Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 716 | Congress Perverts Marriage; The Church Must Resist | Guest: Pedro Gonzalez

Starting point is 00:00:00 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.

Starting point is 00:00:19 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. Congress officially moves to redefine marriage without sufficient religious liberty protections. And I will tell you what I think about that from a political, legal, constitutional, and also theological perspective. and then we are talking to my friend Pedro Gonzalez about a recent report that he published for the American Principles Project, just fascinating and so detailed, called the Transgender Leviathan. What is the money? What are the profits behind transgender treatment and activism?

Starting point is 00:01:13 This is really important for us to know. So we'll be discussing all of this today. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Go to Ranchers. Go to Go to Go to Ranchers.com slash Alley. That's go to go to ranchers.com slash alley. all right guys first i want to talk about this so called respect for marriage act we've talked about it we talked about it a couple weeks ago um and then we talked about it over the summer who defines marriage and why it's important but i want to get more into what is actually happening with this bill right now before we get into it i just want to show you

Starting point is 00:01:53 youtube viewers that i've got my christmas merch on my new relatable christmas crunach shirt in olive that i love he kind of matches my wall back there. I'm going to try to turn around, but I can't talk into the microphone when I do. So, oh, there you go. I don't even have to turn around. You can see it. That's what the back of the sweatshirt looks like. And let me say, I was a little concerned that it was a little bit too high on the sweatshirt.

Starting point is 00:02:17 But when you put sweatshirts on, you know, you kind of roll up the bottom a little bit. And so when you do that, it's really like perfect placement. This is a size large. I got a large. And I would typically say that just like in most clothes, just so to use me as a reference ladies. I'm like a medium gal, but in sweatshirts, you know, I like them a little roomier so you can layer and it's just more comfy that way. And so I got a large. I really like how it fits super cute, very happy with the color, very happy with the design. Also, it comes in white and then we've got

Starting point is 00:02:50 Reza Joyful Ruckus, a play on Raise a Respectful Ruckus, one of our mottoes here in blue and also in olive. And then we've got our little Pitbull stickers, which are still making you some of you angry in the YouTube comments. And so we've got lots of good stuff. And then I also love our new little share your aerosickery. So tiny. And I really like it. And so we've got that available and much more in our merch store.

Starting point is 00:03:16 We'll put the description in the, we'll put the link in the description of this episode. So you can click on it. Relative Bros. I'm still, okay. So Related Bros. By the way, seems to have kind of taken off for some of you because I've got messages and comments and reviews saying that you're a related bro. And so now I'm like, well, I feel like I have to use it. I'm still thinking of something for the ladies, related bells, related gals. It's all

Starting point is 00:03:45 a little bit cheesy for me. And yet, if you guys like it and want these nicknames as an identity marker for relatable listeners, then I am happy to oblige. And maybe we can even get some merch one day with this. So let me know what you think about. those names, but related bros out there. This is like a great gift for your loved one, for your girlfriend, for your wife, maybe just for your sister or for your mom who loves relatable. But for the Christmas merch, you should definitely get it before Christmas time. But we've got lots of other merch that you can actually get them for Christmas if you're interested. All right, let's get into the so-called Respect for Marriage Act as we talked about a couple of

Starting point is 00:04:32 weeks ago. The problem with this, according to Alliance Defending Freedom, who is an organization that I really trust, this is egregious for religious liberty. So let me read you part of why it is so troubling for those of us who care about religious liberty. And what I mean by that is that I believe that mosques, that churches, that synagogues should be able to function as they see fit in alignment with their religious beliefs without fear whatsoever of a lawsuit of any kind of legal reprisal. And that is what this bill that will be signed into law takes away in the same way that the Equality Act does. The Equality Act is an attack on the theological beliefs and practices of churches and private schools and religious non-profit organizations

Starting point is 00:05:34 by forcing them to comply with newfangled ideas of gender and sexuality and redefinitions of marriage. And so people who say, well, you know, I believe in the Respect for Marriage Act because I believe in the separation of church and state. No, you don't. No, you don't because this actually obliterates the separation of church and state. A lot of people who say separation of church and state, they think that its only intention was to protect the state from the church. That was not its intention. Its main intention was to protect the church from the state. And so the Equality Act, the so-called respect for marriage act, actually tears down those walls by getting the state involved in churches. and not offering the protections that we are supposed to have under the First Amendment to be able to operate as religious people as we see fit.

Starting point is 00:06:33 And there are people who are saying, oh, you know, that's not true. Like David French, she wrote this whole long article saying, no, this is actually respecting religious liberty too. We shouldn't have a problem with that. But he actually says, and I asked him about this, no response. He actually says in there, oh, well, this bill doesn't pretend that it addresses all religious liberty concerns like corporations. What kind of protections do they have against complying, against having to comply with this new redefinition of marriage? There are lots of things that he even admits that the bill doesn't address, and yet he doesn't really even attempt to talk about those things to say, well, yeah, that's a problem. that is problematic.

Starting point is 00:07:17 But let me read you what ADF says about this. So they say while proponents of the bill claim that it simply codifies the 2015 a burgafeld decision, the Obergefeld decision was the Supreme Court decision saying that gay people have a right to get married in the eyes of the law, in reality is an intentional attack on the religious freedom of millions of Americans with sincerely how beliefs about marriage. The respect for marriage acts threatens religious freedom in the institution of marriage in multiple ways. It further embeds a false definition of marriage in the American legal fabric. That, of course, is the most important to me. And I'll just pause right there, is that marriage cannot be

Starting point is 00:07:58 defined by the state. Marriage can't be defined by the American government. It can't be redefined by the American government. Marriage is pre-civilizational. Even if you do not believe that the Bible is the Word of God, which I understand, not everyone in American. believes. I don't believe in forcing everyone in America to believe that. You couldn't even do that if you tried. But whether you believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God, it was still a book written thousands of years ago in which we see the definition of marriage in the very first chapter of the very first book of the Bible. So even if you just see it as a historical document, even if you see it as a work of fiction, it still has served as the foundation of the foundation

Starting point is 00:08:42 of the definition of marriage, or at least speaks to what people thought was the definition of marriage thousands and thousands of years ago that we did not just see in ancient Israel, but we saw repeated in societies, Christian or not, around the world who simply saw the natural reality of marriage being between a man and a woman for the purpose, not just of procreation, although that has traditionally been one of the most important aspects of marriage, but also for the stability of society, for the protection of the children who are going to grow up and end up leading these civilizations and nations. Also for the preservation of values, for a dependency on one another rather than a dependency on the state. Conservatives used to know

