Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 767 | Hershey's Celebrates Women... By Celebrating a Man | Guest: Bethany Mandel

Episode Date: March 8, 2023

Today we’re talking about Jon Stewart’s recent interview with Oklahoma state Senator Nathan Dahm, in which he defended drag show performances and claimed that guns are the leading cause of childhood deaths, which, while somewhat true, is a stretch when you look at certain other important factors. We dive into why and talk about the actual leading cause of child deaths — abortion. Then, we take a look at the Hershey’s Women’s History Month ad, which featured a man who identifies as a woman — a lesson is terrible marketing. Then, we’re joined by Bethany Mandel, author of "Stolen Youth: How Radicals Are Erasing Innocence and Indoctrinating a Generation," to discuss the woke war on children and how parents can respond. We discuss how the Left has infiltrated all spaces (medicine, schools, and media) in an effort to win over our children. What are the biggest risks, and what can we do? --- Timecodes: (00:50) Intro / International Women's Day (03:20) Jon Stewart on guns and drag (16:46) Hershey's Women's History Month ad (27:36) Interview with Bethany Mandel / Grooming (43:00) Kids making sense of the world & brain science (47:05) What do we do about this? (53:12) Not just a religious issue --- Today's Sponsors: A'Del — go to adelnaturalcosmetics.com and enter promo code "ALLIE" for 25% off your first order! EdenPURE — when you buy one Thunderstorm you get one FREE, this week only! Go to EdenPureDeals.com, use promo code 'ALLIE'! PublicSq. — download the PublicSq app from the App Store or Google Play, create a free account, and begin your search for freedom-loving businesses! Epic Will — be intentional about your family, your values and your wishes. Go to EpicWill.com/ALLIE and you’ll save 10% on your complete Will package. --- Links: Tulsa World: "State Sen. Nathan Dahm spars with Jon Stewart over Second Amendment" https://tulsaworld.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/state-sen-nathan-dahm-spars-with-jon-stewart-over-second-amendment/article_9e349328-b9fa-11ed-b955-e3d6a639c6c2.html Matt Walsh's Twitter thread on Fae Johnstone: https://twitter.com/mattwalshblog/status/1631451403120963586?s=12&t=nbH7JR13oUz_TlOeUVAgew --- Relevant Episodes: Ep 720 | American Girl Betrays Girls & the SEL Trojan Horse | Guest: James Lindsay https://apple.co/3mARXxB --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: 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. John Stewart thinks he made a really good point about drag queens and guns, but did he? Also, Hershey's has decided to use a man in their advertisements to celebrate Women's History Month. Also, my friend Bethany Mandel is here to talk about an incredible book that she co-wrote called Stolen Youth.

And it's about how the indoctrination in our schools and the institutional capture that we see in all kinds of institutions in our country is praying upon the innocence of our kids. And she's got some really great tips to fight back. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to Good Ranchers.com. Use promo code Allie at check out. That's Good Ranchers.com. Code Allie. All right, happy international women's day. Twitter alerted me that today was that day.

Just a reminder that women have XX chromosomes. That's determined at the point of conception. And that cannot be changed. A woman is not putting on a wig. It's not wearing lipstick. It's not even getting fake breasts or getting any kind of reconstructive surgery. You can do all of those things. But unless you have female genetics, you will never be a female. These are immutable characteristics and we should celebrate that. We should celebrate the unique differences between men and women, boys and girls. We should teach people to celebrate to their gender, which is interchangeable with sex, by the way. These are not two separate entities in any kind of scientific or realistic sense rather than telling people that

if they're a little bit uncomfortable or a little bit confused or a little bit distressed, that they should try to do the impossible, which is switch your gender. Genesis 127 for the Christian makes it very clear about what has turned into this culture war issue that God created them male and female. And we are created in his image as male and female. And again, that cannot be changed. And in fact, to try to change that would not just be an assault on the human being as image bearers of God, but also an affront to God himself, far be it from us to question his

authority on how he made us. He knit us together perfectly, purposely, intricately in our mother's wombs as we read in Psalm 139. So let us celebrate being women and all of the unique capabilities and capacities that we have. And also we can celebrate the uniqueness and wonderful characteristics of men and we are necessary for each other. We compliment one another. Praise God for his creativity and his purposefulness and his mastery in creating the human body the way that he did. So happy international Women's Day to all of us.

We've got a lot to talk about today. We've got along those lines, we've got to talk about some things having to do with gender as we often do. we're going to react first to this John Stewart clip that you've probably seen circulating. He had an exchange with a state rep or a state senator, rather, from Oklahoma, Nathan Dom. He is a Republican from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. And for some reason, the state senator decided that it would be a good idea to go on an episode of the problem with John Stewart. And they debated about gun law because being a Republican,

Senator Dom has tried to loosen restrictions on gun ownership in the state of Oklahoma, as many Republicans do. And so they argued about gun control. And of course, Senator Dom talked about being an advocate for the Second Amendment. And let's watch this clip that has gone viral on Twitter that a lot of LGBTQ activists are saying is a huge win for gender ideology and just shows the hypocrisy of the right. for criticizing things like drag shows. Here's that viral clip.

