we believe as believers that we will be resurrected in heavenly spiritual bodies. And the body that you were born with will be the body that is resurrected. So there is also a spiritual eternal significance to, you know, the body that God gave us that he says he made male and female and he says he made very good.

This idea that the mind or feelings trump physical reality is a pagan idea. It's not a Christian one. And that is one of many reasons why Christians should reject it. And of course, there is also the existence of intersex people. But again, that is a small, small percentage of people. And it can look in a variety of ways. They can be androgen insensitive, for example, but have X, Y, chromosomes. So they have an XY chromosomes, but they actually present as a woman in most ways. And that is a form of intersex.

That's very rare. And again, it is a disorder. It doesn't actually speak against the existence of male and female. That is still the only biological dichotomy that exists. That is the reason why all of us are here and have been for millennia. I just wanted to add some clarity to all of that. And just another reminder to you guys is refuse to live by lies. Do not tell a lie. Do not accept lies. Do not allow the people around you as far as you can help it to believe lies.

Don't sit in a church that is preaching lies. Speak the truth. Especially when it comes to this because there are physical, tangible consequences on our kids. And we, like I said, need to care about it. All right, that's all I've got for today. We will be back here soon. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Alley, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political.

They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who, want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV

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