Starting point is 00:09:36 that the natural family, mother, father, child was the incubator of liberty, was the nucleus of society. You know, you've got a lot of conservative saying that you can't diminish or you can't replace the definitions of male and female, that a man can't be a woman, a woman can't be a man. Probably every conservative person who identifies as a conservative would say that. And yet they somehow say that redefining marriage is different. No, by redefining marriage is something other than them between one man and one woman, you are saying that men and women are indeed interchangeable. You are saying that there really is no difference between two men getting married, two women getting married, and a man and a woman getting married, which is the same argument that transgender

Starting point is 00:10:27 activists make when they stay that there is no difference between men and women, which, by the way, is an argument that feminist pushed forward 50 years ago and the chickens are now coming home to roost because of that idea, which really goes all the way back to the garden, but we won't get into all of that. I mean, if you believe that marriage can legally be defined as something that it has never, ever been throughout history, you are basically saying that men and women are interchangeable, that mothers and fathers are interchangeable. If you are legally recognizing marriage as between two men, you are saying that they have a right to children. They have a right to then rent the wombs of women, to buy the eggs of women, to create a child,

Starting point is 00:11:11 to purposely take him or her away from her mother and the woman who carried them, because that is what it takes for them to have any sort of biological child. And you are taking away from children the firm foundation of a natural nuclear family. And that is going to have long-term consequences. is on the stability of your nation. And if you don't believe me, take a look around. Like, how in a conservative? You claim to be a conservative.

Starting point is 00:11:41 You claim to see the insanity of transgender ideology of drag queen's story hour. Of all of the sexualization that is so pervasive as we've been talking about this week in society and not see that every single part of the sexual revolution for the past 50 years led us here. Like, you can't logically separate. the obliteration of the definition of natural marriage from the transgender activism that we're seeing. You see that it all goes together, like for the past 50 years,

Starting point is 00:12:12 from the sexual revolution of the 1960s to today, whether you're talking about the normalization of the normalization and commercialization of widespread and widely accessible birth control pills, hormonal birth control pills, no fault divorce, And then, of course, the redefinition of marriage. All of this has played a part into the absurdity that we are seen and the denial of gender. Because just as transgenderism denies the biological differences really between man and woman,

Starting point is 00:12:48 so does the redefinition of marriage. And so it is really difficult for me to understand how a conservative can really be a conservative and support this. you're not just saying oh let's just live and let live the government shouldn't have a say in marriage they shouldn't have we should just let adults live how they want to live you don't really believe that do you adults should just be able to live how they want to live do you believe that five people should be legally recognized as in a marriage and that they should be able to bring a child in and that that child should be forced into an unstable and statistically very risky home? Like, do you believe that an adult should be able to marry a dog? Do you believe an adult should be able to marry a child? If not, why not? What is it in your mind about childhood that separates them from this conversation? I know what it is for me because I see the biblical standard and the civilizationalally healthy standard of marriage between one of marriage between one of adult man and one adult woman. And so, of course, you do think that the state has something to say

Starting point is 00:14:04 about marriage in which two people can be involved in a marriage. And so people saying, oh, I'm just small government live and let live. You don't really believe that. You believe that there are lines to be drawn about what should be a legal marriage, right? And so why is your line here and not on natural marriage? That's where mine is. So the ADF goes on to say, It jeopardizes the tax-exempt status of nonprofits that exercise their belief that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. It endangers faith-based social service organizations by threatening litigation and liability risk if they follow their views on marriage when working with the government. It could make religious freedom and free speech cases harder to win. The truth is, the Respect for Marriage Act does nothing to change the status of same-sex marriage or the benefits afforded to same-sex couples following a Bergafel.

Starting point is 00:14:54 It does much, however, to endanger religious freedom. And so to try to rectify this, Senator Mike Lee, along with Marco Rubio and James Lankford, these are Republican senators, they tried to put forth additional amendments to the bill to protect religious liberty. So Marco Rubio says that the bill right now does not protect faith-based organizations besides the ones specified in the Collins-Baldwin amendment. Collins is a Republican senator. Baldwin is a Democrat senator. They proposed an amendment to at least look like they're protecting religious liberty. Marker Rubio is saying that their amendment does not actually do this. He says that other organizations could still be sued by individuals because they won't comply with this redefinition of marriage. Rubio filed an amendment to strike the private right of action from the bill. Mike Lee filed an amendment to prohibit discrimination against people who

Starting point is 00:15:55 believe in the biblical view of marriage. James Linkford filed an amendment to clarify that faith-based groups with a traditional view of marriage that provide social services under state contracts cannot be deemed state actors and sued for discrimination. Also eliminates the ability of a private individual to sue a faith-based group for not condoning gay marriage and these amendments failed. They failed. So Democrats are pretty open about this. They do not care about your religious liberty. They do not want you to be able to abide by what you believe the Bible says or your religious text says about marriage. And so them saying separation of church and state is a lie. They very much believe that the state should be involved in your church and tell you what to do.

Starting point is 00:16:40 Like we see the writing in the wall in Europe and other countries in which it is illegal to even say things like what Romans 1 says about homosexuality. If you think that the Democrats here are any less radical than that, you are kidding yourselves. And every time they pass a bill like this, every time a bill like this is signed into law, they get closer to it. And the fact that we have feckless and cowardly and just weak and intellectually flimsy Republicans who call themselves conservatives who aren't able to see the damaging effects of the sexual revolution, both here and abroad, tells you something about who we're voting for. Tell us. you something about the state the country is in. Now, the bill is not done. It doesn't go to the

Starting point is 00:17:27 president's desk yet. This is from CNN. The House will now need to approve the legislation before sitting in it to President Joe Biden's desk to be signed into law. The House is expected to pass the bill before the end of the year, possibly as soon as next week. So we will see, however, if there are more religious liberty exemptions, protections put in the final version of the bill. So it could be very important for you to call an email your representatives in the House of Representatives to ensure that religious protections are placed in the bill. Now, it is still wrong. It's still egregious because it's still trying to redefine something that the state just does not have the power to redefine. However, the least that we can do is to hope

Starting point is 00:18:18 for the religious protections that can be placed into the bill to ensure that your non-profit organization, your Christian adoption agency, your church, your private school, you as a Christian business owner are not going to be sued because you are simply abiding by your religious beliefs about marriage and about sexuality. If the left is honest, they really don't care about those protections at all. But if Republicans are worth anything, shouldn't they guarantee that? I mean, Republicans are now the majority in the House. You're saying that you can't accomplish that? Come on. And so that's where we are. Now, obviously, from a Christian perspective, just to close this segment out, we know the definition of marriage. The definition of marriage is, as we use this

Starting point is 00:19:08 alliteration a lot, rooted in creation, as we see in Genesis 1, it's reiterated throughout scripture, such as, for example, in the command to honor your father and mother, those gender designations are not arbitrary or accidental, repeated by Jesus himself in Matthew 19, 4 through 5. It's very explicit about the definition of marriage there. Of course, Jesus is God. So whatever God says in the Old Testament, Jesus also says. It is representative of Christ in the church, as we see in Ephesians 5, Christ is the bride. His church, or Christ is the bride groom. The church is the bride.