You want to ban drag show readings to children. To my nurse, yes. Why? Why? What are you protecting? Why can we prohibit children from voting, those under 18 from voting? Why are you banning? Is that free speech?

Are you infringing on that performer's free speech? They can continue to exercise their free speech, just not in front of a child. Why? Because the government does have a responsibility to protect. I'm sorry? The government does have a responsibility in certain instances to protect children. leading cause of death amongst children in this country. And I'm going to give you a hint.

It's not drag show readings to children. Correct, yes. So what is it? I'm presuming you're going to say it's firearms. No, I'm not going to say it like it's an opinion. That's what it is. It's firearms. More than cancer, more than car accidents.

And what you're telling me is, you don't mind infringing free speech to protect children from this amorphous thing that you think of. But when it comes to children that have that have died, you don't give a flying to stop that because that shall not be infringed. That is hypocrisy at its highest order. All right. So there are a couple things to know here.

Of course, I know that we want to know the question, is this true? Firearm related deaths, according to several analyses by the CDC, is the leading cause of death? Now, we're talking about arguments. We're talking about accidental. firearm interactions or firearm accidents. We're talking about purposeful homicide, which is pretty rare. This is, according to the CDC, a leading cause of death for children. Now, the CDC does say that children is defined by them. I'm not totally sure why, but starting at age one, starting at age one to age 18. Because if you go down to, you go down to,

infant. So if you go zero from 18, it's not actually the leading cause of death. There's congenital heart disease. There are different kinds of diseases that are actually the leading cause of death for children. I'm not saying necessarily that there is a nefarious reason that they define childhood that way. Maybe the reason that they're doing that is because those are infant specific diseases that tend to cause infant fatalities. So they didn't think it was a very good picture of why children are dying in the United States. And so according to the CDC, John Stewart's assertion is mostly true. Now, it is still rare for that to happen. But that's because we have a pretty good childhood survival rate, thankfully, as we should in a first world country in the United States.

But a leading cause of death, according to the CDC, about 60% of deaths of kids ages 1 to 18 is because of some kind of firearm incident, which, of course, I agree, is absolutely tragic. And if someone on the left can point us to, which maybe, you know, some have, but point us to the exact policy and the exact piece of legislation that would prevent these deaths, I think a lot of Republicans and conservatives would come to the table and also show how things like constitutional carry or being able to easily get your concealed carry license. leads to or precipitates these deaths among young people. Because very often what is actually happening is that these firearm deaths are because

someone has already broken the law. They've already broken the law. They have already broken the law by murdering someone. They have already broken the law by going in a place where a gun is not permitted or they illegally own a firearm. So it's hard to kind of imagine how another restriction. would be an impediment to lawbreakers killing someone else. And so I agree, obviously, this is absolutely tragic.

However, the real leading cause of death for children, if you are to extend it to really the beginning of adolescent life, which is the moment of conception, the leading cause of death is actually abortion. So if we're going to do this, if we're going to look at the importance, of things based on how many people it kills. Then let's talk about abortion. Abortion kills about a thousand children every day, or at least that's what was happening before the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

And so abortion is killing thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people in this country, millions and millions of people around the world. And if you're unconvinced by that, if for some reason you think that babies in the womb aren't humans or aren't alive, please go back. and listen to my million episodes breaking down just the illogic of the pro-choice or pro-abortion position. So really, he's wrong. He's wrong if you are looking at the actual scientific definition of adolescence, which starts at the moment of conception. Really, the leading cause of death in children is abortion. But also, if we are looking at the argumentation strategy here,

that is being employed by John Stewart. And this is a fallacious way to engage in a kind of debate. So this is what you do when you know that you don't really have a good point. And when you're in the position of power, like he is obviously going to be rhetorically more savvy. He's done this for a living for a very long time. And so he knows that he is going to be able to manipulate the conversation. So this is what he does.

Rather than talking about the drag queen issue, rather than answering, because I could tell that State Senator Rom was trying to ask him this question, rather than answering the question, why do you think kids should have an audience or should be in the audience when a man scantily clad is twirking for them for money? Why do you think that's beneficial? Why do you think that should be legal? Why do you think that should be celebrated? Why shouldn't the government do something about that? And no, it has nothing to do with the First Amendment. We're not saying that drag queens can't be drag queens.

we're not saying that drag queens can't talk or that they can't even perform for adults. But of course, there are restrictions on what you can show a child. That doesn't have to do with the First Amendment. And as we talked about yesterday, I do think that the state has a place to step in and say, no, these kind of things, this kind of content is actually not appropriate for children. And it's got to be ages 21 or 18 and up. Sorry. And so John Stewart simply wasn't equipped to have that conversation of why he actually thinks it's a good thing for a man in fishnets and fake boobs to be twerking for a child.