Starting point is 00:19:46 Again, those gender role designations are not arbitrary or accidental. And in that way, it is also reflective of the gospel. The Bible starts with the marriage and ends with a marriage that is not accidental. And so the definition of marriage is hugely consequential for the Christian. It is not something that you can compromise on and still be theologically sound, period. It's not one of the secondary or tertiary issues. is the underlying narrative of the entire canon of scripture. It's that important. It has gospel significance. It has spiritual significance. And we also believe as Christians that Christ is Lord overall.

Starting point is 00:20:24 So while we can't expect everyone in America to believe the same way we do and to live the same way we do. And while we cannot inflict that by force for them to believe what we believe, we also believe that our politics, that are voting, that our values cannot be separated from the belief that God is in control. If you believe Genesis 1-1 that God created the heavens and the earth, then you believe his definitions of things. You submit to his authority. If you believe that, you believe that he is in charge, you believe that his ways are better. You believe 1-John, 4-8, that God is love. Then you are you are not being loving by disagreeing with him through your politics or through how you vote.

Starting point is 00:21:14 If God is love and God says in Genesis 1 that God made them male and female, that is his definition of marriage, then I am not only loving God, but also loving my neighbor by reflecting that definition in how I vote. Do not allow the world to bear the authority for what is loving and what is not. They're going to call you a bunch of names. You stay true to God's word, knowing that his ways, his definitions are always better, not just for us, but for society as a whole. The more godless we get, the more chaos we will see. But thankfully Jesus reigns. Thankfully, Jesus is coming back. Thankfully, every knee will bow. Every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and he will be in perfect authority for ever and ever. Until then, we raise a respectful ruckus about the things

Starting point is 00:22:02 that matter. And in this conversation that I'm about to have with my friend, Pedro Gonzalez, we are talking about something that we need to be raising a respectful record is about, especially to our friends, especially within the church. We are talking about the Leviathan that is transgender activism and the money that is a part of that. It's really important for us to know that. And so before we get into that conversation with Pedro, which you're really going to love, let me take a quick pause and tell you about our first sponsor of the day. 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.

Starting point is 00:22:42 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. Pedro, thank you so much for joining us again.

Starting point is 00:23:23 This time I want to talk about the work that you have put into this report about the transgender leviathan. First, what made you take on this massive endeavor of looking out where the money and where the power. is coming from in this movement. Well, Ali, thanks so much for having me. And I actually didn't know just how big the problem was until I dove into it. It started with a feeling that the criticisms against transgenderism, I don't want to use the term unsurious, but it was like we were dealing mostly with sort of making fun of these seemingly goofy left-wing people, epitomize in someone like Sam Brinton.

Starting point is 00:24:08 in the Biden administration, right? But I thought there has to be something more to this because despite, you know, all evidence against all reason, this stuff continues to advance and it continues to proliferate. So there has been something more going on. And that's when I started to look at basically the incentive structure, the interest groups behind transgenderism. And it culminated in an article for the New York Post in the last two years, it was the 2020 or 2021 that I wrote. And I use the term the transgender industrial complex because, again, when I started to take a closer look at this, I realized like, okay, there's a lot more than just goofy left-wing ideology here. Like, this is actually an extremely well-funded, well-organized machine that has, it's not going to slow down on its own just because you can make the better argument, because there's just, there's too many interested groups behind this. And that article for the New York Post seems to have changed the way that a lot of people, at least the ones that read it, it told me that they read it, were looking at the issue where initially they were kind of just confused, you know, just scratching their heads at the idea that you can just snap your fingers and, you know, take some hormones and undergo a mastectomy or adult mastectomy and become a man or whatever.

Starting point is 00:25:31 but then when you add the interest component to it, it starts to make a lot more sense. And so that 700-word article inspired this 10,000-word report that, although it's about 40 pages or so, including the notes, it still only scratches the service. That's why I chose the name of the lieth, and I didn't know what to call it. So the biblical monster came to mind because it's this enormous creature, that you can't really ever see because it's always sort of beneath the surface and you can only really kind of catch glimpses of of its immensity. And I mean, again, this is, I write in the report, this is not exhaustive as long as this is. Yeah. Let me give people an example of what you're

Starting point is 00:26:15 talking about just to kind of give an idea of how profitable this is in the Leviathan that you're referring to. And this is from your report. Consider the case of L. Bradford, who began man to female transition as a teen and notably was encouraged by YouTube videos to undergo the process. That is something that I hear in a lot of these stories, YouTube, Reddit, Tumblr, different forms of media in which these kids, TikTok, they may be kind of predisposed to this kind of thing. And this is just my own aside here. Or maybe they were lonely or they were depressed or they were anxious or they're dealing with some kind of instability in their family life.

Starting point is 00:26:55 And so they're simply looking for some kind of community and belonging. Then the algorithm, I mean, talk about a part of this Leviathan. The algorithm is kind of feeding into this confusion. And once you click on one video, it shows you more videos. Before you know it, you are being affirmed into this new identity. And I know that we're supposed to pretend like that doesn't exist. But it does. Anyway, was encouraged by YouTube, you say, to undergo the process,

Starting point is 00:27:23 Bradford paid around $30,000. for gender confirmation surgery, so called, and roughly the same amount for facial feminization surgery, plus a breast augmentation surgery that runs between $5,000 and $10,000. Hormone therapy costs at least $1,500 per year in Bradford's experience, who plans to be a lifelong user, as is common with transgenderism. The drugs are incredibly expensive. They also act as accelerants. most people who start them move on to surgeries.

Starting point is 00:27:57 And that doesn't even include the different kinds of reproductive technology that is the necessary down the line for these people to have children when you're talking about surrogacy. If it's females, talking about freezing their eggs, IVF, all that stuff. So, wow, that's a lot. Yeah. And by the way, before we come back to the question of money, you're right about the phenomenon of what is, there are two terms that are used to describe this.

Starting point is 00:28:26 There's a doctor named Lisa Lipman who's written about this, basically how transgenderism spreads through peer contagion and social contagion. Peer contagion is exactly what it sounds like, things that children will learn and imitate from their peer groups. Social contagion is similar, but typically refers to things that are, things that we see through social media or media in general, right? things in the social atmosphere. So what Littman argued in an article that got her pretty severe backlash, because it's true,

Starting point is 00:29:00 of course, right? So that's why studies that we don't like are severely qualified or unpublished or the authors become canceled. It's because they're often because they're true. And so what Lippman observed is that transgenderism seems to be spreading in much the same way that things like anorexia do. And when she spoke to parents who have children who experienced so-called gender dysphoria, or in this case the rapid onset of confusion about their bodies,

Starting point is 00:29:31 it was usually preceded by their children spending a lot of time on social media and by members of their child's peer group also experiencing confusion about their identity and their bodies. And that almost in every single case, that happened even, immediately before their own child decided that, you know, I think I'm a boy or I think I'm a girl or whatever. And it spreads the same way as anorexia. And the way that anorexia spreads, I mean, the funny thing is that most people agree that anorexia spreads in this way through peer groups and through social networks, right? That basically one person in a peer group, obviously mostly girls, will become anorexic because she'll be fixated on, you know, unhealthy body image or whatever. I mean, I think transgenderism is actually the most unhealthy kind of fixation that you could have with regard to one's body.

Starting point is 00:30:22 But that's how anorexia works, right? A girl becomes fixated on an idea of the ideal body image. She engages in behavior that's self-harming. And then her other friends in her immediate peer group will imitate her. And then it'll spread beyond the immediate peer group through social media or through social networks. And Lippman is saying, this seems to be how transgender is spreading specifically among girls, but obviously it's not just girls that are doing this. And it's totally true.

Starting point is 00:30:53 And she got tons of backlash for it. But I talk about this in my report. But on the question of money, until recently, if you said that that transgenderism is extremely lucrative, you might have been dismissed. How could you even say that this is about saving lives, right, and reducing suicide. and things like that. Well, you recently had this video that, this is just one example, you recently had this video that was surfaced where a Dr. Shane Taylor, professor and physician at Vanderbilt Clinic for Transgender Health, was saying that the way that I convinced

Starting point is 00:31:27 Nashville to get progressive on transgenderism and opening a clinic to do this stuff was by explaining that this is extremely profitable. And she said that female to male chest reconstructive surgery, very, that's a wonderful euphemism, right, can be as much as $40,000. And she specifically said, even routine, routine, as in a repeat customer, routine hormone therapy can be thousands of dollars. And I mean, that's, I think this is something that doesn't get talked about enough. When you're talking about someone that decides to, you know, become trans, you're really talking about a lifetime medical consumer who will have to, you know, go back the doctor's office and will basically be hooked on drugs. And, I mean, it's really fascinating when you think about it

Starting point is 00:32:18 as a kind of, just like as a kind of addiction almost. Yeah. Right. Tell me a little bit more about specifically Lupron and then Abvi, which is Lupron's manufacturer, you found out some things about not just this drug, but also this company and who they're donating to and why they're so influential, right? Yeah. On the state level, one of the people that have received money from Abb's generous giving is state senator Scott Weiner, a California Democrat in San Francisco, who tweeted that as an idea for a bill, he would like to propose a drag queen 101 to be included in K-12

Starting point is 00:33:00 curriculum, and attending drag queen's story hour would satisfy. by the requirement. Scott Weiner was someone who co-authored a bill to reduce the penalty for knowingly infecting someone with HIV, which was signed into law. And he also did some work with what he said was removing the stigma from how we handle sex offenders. So, yeah. A pedophile sex offenders.

Starting point is 00:33:26 He worked to reduce the penalty for sex offenders who offended a child. child as long as the age gap was just 10 years. And so he said that that was advancing equality for LGBTQ people. You can make of that what you will. But really, every perverse and just absolutely disgusting bill that you can think of coming out of California is because of Senator Scott Weiner. So you're saying that he was donated to by Abbey, by this company that creates Lupron that is used to block the puberty process of children. Yeah, that's right. And so, Lupron has a long and complicated history.

Starting point is 00:34:14 It was originally developed by Abbott Laboratories as part of a joint venture. But from the beginning, it's been plagued with problems. There has always been a lot of scandal around Lupron. There are a ton of adverse side effects associated with it. I mean, this is a drug that from the very beginning, people have had kind of, let's just say reluctance to normalize its use. And I'll give you one example. In 2009, a doctor named Peter Allen of the Penn State Medical School told the Chicago

Starting point is 00:34:53 Tribune that Lupron deprives users of the benefits of puberty and can also adversely affect cardiovascular and reproductive health. That was in 2009. In 2010, Alan authored a study that was submitted to the FDA on the use of Lupron for children. And that study conspicuously omitted two of the more severe side effects, one which adversely affects bone health. And that study was funded or sponsored by Abbott Laboratories. The thing about Lupron is that it's used for other things, not just for a surprise

Starting point is 00:35:33 puberty and children. It's used for treating symptoms related to prostate cancer in men, symptoms related to endometriosis in women, but it's also used to chemically castrate the most deviant kinds of sex offenders, the ones who are most likely to repeat because they can't control themselves. It's only used to treat the most extreme sex offenders because it has so many side effects. But now we use it. I mean, this doesn't say much, but the FDA hasn't authorized it for use with regard to puberty suppression in trans youth. But it's now one of the top two drugs. And I think it's actually the most common drug. The other one is Suprel in LA, but it's more expensive. So Lupron is really the go-to for the sequence of suppressing puberty,

Starting point is 00:36:18 which then leads to cross-sex hormones and then medical surgeries, right? Lupron is not approved by the FDA for that use. Again, not that really matters because the FDA is not the last word on what's right or wrong. But it tells you that something is deeply wrong here. And you can connect all of these different doctors who you'll hear or read about how saying that gender affirming care is life-saving. And so one of these is Dr. Stephen Rosenthal, who wrote an article in the San Francisco Chronicle condemning a bill in Idaho that if it would have been signed into law, it would have

Starting point is 00:36:57 banned the administration of hormones, puberty suppression, and surgeries to kids. Dr. Rosenthal said that it was nothing short of lifesaving to give kids access to this treatment, right? Which is not true. There's no data proving that at all. Right. No. And the thing is, is that even the data that you could argue at some point did suggest that,

Starting point is 00:37:20 basically all this stuff is proven false. And we can talk about the Dutch protocol, but basically all of the data that people will point to is either deeply flawed or ends up being proven false in the end. So you almost don't even have to address the arguments from that perspective because they always end up falling apart somehow. And we can talk about the Dutch thing. But basically, so yeah, Rosenthal, you know, he cares deeply about kids, right? We certainly don't want kids killing themselves if they can't immediately get access to puberty suppression and cross-execor. hormones and stuff. Well, it turns out that Rosenthal is a doctor who has received money in connection to both Lupron and Superlin, L.A., both of the two main drugs used in transgender,

Starting point is 00:38:05 the so-called gender-affirming care model. It's difficult to use these terms because they're all just euphemisms for like the most grotesque things that we're doing to kids, right? But yeah, gender-affirming care. So Rosenthal has received money in connection to both of those drugs. And what that means is that he gets money to go around the country and talk about them and conferences and things like that. But not only as he's received money in connection to both of those drugs, Lupron being manufactured by Avi and Superlin, L.A. being manufactured by endopharmaceuticals. I looked at a repository of projects funded by the National Institutes of Health. and Rosenthal's research into early medical intervention for transgender youth received a $5.7 million award. So I'm sure that Rosenthal and a lot of these doctors really probably do believe in this stuff.