Why he thinks that that is beneficial. Instead, he says, well, how many people have been killed by a drag queen? That's not really the argument, is it? That's not the argument that the state senator is making. That's not the argument that any of us are making. None of us are saying that drag queens are going around and killing these children or even necessarily that they are physically always praying upon these children. We're saying in the same way that it's wrong to show a child pornography and the same way that it is wrong or a similar way that it's wrong to bring a child to Hooters, that this should not be happening. This shouldn't be presented to young people.

This shouldn't be presented to infants. This shouldn't be presented to toddlers. It is inappropriate. Yes, there is something innately sexual about a man dressing up like a caricature of a woman. Yes, there is. Don't gaslight us into thinking that there's none. There absolutely is. that like I will just say it's inappropriate for a man to pretend to be a woman and to present that

to kids. So that's not just perverse. It's also confusing. So if parents are going to continue to demand these kinds of shows, I do think that there is a place for states to say, you know what, we have to restrict these kinds of shows to venues that only allow people ages 21 and up to go there. I wish that we didn't even have to have this conversation. I wish that there wasn't a law necessary, but apparently there is. Apparently, they can't, they can't be content with just performing for adults. They also have to be performing for toddlers too, which is very disturbing in and of itself. So that's what John Stewart here does here. It's a little bait and switch. He's not actually interested in having the conversation about drag queens. And so you see how he

very quickly, very stealthly pivots to something else. And so it's not actually a way of having a conversation. It's not actually a way of arguing the substance of what the other person is saying because the state senator was making a point. Instead, he pivots to something else. And he said, well, because that thing isn't killing you, you shouldn't care about it. But again, that's not the reason that we care about these perverse drag shows that are being performed for kids. Just because something isn't killing you or harming you the same way something else is doesn't mean that we shouldn't care about it. Doesn't mean that we can't care about it. It's so funny because far leftists like John Stewart, they think that the government should step in to do anything and everything. I mean,

they believe that the government should care about us so much that they should actually force us to get a vaccine that many of us did not want or even need. They believe that the government should force us to wear masks should force us inside our homes for our own good. But when it comes to protecting the innocence of children, all of a sudden, that's just a step too far. All of the sudden they're libertarians isn't that interesting and by the way there's not a constitutional right to perform drag in front of kids there is a constitutional right to own a gun there's a reason for that okay and so i would love for chuck schumer or not for chuck schumer the article i have up has chuck schumer same in it i would love for john stewart to actually debate someone who is willing

to match his tenacity um and also to call him out on his manipulation because that's what this clip was. This clip does nothing to prove that drag shows for children is good or beneficial or not psychologically and spiritually and emotionally and sexually harmful for kids. Those two things really don't have anything to do with each other. So, I mean, good job for getting the viral clip by using rhetorical manipulation, but you didn't do anything to actually defend the morality of drag shows for children. So whenever you say things like this and whenever you think, oh, this is a victory for them, just start asking questions. You see people share this.

Ask questions. What benefit do you think that kids get from seeing men and fake boobs twerking? Let me know. I would love to know. No one would have said this even five years ago. People are absurd. All right. We've got another absurd story that I know that you've heard people talk about, but I haven't

had a chance to talk about it yet. And that is that crazy Hershey story. 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 T-Day Show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Okay. I wasn't able to talk about this last week when it happened. So I just wanted to quickly touch on this ridiculous story of Hershey. Of Hershey's, sorry, you know, who makes the chocolate and stuff and they own a bunch of other candy brands as well. for a women's history month and the International Women's Day, which is March 8th, apparently, tomorrow.

So they came out with the little punny candy bar, her she, her she. Get it? Like not just her she, but her she, like the pronouns. And in 2022, they celebrated women for International Women's Day, like Billy Jean King, Catherine Johnson, Catherine Switzer, Gloria Stein. I'm not saying I like all these people. Alicia Garza, co-founder of BLM, but at least all of these people were women, right? Like, at least, as far as we know, all of these people are actually women.

But in 2023, they celebrated four actual women in their campaign for this. And then a guy who calls himself a woman. So several people or several women who have done different things, activist, left-wing activist, but women. And then in their commercial, they also showed this person named Faye Johnstone, previously known as Zach Johnstone. And he calls himself a 2S-LGBQIA plus advocate. 2S stands for 2-Spirit.

Whatever that is. And so this guy is an advocate. And not too long ago, like within the past couple years, he did. decided that he is going to be, that he's going to be a woman. So he grew his hair out and I got started taking hormones, but it's still very obviously a guy. And here is Hershey's ad, celebrating him as a woman that we should uphold, lift up as some kind of women's rights hero. My name is Fay Johnstone. I'm the executive director of wisdom to action. We can create a world where everyone is able to live in public space as their honest and authentic selves.