Starting point is 00:38:58 In other words, they're ideologues. They really do believe the things that they're saying. But it also happens that there are nice financial incentives to say these things. It is a combination of ideology and greed, because going back to the anorexia conversation, I guess a lot of money perhaps could be made in marketing to young women, diet pills, laxatives, whatever it is to keep them skinny. That could become an entire industry, but it really didn't, at least not in the same way that this is. So ideology obviously plays a big part. But who are these ideologues or these just greedy people at the top?

Starting point is 00:39:52 who are really pushing this? I mean, why has this taken off in a way that anorexia didn't, at least on like an official industry level? Yeah. Well, I forgot to mention that Dr. Allen, who initially said that Lupron deprives people of, you know, the good effects of puberty and things like that. And then, you know, unexplicably wrote that study that was submitted to the FDA that omitted some of the more severe consequences. Between 2013 and 2018, financial rights, records show that Dr. Allen received more than $300,000 in connection to Lupron. And that was just what I found in the ProPublica database. He received more money specifically in connection to Lupron Depot Pediatric, which is the one

Starting point is 00:40:38 that's used for kids. More recently that, the ProPublica database that I used did not have the kind of like the fine delineation because there are different kinds of Lupron that are given to adults and children. But we can pretty much assume that a lot of that money between 2013 and 18 was related to the pediatric use of that medication because that's what Alan was writing about, right, when he submitted this report to the FDA. So, I mean, but again, some of these people are cheap dates. Like Dr. Allen received hundreds of thousands of dollars in connection to the stuff. Some people received much less than that. And I think that gets back to the question of ideology.

Starting point is 00:41:18 I think the reason that something like transgenderism has taken off the way that anorex never did, is that it's just, I mean, I don't know, how do you make money off of anorexia in a way that you, I mean, besides, I guess, like, clothing, right? And, uh, advertisement, I don't know, different diet pills. Yeah, dieting pills. But, but, but I mean, it just seems harder, um, to make something like anorexia profitable. I, maybe, I mean, this sounds kind of macabre, maybe because the people that are anorexic are probably going to die faster, right? Right. Right. Right. where you can you can keep someone who's going through the whole transgender process a lot, basically hooked on this stuff for their lives. And it doesn't work to fundamentally change society the way that I think transgender ideologues

Starting point is 00:42:06 want. I think that they have an interest or they think that they have an interest in the breakdown of any kind of tradition or reality. And so that includes gender, that includes marriage, that includes natural procreation. And so I think the transgender moving. movement is convenient in a lot of ways, profit as you're covering here, but also in advancing the societal goals that a lot of progressives think that they have and just the general breakdown of reality. It really is the ultimate two plus two equals five. And any dystopia

Starting point is 00:42:39 novel can tell you that that's what the people in charge want to be able to convince you is true. No, I'm glad that you said that because it turns my mind to the John Joan case. So I actually opened my report with this. And the John Joan case is what I call like the kind of like patient zero of transgenderism. A man named David Reamer. So David Reamer was born Bruce Reamer, but his penis was severely damaged during a

Starting point is 00:43:06 botched circumcision. And in 1967, his parents took him to an influential psychologist and sexologist named John Money. So Money, So money opened the Johns Hopkins Gender Identity Clinic in 1966.

Starting point is 00:43:26 It was an extremely controversial thing at the time. But money was a really good marketer. So when he opened this clinic, he went to the New York Times, and he knew that if he gave an exclusive statement to the Times, the Times was going to be friendly. And its coverage was going to be positive about the gender identity clinic. And that would set the tone for the rest of the media. And it worked.

Starting point is 00:43:45 So the Reamer family had heard about money and the research. that he was doing with regard to sex reassignment, Money made his bones working with hermaphrodites, but he was really out to prove a general theory of human nature. And that is that the primary factors that determine psychosexual differentiation are not necessarily a matter of nature, but nurture. And so basically the parents had heard about these radical ideas that John Money was pioneering through the media, and they went to him. I mean, it doesn't really make sense to us now, right, in our shoes, because we've seen what this stuff looks like at its most extreme, but the parents were desperate. And they basically hoped that money could turn

Starting point is 00:44:34 Bruce Reamer into a girl so that he could have something of a normal life, right? Again, it doesn't really make sense to us. The parents were desperate. But after their meeting, the parents were actually kind of reluctant because this is a pretty extreme thing, right? This kind of sex reassignment had never been performed on somebody who was born with normal genitals and nervous system. Yeah. But you're being told by a doctor that, you know, John Money, as you said, he just believed that gender was something that was basically conditioned. And so if you raise someone as a girl, they'll be a girl and the insides really don't make a difference. And so I guess if you're told that by a doctor, there are still people who believe that today. And so it doesn't

Starting point is 00:45:13 make sense to you and me, but apparently it still makes sense to a lot of crazy people out there. So I guess these parents just got into it. Yeah. Well, this gets into the question of ideology really well. But basically, in 67, they do this sex reassignment. Bruce Reamer becomes Brenda Reamer. And until the age of 15 has no idea that Brenda was actually born a boy. The case is called the John Joan case because money concealed the identities of the, of Brenda, is confusing because there's three names, Bruce, Brenda, and ultimately David. But basically, Money included the twin brother, Brian Reamer, in this experiment. And this is really grotesque, but basically, at the age of six,

Starting point is 00:46:02 money introduced the twin brothers to simulating sexual acts because he believed that the way that you get Brenda to really become a girl was to do these kinds of simulated sexual acts to affirm what money called the gender schema. And according to Brian Reamer, on at least one occasion, Dr. Money photographed Brian and Brenda simulating having sex. It's really disgusting stuff, right? But basically, the study was a failure. Money marketed it as a total success, but Brenda was miserable throughout his entire,

Starting point is 00:46:35 David Reamer was miserable throughout his entire adolescence. Like, it never worked, right? Money knew that, but he marketed it as a success. And even when the truth came out that the whole experiment was a complete failure and that David Reamer was miserable, the one of Money's academic rivals, his name was, this last name was Diamond. I came over his first name. I talked about him in my report. But he said, like, when I was writing about this stuff and, like, exposing it from a scientific perspective, what I found was that people believed in the success of the John Joan case as almost a kind of. of religious article of faith.