See the woman changing how we see the future at Hershey's Canada. So Matt Walsh posted a Twitter thread just showing this person's history. In 2015, he called himself a cis male, which cisgender is a nonsensical term that doesn't actually mean anything. But it is, it means like you are the gender that you actually are. So you're born a woman. You identify as a woman. That's what they call cisgender. And remember, these terms were created by perverse sexologists in the 60s and 70s that also

happened. And this is always a common thread who also happened to advocate for things like pedophilia. So you can just reject the legitimacy of all of these terms. But he talked about his own cis privilege, spells privilege incorrectly. In 2014, he was calling himself a gay boy and a queer boy in 2000. he decided that he was non-binary. And 2017, he also called for militant, organized queers to fight back against Trump. In 2021, he was arguing that turfs called trans-exclusionary radical feminists, or, you know, just people who don't believe that men can be women,

shouldn't be allowed to speak or share their opinions in public and should be shut down. In 2022, he argued that parents shouldn't have rights over their children. He said, fun, dedicated supports for trans and gender diverse students in schools, work with school boards to establish and implement best practices to ensure all students learn about accepting trans people. Parents do not have absolute rights over their children. Okay. Another gentle reminder for the children's rights sector, we need you to speak up for trans kids

now more than ever. Now it is, of course, true that parents can't do absolutely anything that they want, that children do and should. have legal protections, but he is talking about separating parents from their children because a parent doesn't believe that their little 12-year-old daughter, Sally, should be able to go on hormones and become Jack with the help of her school and the state, which happens in almost every single state, by the way. In 2023, this year, he argued that men who raped women and children, but claimed to be women, should be allowed in women's prisons. He went back and forth on Twitter.

We'll put up these screenshots on YouTube. He went back with a reporter named Peter Tatchell, who is a left-wing reporter. This reporter actually apologized for misgendering this person who identifies his transgender. He was jailed with women because he said that he was a woman and he was in jail for raping, for raping women. And Fay Johnstone, who has been elevated as a female heroin by Hershey's, is saying that he is hurt by this because, not because this person misgendered this prisoner,

but actually because this journalist does not believe this male rapist should be in prison with women just because he identifies as a woman. Faye Johnstone said that including trans women and LGBTI liberation means that men who identify as women, even if they're rapists should be able to go into women's prison. So this apparently is the guy, the guy who believes that male rapists should be in prison with women who just transitioned so called in the past couple of years after calling

himself a cisqueer boy for several years. This is the person that we should be elevating to our daughters and pointing to and saying, yes, this is a great example. I mean, this is someone who hates women. This is someone who knows nothing about femininity whatsoever, who has had no female experiences, who has no female thoughts, has no female cell in his body. So basically, we're just telling women, all you have to do is grow your hair out and call yourself a woman, and that is what it means to be a female.

That's what Hershey's is telling us. That's what we're supposed to teach our daughters? No. No, never. I'm never playing along with this lie. This is a grift. I actually explained this very succinctly to someone who came after me on Instagram and who was like, why does this bother you?

Why does this Hershey's campaign even affect your life? And I said, look, this person has been a man. His whole life has never had female experiences and now is grifting, identifying as the opposite sex. And you call yourself a feminist. Is that a win for women's rights? No, I don't call myself a feminist, but because I don't identify with any of the ways of feminism and everything that they fought for, including abortion, but of course, I believe that

women have the right to sex exclusive spaces, sex exclusive rights, sex exclusive protections, sex exclusive teams. And if you believe that, then you cannot go along with this lie that a man can become a woman. And this person, to her credit, who started off very fiery and kind of rude, all she said in response was, thank you for sending this. You know what? I appreciate that a lot. And I don't know if she agrees with me, but maybe she thought.

about it a little bit, and that's the most we can do. That's why these conversations matter. And yes, I believe that we should be really, really clear on them. Even if people tone police to you, even if other evangelicals and Christians say that you're being mean, the truth is, I think that this Fay Johnstone person is made in the image of God, that God created him to be male at conception, that God sent his son to die for him just as much as he sent his son to die for me, I want this person to come to repentance, to accept who they are, to love the body, the identity that God gave them, stop denying God's creation, stop denying

nature. And I want him to come to know Christ. Like, I don't want ill for this person. I don't want bad for him. I think this person is extremely valuable. Of course, has innate worth, innate value as an image bearer of God. And it is for that reason that I am so, that I am so adamant about this, not just for him, but also for society as a whole. Because yes, accepting this idea that men can become women and boys can become girls. It's actually damaging not just to the individual, but to society as a whole. It's always damaging to have to accept the lie. And then you talk about all of the different unfair things that go on in discriminating against women when it comes to favoring men who identify as women as we just talked about. So Hershey's is playing along with the

propaganda that is so harmful and if things continue to go, how they are going, I actually think that things are going very badly for gender ideology. I think it's really breaking down, especially when you start coming after children. They will be embarrassed one day. Hopefully, 10, 20 years, they'll look back and they will cringe at what they actually support it. All right. Now we're going to talk to my friend Bethany Mandel. Bethany is a contributing writer for Desirette News and Rickashay. She is a homeschooling mother of six children. She doesn't homeschool her youngest yet because he's brand new. But she is a homeschooling mom of six and she is the co-author of Stolen Youth, how radicals are erasing innocence and indoctrinating the generation. And you are

going to love, love this conversation. Bethany, thanks so much for joining us again. This time we're talking about your new book with Carol Stolen Youth. Tell us, just go ahead and tell us what this is about and why you guys wrote it. Yeah, absolutely. So thank you so much for having me. So it's basically about the woke assault on childhood. And we came at it from a lot of different angles. We wanted to sort of talk about the woke assault in education and classrooms. We broke it up into sections. And so there's the woke assault on institutions, which is the chapters that I wrote that I personally found to be the most terrifying on medical associations, medical schools. pediatric associations. There's been a lot of books written about sort of the woke virus and how it's

impacting, you know, law and business and all of those things are extremely important. But we wanted to tackle it from the early childhood perspective because really the first time that you see any conversation about woke indoctrination, it's in colleges and on college campuses. And we wanted to tackle from sort of the lower years. And we also have a lot of chapters in there about the media and, you know, Disney and Scholastic. And then sort of the end chapters really about how all of these sort of woke talking points and indoctrination, how that impacts resiliency and innocence.

And that's really what it comes down to is that all of this is sort of aiming. at stripping children of their resiliency and their innocence. Yeah, you know, we're kind of gaslit when it comes to this. When a parent has a problem with LGBTQ curriculum in first grade or their child going to Drag Queen Story Hour or just going into the library and seeing a book about trans kids, so-called, or whatever, we're told that, wow, you're making that sexual. That has nothing to do with sexuality. Why are you being weird about it?

And we're told, well, it's just about inclusion. what's wrong with this? And then I honestly think a lot of parents kind of are manipulated by that effectively. They're like, oh, well, maybe I am just being a bigot. Maybe I am being weird about it. Like, what do you say to that? What's the response of a parent who's like, well, I just don't, I don't know how to defend myself in those kind of situations. I don't know how to say why I don't want my kid learning about that kind of thing. And that's exactly sort of in their playbook. And so, you know, drag queen story hour is a perfect example. because they are creating a situation in which you're bigot if you don't want your child to go to drag queen's story hour, or if you don't think that drag queen's story hour is appropriate.

And they've done it by sort of using a gay man who dresses in drag in order to make them unassailable. You cannot possibly eject. But would you ever bring your child to stripper story hour? What makes it any different? It is not different. But the drag queen aspect of it makes it so that you're a bigot if you can possibly. complain or are not comfortable with it. And it's this sort of backdoor way that they're trying to emotionally make parents uncomfortable

enough with the sexualization of their children by sort of scaring them into saying, well, you're a bigot if you're not comfortable with it. There was a great tweet by Blair White, who's a transgender adult who said, no one had any issue with drag shows until they brought in kids. No one had any issues with medical transition until they brought in kids. It's the kids that are the problem. And I think that a lot of us in the conservative movement, with very few exceptions, saw this coming, that sort of the lessons that we learned from the gay marriage fight,

that they would then sort of, we would be then made to care. That's like Eric Erickson's famous line, you will be made to care. And this was something that I saw, and I was writing about it, the Federalist, I don't know, eight, nine years ago. And I said, I am not comfortable with the transgender. crusade because we will be made to care and how they're making us care is they're aiming all of this messaging towards our kids and they're doing it and we talk about it in stolen youth. They do it in the libraries in all the books, but it's also in the books that the librarians

hand to our children on TV. The examples are married and the end result is that they're trying to indoctrinate our children because that's the end goal here. You can't, you see it sort of in communist societies where they go for the kids. And that's what we're doing here. This is the revolution. Yeah. And you know, I think a lot of people, they still just dilute themselves into thinking, well, so what if your kids see some library book or is taught about this in school?

They're taught about, you know, straight couples in school or families like that. And I'm like, look, whether you think so or not, a lot of families think that and a lot of parents think that there is a moral question about sexuality and about the make up of families and about marriage and about whether or not you can change genders. You might not agree with the morality that a family has, but it is a moral question. It is very complicated for families. It's a matter of identity. It is a matter of sexuality and private parts and things like that.

Therefore, that should not be introduced to kids at school. That should be something that parents have the authority to first introduce to their kids. So yes, it does have something to do with taking away their innocence. I think some people don't see that connection, but it does. When you have a stranger and authority like a teacher telling a kid about switching their gender or even about a different makeup of a family, they are not then equipped to answer all of the moral and scientific questions that that kid then has. That's what worries me is taking away the authority of the parents, the opportunity from

the parents to be the first ones to talk to their kids about that kind of thing, and then allowing strangers in the school system to do it who not only aren't equipped to do it, They also don't love your child the way that you do. It's dangerous. Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, they think ultimately that our children belong to them and they belong to the collective. And so they have to educate this because, you know, it won't happen in our houses because we're all bigots.

Yeah. And so they try to take over. But a lot of my concern with all of these issues is also that we're training children that, and this is happening in school districts across the country, even in red areas, that they can talk about sexual and sexuality, sexual topics and sexuality with adults and that they should do this behind their parents' backs. And this is something that we've seen time and time again. And there's a name for this. And I know that it's become sort of an insult that has been lobbed around, I think, way too, way too easily. But it is literally the definition of grooming.