Starting point is 00:47:14 Like nothing that this doctor, nothing that he could write or say could shake people of their belief that Bruce Reamer was transformed into a girl, Brenda, before he decided to just become a man again. And money went to the grave, having never publicly apologized

Starting point is 00:47:38 for what he did. And in the end, David Reamer ended up blowing his head off with a shot. gun in 2004. And that was... And his twin brother did too, right? Killed himself in another way. His twin brother died of an antidepressant overdose two years before. And there was, you know, all this kind of like, well, they were troubled and they had financial

Starting point is 00:47:55 problems and stuff like that. It's like, yeah, I wonder what could have been at the source of the trauma in the lives of the Rima brothers, right? Right. But the point is, is that that was, I think, the ultimate case of ideology. The John Joan case was a complete failure. But even when it was completely disproven and ripped to shreds, people continue to believe in it. And I think part of that was the fact that money went to the media.

Starting point is 00:48:23 And it was promoted as a success by Time Magazine. The New York Times Book Review also helped promote the experiment as a success. Like it became, it filled the pages of textbooks from sociology to endocrinology and you name it. Like it was just promulgated as an article of faith. that this is proof that we can kind of just snap our fingers. And by the proper application of man's reasoned and technical powers, we can just kind of play with human nature. Actually, human nature as such, doesn't really exist.

Starting point is 00:49:08 In the nature versus nurture debate, progressives always assume things are nurture. That's why they think that they can rearrange society and that people will eventually comply because they don't actually believe that we are made by a creator with not only certain inherent rights, but also just certain inherent characteristics and need. They think that they can replace them with whatever idea that they have. Going back to the money conversation about this. Well, one thing I do just want to say.

Starting point is 00:49:38 So we're talking about profit, but something that you see in money, something that you see in Kinsey, something that you see in Gail Rubin and all of these queer apologists throughout the 60s and 70s, I mean a common thread. And all of them is pedophilia apologists. So we're talking about ideology as a part of this. We're talking about profit as a part of this.

Starting point is 00:50:00 But I don't think that we can discount that perversion is also a huge part of this. I think pornography is a huge part of this, especially for the men who start to identify as women. And so as you said, it is a Leviathan because there are so many aspects of society that have really been growing underneath the surface for the past 50 to 60. years that have led to this moment. And the profit is really, I think, just kind of a response to the ideology and the perversion and the worldviews that led us here. So how in the world, how in the world do we respond to that? I think that the right response to it, you know, ideologically. We're trying to respond to it philosophically, biologically, all of these things. But I don't know if we have even begun to chip away at the

Starting point is 00:50:51 profit part of this, the part of this that has become so corporate, which has been wedded together with government power. Like, I don't even know how to begin to approach all of that. Yeah. Yeah, well, I think really quick, going back to the money case, one of the reasons also that, to your point about, you know, how these dynamics work, one of the reasons this, the experiment was so quickly embraced was because it fit the zeitgeist, right? And in particular, it fit the views of feminists who were trying to disprove any kind of biological basis for the differences between the sexes. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:51:32 So you're right, it was part of this broader kind of rebellion against human nature that the left has been waging for the longest time. I think, I mean, geez, the problem with ideology is that the problem with ideology is that no amount of facts and logic as conservative. like to say that you can muster will ever overcome it. It's really not accountable to the better argument or whatever. And this is why I don't really think, I mean, there are people that you can reach, people that are kind of on the fence about these things. And you see this now. I don't really have any sympathy and I don't give any credit to the New York Times. But the New York

Starting point is 00:52:13 Times recently had that article that was talking about how, you know, maybe we should pump the breaks on giving kids hormones and things like that. But of course, like, the reason I don't care about that and the reason I didn't, like, share that article or celebrate it was because the New York Times is complicit in all this stuff. Right. Like, this is your fault. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:52:31 And now you're like, oh, we should, we should maybe ask some questions before we irreversely ruin the lives of children, right? But I think that the only, oftentimes, the only antidote for ideology is just a confrontation with reality. Like, people have to see for themselves the consequences of these. things or know someone who experiences the consequences of these things. But me like writing or debating with them is not going to change their mind. The only people you can help to reach, I think, in that way, are people that are kind of

Starting point is 00:53:00 undecided, that kind of intuitively sense that something's wrong, but are afraid to say something because, I mean, you look around, you see what happened to like people like Dr. Lippmann, right? They try to destroy you. You're painted as not only someone who's kind of backwards and bigoted, but also as someone endangering the lives of children, that by depriving them of this treatment, you're basically putting them on path to kill themselves. Yeah. And you're called a terrorist if you highlight the fact that there are hospitals that are cutting off

Starting point is 00:53:29 the healthy breasts of 12-year-old girls. That's right. Yeah. So, I mean, that's the sort of black pill, if you will, of ideology and ideologues. And I cite James Burnham in my report who's a big influence on me. And he talks about this. That basically the problem with arguing with an ideologue is that the issue is that the ideologue in his mind is already won before the debate even begins.

Starting point is 00:53:51 They've already decided that they're right and that any rebuttal that you throw at them will simply kind of bounce off the bubble of ideology. So that's why I think that the solutions are not necessarily... I mean, obviously, you have to be able to point to things like the studies and things like that and show why the stuff is bad. Like, that's a huge part of it. Or not just bad, but also based on bad. science. Like, I'll get into what I think is the power component, but I think the Dutch

Starting point is 00:54:24 protocol is a good example of this. So the gender affirming model is largely based on a study that was published in 2014 by a Dutch team that conducted an experiment with a group of adolescents. And the point of this was to figure out if you could develop a protocol to determine whether an individual would benefit from medical intervention. That is, the sequence of suppressing puberty, administering cross-sex hormones and surgeries. And during this experiment, one patient died from a post-surgical infection. There were several new diagnosis of metabolic illness, and several subjects dropped out. And despite the fact that you had all these problems of the study, it was promulgated

Starting point is 00:55:11 as a success, of course, by media outlets like The New York Times. That became the kind of like medical basis for doing this stuff that again we can properly discern who would benefit from being subjected to this treatment. The problem is that the people that tried to replicate the Dutch protocol couldn't do it. And basically like the entire thing has fallen apart. And that's why you see other countries in Europe backpedaling on transgenderism as a as it pertains to young people. Like, the United States is singularly committed

Starting point is 00:55:51 to all of this stuff more than any other country. You're seeing clinics in Europe being shut down over this stuff. Protocols are being rewritten because, again, we're coming to the conclusion that a lot of this stuff was wrong. And with the Dutch protocol, that's become the basis of a lot of the stuff in the U.S., it's not even applicable to current populations. For example, in the Dutch study,

Starting point is 00:56:14 subjects younger than 18 were not eligible for surgeries. But in the United States, an NIH-funded study has recommended mastectomies for patients as young as 13. The W-path, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, has recommended that puberty suppression can begin as young as nine. So, I mean, it's really extreme how we're committed to the stuff in the United States. by we, I mean the medical establishment, the political establishment, obviously not you and I. And so that's why I think that apart from bringing to bear the evidence and, you know, point, even pointing to other countries that are trying to roll back the title on this stuff to show that we're on the right side when it comes to facts, I think you also need the proper

Starting point is 00:57:00 application of political power. And I think a good example of that that's on everyone's mind is what Florida is trying to do with this stuff. Yes. And I want to hear more about the political power component. Let me read something from your report about where a lot of this money is coming from, and it's really bipartisan in a lot of ways. So you write that in 2021, the Ballard Partners signed a lobbying agreement with Freedom for All Americans, Washington-based nonprofit, pushing for the passage of the Equality Act, which would enable the federal government to infringe upon the individual liberties in the name of anti-discrimination. And we can link a past episode that we've done on the Equality Act.