And in stolen youth, I write like, this is the definition of grooming. And talking to a child about sexuality is inherently dangerous. They're sort of developing minds to teach them that, yes, you can keep secrets from your parents about sexuality. All of these things are happening behind your parents' backs and we know better than your parents. That leads to tragedy. And, you know, outside of any ideological sort of indoctrination that parents have concerns over, which, I mean, obviously I find very valid because I wrote an entire book about it, but outside of that is the fact that we're teaching young people that they should have this exposure about sex way too early with strangers instead of of, you know, in the comfort of their homes where these conversations

should occur safely. Yep. I remember there was this psychology today article. And actually, I just looked it up and I can still, I can see some of it. So I mean, this is the psychological definition of what grooming is, gaining access to and then isolate. the minor from the people most influential and who have authority in their life, like a, like a parent, developing trust with the minor and then other adults in the minor's life, desensitizing the child to sexual content, which we're seeing in a lot of these books, genderqueer, we're told, oh, no, this is just an innocent story. You literally see graphic depictions of flatio with like transgender people, and we're told

that, oh, yeah, this is fine for a middle schooler. So desensitizing the child to sexual content and physical contact. Physical contact isn't always there in these kinds of education situations, but certainly the sexual content. Maintenance behaviors following the commission of abuse. And then very often they also manipulate them into thinking that if you don't like talking about this stuff, if this makes you uncomfortable, something is wrong with you. Like you said, keeping a secret from their parents. And so, I mean, they get mad when we call this grooming. This is, as you said, literally the textbook definition of grooming.

And it doesn't always lead to necessarily physical abuse by the person who is teaching in this. But I do think it actually makes kids more susceptible to sexual confusion and sexual abuse later on. Yes, no, that's absolutely right. And that last point is something that I hit on a lot in stolen youth. It's sort of kids are scared about speaking up about their discomfort. I mean, if you look at what's happening to all these young girls who are objecting to being exposed to male genitalia in locker rooms, whether they be in spas or locker rooms, they are being told on a national stage that they are bigots for not wanting to see someone's genitalia of an opposite sex. Right. The girls that I spoke with in the book, well, actually I spoke to her mother.

This was sort of one of the stories that really exemplifies like this is exactly why we wrote this book. She went to a school program on an overnight trip, and she stayed in cabins. It was sort of a summer camp situation, but with her school, and she stayed there over the weekend. And her mom had heard that there were sort of issues of males being in female bunks and vice versa. And she talked to the school and the school told her, well, you know, we're following California state law. And, you know, we only house people according to their gender identity. And the mom didn't understand. She's like, okay, fine.

Okay, that sounds good because they sort of said it in a reassuring voice. And so she sent her kid off and her daughter came back, traumatized and exhausted because she literally didn't sleep. And she said, Mommy, there was someone in my bunk, one of the counselors. I don't know if it was a man or a woman. They had facial hair. They went by the name Nick. They had a full sleeve of tattoos and rotting teeth.

And I was literally too scared to sleep. And the mom was like, honey, why didn't you say something? Why didn't you say something to your teachers or the principal who knew about the whole trip? There were so many other adults there. And she said, I was scared because a couple weeks ago, she was getting into a text message fight with one of her classmates. And the classmate said as an insult, as middle schoolers do, well, you're a lesbian. And she sort of lobbed back, well, you're gay. And that was, I mean, middle school taunts like it's 101.

And the text messages were brought to the principal. and the principal said, wow, you really crossed the line here, and you are no longer class president. And so she was stripped of being class president publicly because of this text message, exchange. And so she learned from that experience, I can never say anything about sex or gender or anything like ever again. It's been really your life. And so she took that lesson to the summer camp experience. And she just sat there terrified for two nights and didn't sleep. And the mom went to the school and said, what on earth were you thinking?

You reassured me that this wouldn't happen. I came to you with this specific concern. And you told me that it was fine in California state law. I don't know what you told me, but you told me I was being crazy. And they said, well, no, ma'am, we told you it was California state law that we would house people according to their gender identity. And that means that the school had to let Nick into her daughter's bunk. Wow. And that message that you have to quiet that little internal alarm wasn't just sent to that little girl.

It was also sent to the teachers and the principal. All of these people in positions of power who should have known better and should have spoken up and said, we don't think that Nick with rotting teeth and facial hair should be in charge of a bunk of seventh grade girls. And no one said a word because everyone was afraid. And that's exactly why we wrote Stolen Youth, because that is happening across the country. not just in California, but across the country. Silencing that little alarm, I think that's a really great way to put it and actually a very terrifying way to put it.

Because as moms and just as human beings, we do kind of have that instinct of something's not right. I don't feel safe. This isn't correct. And yet we are told that if we have that little alarm or we let it sound off at all, then you're a terrible person. And people actually care more about not seeming like a terrible person than they do, keeping themselves or their family safe.

Sometimes it's because they want to keep their job. Sometimes it's just because they want to keep their reputation. But man, I mean, I just can't even imagine. But the innocence aspect, I think about a lot now that I have, you know, I've got two toddlers and, you know, the toddler stage as a mom of six. They're so observant. And they're trying to figure out like what goes in what category. Like what is labeled this?

What is labeled this? When is this okay? When is this not okay? where do people go? Part of that is male and female, observing mommy, daddy, graeme, grandpa, like, oh, girls go in the girls' bathroom, boys go in the boys' bathroom. All of that, I think, is so important to their sense of self.

They're making sense of a world that is very new and very big and very chaotic and confusing to them. Like the other day, we were in the bathroom and there was a legitimate boy in the bathroom. And, you know, he was with his mommy. So it was fine. But for my daughter, it was still very confusing.

to her. I had to talk to her that, okay, you know, he's little, but she still was trying to make sense of why something seemed out of place to her. And I just, it would break my heart and it would steal her innocence and also, I think, make her feel very unstable. If I told her, there really is no category. There are no definitions. There's no context in which some things are appropriate and some things are not appropriate. There's really no male and female you can be whatever you want. I mean, that's got to be torture for little kids who are trying to make sense of a very big and very scary world, right? You are preaching to the choir, and I give that example almost exactly in the book. What really bothers me also, in addition to all those super valid things that you just talked about, is the sort of brain science behind it.

And so, you know, we have kids at the same age, and this was how we became friends, three years old. And my three-year-old now, she sort of says, Mommy is a girl, Daddy. is a boy, Bobby is a girl, lady is a boy, and she's like categorizing life in that way. And that's how their brains form. And so when you're taking away that skill, you're also taking away a really important developmental tool. There's so many ways, and one of the chapters is called children as guinea pigs. There's so many ways in which they're sort of by doing all of these things, they're treating our children as guinea pigs, sociologically, psychologically, psychologically, a lot of with the gender transition stuff with puberty blockers physically that we're not going to see

for an entire generation we have a couple of chapter about COVID and about masking and there was never any sort of thought process behind like what will this do to a developing child's emotional growth or language growth and we're not going to see that for many years and it used to be that when you intervene in a child's life you you have to there are best. benchmarks that you had to hit. You had to know that it caused no harm. And they don't know any of those things. And instead of sort of admitting, you know, that there might be some question marks, they instead just gaslit us throughout the entire pandemic. You know, masking is absolutely not detrimental in any way. That's what the American Academy of Pediatrics said. Yeah. Meanwhile, they used to have something on their website for parents of infants called the importance of FaceTime. And they would talk about encaseable. with children and making sure that you could see their faces. And that's how little infants learn language. It's how they learn emotion.

And now, I mean, in the daycares near me, I live outside of Washington, D.C., they're still masking those daycare workers. And that will have serious repercussions on those kids. And we're not going to know about it for, you know, 10, 15 years. Yeah. And, you know, we think we have a mental health crisis now, which we do, by the way, among young people. but I think about everything that we've done over the past few years and like we've been talking about gender ideology, the sexualization of children, social media, all of that. Like those chickens have not even come home to Ruth yet.

Like we still, we've got 10 to 20, even 30 years before we really see the long term repercussions. I think of generations who have been marred by this stuff. But you, in the end, you talk about, okay, what we actually do? What do we do? Okay, so we've got the problems and y'all really go through all of it. Y'all talk about the sexualization of children and all the different institutions that have been captured by this stuff that were supposed to be about childhood. In a sense, you talk about the masking, you talk about the woke medicine, which, by the way, is terrifying.

But then you talk about how to fight back. And for you, you homeschool. You're a mom of six. You homeschool your kids. Carol, I believe, she sends her kids to public school. And so she's kind of fighting from within. So tell us about, I know you can't maybe speak to exactly to her strategy, but tell us just knowing that the audience is in two different places, what that strategy could look like to fight back either by pulling your kids out or staying in. Yeah.

So this was something really powerful about Carol and I sort of teaming up because we've taken these two different tracks at the end. Like how do you deal with this problem? So Carol moved her family from Brooklyn to Florida because she wanted her children to have something resembling a normal childhood in the way. of COVID. And it was not an easy decision. And ultimately, she has three children, one of whom goes to private and the other two go to public. And she has a very open dialogue with her kids' teachers and schools. She sees their curriculum. She lives in a state where she has a lot more faith in her governor than she did here in New York, which is where I am right now, which I say here in New York. And that path is working for her family. But I think that she's open to the fact that, like,

you know, life changes and life throws you curveballs. And she was willing to, roll with it and pick up her family and move to Florida. In our family, we homeschool, we have six. We've always homeschooled and very grateful for it because during COVID, I would have effectively been homeschooling anyway. But we kind of, I have the Go-Galt model of, you know, my kids don't really watch a lot of modern media.

Their favorite movie is Richie Rich. Their favorite actor is Robin Williams, who died in, I think, 2014. Going to the whole canon of Robin Williams. because I don't have time to pre-screen, you know, all of the current movies and television shows, nor am I really interested in doing so. Yeah. And we do the same with books. The majority of the books that my kids read are older books.