Starting point is 00:57:39 who served as President Trump's liaison to the Department of Health and Human Services works at freedom for all Americans. Democrats are the biggest beneficiaries of giving related to LGBT issues like transgenderism, open secret status shows that in this, that they spent 6.9 million supporting Democrats, these groups and only $79,800 on Republicans. But you're arguing that it's both Republicans and Democrats that are a part of this, correct? Yes. Yeah, Democrats are, they definitely reap the lion's share when it comes to giving related to this stuff. But no, unfortunately, it's not just Democrats. And I think in some ways, this makes Republican advocacy for this stuff, frankly, more pathetic because you're not even getting paid that much. And you could almost even say that the Republicans that support this stuff, it's almost like they believe in it more than Democrats.

Starting point is 00:58:36 because Democrats at least get, you know, a decent amount of donations. Selfish motivation, yeah. Right. So you could say, like, Democrats are more cynical. We're Republicans because they get so little out of this in terms of, you know, monetary benefits. It's like, on the one hand, it's pathetic. And on the other hand, it's pathetic because they don't even, like, profit from it.

Starting point is 00:58:59 Yeah. I mean, it's a really, when you think of it like that, it's actually astonishing. And some, like I said, in some ways worse than the Democratic Party. But an example of this that I cite my report is the American Unity Fund, which is a, quote, conservative LGBT advocacy organization. And if you look at its IRS tax forms, you'll see that this conservative LGBTQ advocacy organization has given money to organizations that support ballot initiatives for so-called. called transgender rights. I mean, these are like major players in the conservative political scene that you can connect to people like the athlete formerly known as Bruce Jenner.

Starting point is 00:59:51 Yeah. And like Republican mega donors like Paul Singer. So yes, Republicans, you could argue, are like a smaller part of the problem because Democrats are obviously the ones that are leaving the charge on this and also reaping most of the benefits from it, but Republicans are complicit as well. I mean, I really can't get over that. Like I was almost blue in the face when I kept pointing out that that the, I mean, a problem with like the Trump moment was the fact that we almost, or not almost, but there was a moment where it sounded like Republicans were going to call Democrats, the real transphobes,

Starting point is 01:00:27 because of how Jenner was being attacked during that whole gubernatorial candidacy campaign. Yeah, right. I'm sure it happened. It was really, like, it was like on the, on the tip of these people's mouths. Oh, yeah. Democrats say they love transgender people, but they won't vote for our candidate. It's like, this is insane. I'm pretty sure that that actually was said.

Starting point is 01:00:49 I'm pretty sure that people like Tommy Lerrin actually did say something like that. I'm sure that there was like an actual Democrats with a real transphobes moment. But again, it's more obscene, in my view, when, when Republicans, do it because it's like you people actually seem to believe in this more than like Nancy Pelosi does. You don't get anything out of it and you're obviously not interested at all in representing the interests of most of your base, where at least Democrats are reflecting what a lot of their constituents really want. They're not only getting profit from it, but they are also getting support from their base, whereas Republicans really don't care. They really don't care if their base gets angry about this.

Starting point is 01:01:34 I mean, as you point out a lot, Republicans really probably even more than Democrats do truly hate and resent the values of their voters. I would say a lot of mainstream big media outlets really hate their audience, like really think that we're just a bunch of rubs and archaic barbarians for believing in things like traditional marriage. And like you can sense that superiority complex that they have. But, I mean, I don't really know the answer. I'm not going to vote Democrat. I'm not going to support the Democrat platform. And until we have more Ron DeSantis says, I'm not really sure what to do. It doesn't seem like there are a lot of Republicans who are interested in wielding the power that is available to them to put a stop to any part of this Leviathan.

Starting point is 01:02:24 And so, I mean, talk about a black pill. Oh, what are we supposed to do about it? I think that things have to get worse before they get better. I just think that this is something that it's a matter of time. And by time, I mean, you're not going to see, I think, a strong, desirable course correction in the immediate future. I think you just have to wait until there are more people like Ronda Santis, more people like J.D. Vance that are willing to not just talk about these issues, but take them on. in a smart way, right? Because I think that's actually a huge problem as well. Republicans will often talk about things and pay lip service to the things that we

Starting point is 01:03:08 also care about, but then not do anything. An example I always use is Greg Abbott in Texas. The governor recently declared that there's an invasion in Texas, which we all know. But when you actually look at in terms of policy and what he's saying he's going to do, it was interesting how quickly he was actually criticized by people who are actually very smart in the movement and like decent conservative policy walks, for lack of a better word, who pointed out that you're calling this an invasion, but you're not actually treating it like when in practice. And you're not using all of the available tools in your toolbox to deal with the crisis on the border as a governor of Texas. In other words, you're just paying lip service to these things. You're just issuing strongly warding. letters and tweeting, but you're not actually doing everything that you could be doing. And I think that that's really, I don't want to say demoralizing.

Starting point is 01:04:05 But the problem with that is, is if you do that enough times, people become cynical. They stop believing that anything else is possible. They basically kind of check out of the political process. And I think you kind of see that right now, especially like after midterms. But my view is that things actually have to get that bad before they get better. Like, I don't, again, it's related to the issue of ideology, right? Sometimes there is no better argument and you just have to let people be confronted by reality. And like the consequences of the policies they support or they're in action.