Their favorite book series is called Freddy and Freddie Something. And it was written in the 1950s. It was old enough that my parents read it. Yeah. And so that's sort of what we do. And we homeschool and obviously like nothing curriculum. wise goes through my children without me knowing it very, very well. So, you know, there's a lot of different paths that folks can take. And we sort of break it down very specifically. So like in the

example of, you know, how do you know if a book is safe? I give, I give the advice of you should look at the one star reviews on Amazon. Someone sent me a DM the other day on Twitter and said, you know, we have common sense media, which is great and people should avail themselves of for books and, or not books, I'm sorry, for TV shows and movies, but we don't have that equivalent in books. And I said, just look at the one-star reviews. And if you look up gender queer, if you look up, one of the books that I mentioned in the book is called breakaways. It was a book that my daughter pulled off the shelves from our local library, and it was a graphic novel about girls soccer players written for, you know, eight, nine-year-olds, which is what my daughter is. And I thought,

oh, that sounds fine. And then another mother in the research for this, book alerted me to the fact that there was a lesbian sex scene at a sleepover in the book. Okay. For eight to nine-year-olds. Yeah. Thankfully, I'm irresponsible and I forgot to bring the library bag in from my trunk for like a week and a half. So, I mean, the lesson was I should be irresponsible more often.

But when I looked at the one-star reviews on that book, people talked about it. And I thought, gosh, this is what I need to do in the future. First of all, we don't go to the library and just randomly pick things off the shelves anymore. So sad that you can't do that. Yeah, yeah, it's really frustrating. And so that's sort of some of the advice that we give in the book, how you can on a day-to-day basis, you know, function in this world and raise kids who have a semblance of, you know, innocence and normalcy. But I mean, I'm not saying it's not easy. Like, I'm sure another book will come through our doors that I haven't effectively screened. It's, it feels sometimes like you're in a Titanic sinking and you have a, you have a teaspoon and you're just starting to bail out. But for us, we just, my, my perspective is we don't get on the You know, some people think about this whole kind of parental rights and anti-woke movement among parents as certainly the left wants to just see it as this white evangelical movement. Just a bunch of Christian fundamentalists who care about this stuff.

But that's not necessarily true for you and Carol, is it? No, no, I'm an Orthodox Jew. She's not an Orthodox Jew. And neither of us come at this from a religious perspective. very much the opposite. I mean, for me, one of the last chapters that I probably blathered too much about it, but I sort of told my own personal story. And I talked about the fact that, like, my parents died when I was very young, and I was able to sort of power through that because I had some really good therapists who tough loved me. And I think now would that, would that therapist have

tough loved me in the same way? If you look at the training for people in the mental health field, that's not the perspective that they come from and that's not the perspective that they then bring into patient care. And I think a lot about my childhood as well. I'm a tomboy who like learns how to put makeup on like I did this by myself because Fox News doesn't do your makeup anymore, which is like a really scary thing. And I like during and overnight, I over in an airport once I went to like one of those booths and I said, can you teach me how to like put on makeup and I'll buy like everything that you tell me to buy it. That's the only way you know how to do makeup.

And if I had grown up in this time now, I've been told that, you know, my hatred of dresses and makeup and nail posh, all these things, because I'm a boy. Right. And I felt so deeply uncomfortable in my pre-pubescent body, which, like, who doesn't when they're going to purity, I can't even imagine the things I would have been told and the things I would have believed coming from people in positions of authority in the media. in my school, in the books that I was reading, and my life would have ended up very different. I'm a mother of six who has nursed all her babies throughout.

Like, would I've been put on puberty blockers and been rendered infertile? Would I have been convinced to chop off my breasts, which I hated and are uncomfortable, but are, you know, a source of nourishment from children? Like, there's so many different scenarios. I mean, that's really what inspired me. It's not because I'm like a crazy Christian fundamentalist. it's because I am scared for the Bethany Mandels who are growing up now, who, you know, I feel like it was a luck of the draw that I grew up when I did.

And I want other girls to have the opportunities that I did to grow up normal. Yeah. I think all of us who were born before 2000 feel that way. I think that we are all thankful that we got to go through our tomboy stage and not want to wear dresses. And we got to go play outside in our neighborhood without technology. And so it's harder today. It's harder today for kids, but that means it's harder today for parents.

And that's why everyone needs to go out and buy this book because I think one of the best ways to keep your sanity and one of the best ways to be encouraged is to remember that you're not alone and that you're not crazy. And that's really what this book is about. You're not alone. You're not crazy. The things that you have an internal alarm about, you're actually right. You're actually right. That's God-given instincts. And also, you don't just have to sit there like a sitting duck.

There are things to do about it. So this book is sold wherever, right? You can get it on Amazon, all that good stuff. Yep. Barnes & Noble, I'm actually going to go visit my book in person for the first time. I'm super excited. Oh, that's so exciting. Okay, stolen youth, everyone, go out, get it.

Amazing book, so much insight, but a lot of empowerment too. Bethany, thank you so much for taking the time to come on. Thank you so much, Allie. 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. and 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.