Starting point is 01:04:46 And between, you know, now and then, we just have to fight where we can. And like states like Florida are trying to do what they can on the states. level. Other states are trying as well. But obviously, I mean, like, there's this whole problem of the courts that will just, you know, decide to arbitrarily overturn the will of Republican voters and red states that want to push back on this stuff. I mean, it's a really uphill battle. It's one that it's hard to think of an analog for this kind of thing. But again, that's why I'm hopeful about political leaders like DeSantis in Florida. If you follow me, you know that I'm no one's cheerleader in terms of in terms of politics. But I think that Florida is a rare example of

Starting point is 01:05:30 where you have the state GOP that's actually trying. And like I've spoken to the people on DeSantis's team that are involved in a lot of the stuff. And they are actually very smart and they're very serious. And they really do care about these issues. And basically the question is it's like, how do we how do we take that and then drop it into other red states? Right. Yeah. It's tough. But I think that's really all we can do right now is basically focus on where we live. Stop paying attention to the proclamations of Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy and start focusing on what's happening on the state level. I think it kind of starts for a lot of these people in power,

Starting point is 01:06:18 just maybe the average individual with an attitude of not caring what you're going to be called. And that's not to say that you shouldn't care at all about the consequences that are coming if you push back against the LGBTQ lobby. As you talked about, it's very powerful force. but I do see a lot of conservatives falling into not exactly what you just said about the, oh, you're the real transphobes, although I do think sometimes that happens with people like Caitlin Jenner. But the, I'm not anti-trans, but, or it's not anti-trans to say that men shouldn't go into

Starting point is 01:06:52 girls' bathrooms. And I'm like, you know, it actually is. It actually is. And that's okay. It's okay to be that. Don't defend yourself. because it's not going to matter. Who are you even defending yourself against?

Starting point is 01:07:06 You're defending yourself against people who want you to lose custody of your child because you won't allow your 12-year-old son to be chemically castrated. Like, who are you even trying to appeal to? So I think it does take a hardened attitude by a lot of people just to say, I do not care what you call me. I do not care what you're going to do. I care about the lives and the bodies and the well-being of children. And that's what I'm, I care about reality, by the way.

Starting point is 01:07:30 And that's what I'm fighting for. And there's nothing that you can do or say or call me to stop me. And it's just going to take a little bit, I think, to wake the rest of the people up to that, as you said. And that is actually why the arguments and the logic and the appeals actually do matter. Because even if they never convince anyone on the left or anyone profiting from this, there are still millions of people who do agree with us, but who just not have, who just have not been convinced yet to be. activated against it. So that's who, that's who I care about. And that's who I think that,

Starting point is 01:08:07 you know, still has a lot of potential in this. Yeah. No, I completely agree. And that's who I wrote this report for, right? Yes. Is exactly that. The people, like I said earlier, who are on the fence, but intuitively sensed that something is wrong. Right. That something is wrong and it's not going to stop on its own. And I think on the note that you just mentioned, there's a, another doctor named Johanna Olson Kennedy. And this gets to the whole thing of it needing to get. a lot worse before it gets better. So in 2017 at the United States Professional Association of Transgender Health Conference, Olson Kennedy talked about how there have been cases where she has had to bring the courts

Starting point is 01:08:47 to bear on recalcitrant parents who have children that decide that they are trans and the parents decide that they're not going to begin the process of allowing their child to transition to a different gender. And Olson Kennedy said that in several cases, where parents simply are given every chance to comply, you know, comply to get with the times, but remain recalcitrant, she has brought the courts to bear, which is a nice way of saying, I have broken up families in order to transition kids. Right.

Starting point is 01:09:21 And Olson Kennedy also was, she was one of the authors of this NIH study that recommended mastectomies for 13-year-olds. So there is no opting out of this. On the one hand, they're doing a lot of the research with your money, whether you like it or not. And on the other hand, they will literally come for your kids. Abigail Shreier has documented examples of this stuff for a city journal. I mean, you hear about this more and more.

Starting point is 01:09:53 A child will decide that they're trans because of something that they either heard or saw or, you know, in more and more cases heard from their teachers at school. And then the child comes home and says they're trans. The parents say that's ridiculous. And the next thing you know, there's social workers and courts involved. But I think it needed to get to that point exactly so people so that basically the cost benefit. Like, do I say these things that could seem transphobic? Or do I keep my mouth shut and live in a society where social workers and courts can take your kids away to forcibly transition them?

Starting point is 01:10:31 after they get brainwashed. Yeah. And I mean, which one of these things is worse becomes pretty obvious in that light, right? And you're totally right. Like, you don't need to preface your reservations about these things, your protests about these things with these qualifications.

Starting point is 01:10:49 Like, well, like, I love trans people or whatever. Like, you know, I'm not a transphobe. You don't have to do that. Like, it's just stop. And the moment that you do that, you kind of put yourself, you basically accept the left's more. moral high ground.

Starting point is 01:11:02 Exactly. They're the ones looking down on you and you have to kind of, before you begin talking to them, you have to apologize. Yeah. You know, before you're allowed to speak your peace. Yeah. I tell my audience a lot because I think that they are the number one targets of what I call empathy shaming or toxic empathy.

Starting point is 01:11:20 It's Christian women, suburban moms. And I tell them, don't let yourself be emotionally extorted and empathy shamed into either just shutting up or caveating and nuanceing everything that you believe until it just sounds like you don't believe anything at all. And just from a Christian perspective, I always remind people like, you can't outlove God. And if God says that he made us male and female, you're not being unloving by agreeing with him. It's actually the most loving thing that you can do is agree with him. And so as you said, by saying, well, I'm not this or I'm not that or, you know, providing all these carve-outs, you are actually giving the left the authority to define what's loving, what's

Starting point is 01:12:03 bigoted, and what's not. And I just reject that authority entirely. So thank you so much for writing this huge report. And it really is. It's for those people who need to be armed with the tools, not only for their own convictions, but also to convince people in their lives of what a huge problem this is. Where can people find it? And we'll make sure to link it in the description as well. The American Principlesproject.org. And yeah, it's 10,000 words, but I try to make it as readable as possible. It's not like a boring white paper. Yeah, it is very beautiful. Yeah, it's written as kind of like a, like a, I don't want to say a novel, but it's written more in the style of a novel as opposed to just, you know, a white paper that's going to make your eyes water over. Yeah. And,

Starting point is 01:12:55 And I plan to also do an audio version of it and basically just read it and then release it somehow as a kind of podcast so that you can also listen to it. Good idea. And I've got a kind of write up on why I chose the name at my substack at contra.substack.com. And there's one thing. I think I may have said Dr. Peter Allen. It's Dr. Peter Lee of the Penn State College of Medicine. I think I might have misspoken on his last name because I have a list of several doctors. that are mentioned in my report.

Starting point is 01:13:26 And so I just want to make sure I didn't combine two of the names. So it's Peter Lee. Okay, well, we will link it. And so if anyone needs clarity on anything that you said or wants to hear it expounded upon, they can read it in the description. Thank you so much, Pedro, for taking the time to come on. And thanks again for writing this. It's really important.

Starting point is 01:13:43 Thank you. 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

Starting point is 01:14:11 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 the Steve Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 716 | Congress Perverts Marriage; The Church Must Resist | Guest: Pedro Gonzalez

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