The Daily Signal - A Mom Fights for Justice, After Daughter Claims Gender Fluid Child Assaulted Her in Bathroom

Episode Date: October 11, 2019

 Does the transgender ideology pose dangers to school children? We’re joined today by Vernadette Broyles, a lawyer representing a girl who claims she was sexually assaulted as a five year old by a transgender child in a school bathroom. We’ve got the latest on that complaint and what’s happening. Plus, our colleagues will discuss the new Joker movie. We also cover these stories: The controversy over Turkey’s military move on the Syrian border continues. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy says there was “no blackmail” in a phone call he shared with President Donald Trump. Millions of Californians are now without power due to wildfires.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Friday, October 11th. I'm Rachel Dutas. And I'm Kate Trinco. Does the transgender ideology pose dangers to schoolchildren? We're joined today by Vernadette Broyles, a lawyer representing a girl who claims she was assaulted as a five-year-old by a transgender child in a school bathroom. We've got the latest on that complaint and what's happening. Plus, our colleagues will discuss the new Joker movie. And don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review.

or a five-star rating on iTunes and encourage others to subscribe. Now on to our top news. The controversy over Turkey's military move on the Syrian border continues. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted on Thursday, Israel strongly condemns the Turkish invasion of the Kurdish areas in Syria and warns against the ethnic cleansing of the Kurds by Turkey and its proxies. Israel is prepared to extend humanitarian assistance to the gallant Kurdish people. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham continued to ask President Trump to take a different approach,

tweeting, Mr. President, your decision regarding Syria is having grave consequences to our national security and that of our allies and partners. I implore you to join my effort to impose sanctions on Turkey, reestablish safe zones to protect our Kurdish allies, and prevent the reemergence of ISIS before it's too late. President Trump, meanwhile, made remarks on the Kurds earlier this week. Via C-SPAN, here's what he said. The Kurds are fighting for their land, just so you understand. They're fighting for their land. And as somebody wrote in a very, very powerful article today,

they didn't help us in the Second World War. They didn't help us with Normandy as an example. They mentioned names of different battles. They were there, but they're there to help us with their land. And that's a different thing. In addition to that, we have spent tremendous amounts of money on helping the Kurds in terms of ammunition, in terms of weapons, in terms of money, in terms of pay. Ukrainian President Voldemore Zelenskyy says there was, quote, no blackmail in a phone call he shared with President Donald Trump

that precipitated Democrats' impeachment inquiry. There was no blackmail, Zelensky said, pushing back on claims that Trump pressured him in exchange for U.S. military aid to help Ukraine battle Russian-backed separatists, according to the Associated Press. Zelensky added, quote, we are not servants. We are an independent country. On Thursday, Trump also tweeted that there was no bribing or blackmailing that occurred during his call with Zelensky, and added that impeachment talk should end. Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman were among four men arrested for allegedly funneling foreign money to candidates and other political operatives, making their initial court appearance Thursday.

Reportedly, Parnas and Fruman had ties to President Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and were connected to Giuliani's investigation into Joe Biden's son's connection with Ukraine. In a statement, U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Berman said of the four arrested, as alleged in the indictment, the defendants broke the law to gain political influence while avoiding disclosure of who was actually making the donations and where the money was coming. coming from. They sought political influence not only to advance their own financial interests, but to advance the political interests of at least one foreign official, a Ukrainian government official who sought the dismissal of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.

Millions of Californians are now without power as Pacific Gas and Electric, the largest utility company in California, turned off power for households and businesses in the Bay Area as a preemptive measure against potential wildfires. The total number of households without power now is suspected to be at around 700,000. Firefighters are having success containing and putting out fires once power has been cut out, according to the Wall Street Journal. The power was also out for large numbers of households on Wednesday. Turns out there's bipartisan furor at the NBA's decision to play nice with China after a team's general manager tweeted and then deleted a statement supporting the Hong Kong protesters. A letter addressed to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver was signed by both

Democrats and Republicans and stated, it is outrageous that the Chinese Communist Party is using its economic power to suppress the speech of Americans inside the United States. It is also outrageous that the NBA has caved to Chinese government demands for contrition. The signatories included Senators Ted Cruz and Ben Sasse, both Republicans, as well as as Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Next up, we'll feature Rachel's interview with a lawyer who is pursuing the case of a little girl who says she was assaulted in a school bathroom after the transgender policy was adopted. Tired of high taxes, fewer health care choices, and bigger government, become a part of the Heritage Foundation.

We're fighting the rising tide of homegrown socialism, while developing conservative solutions that make families more free and more prosperous. Find out more at heritage.org. We're joined today on the Daily Signal podcast by Vernadette Broils. She is an attorney for Paska Thomas and the President and General Counsel for the Child and Parental Rights Campaign. Renadette, thank you so much for being with us today. Oh, it's so good to be here.

And by the way, it's Pasha. Pasha. I know, exotic. Thank you. Yes, I don't pronounce her name before, so I'm glad, good to know. So you represent Pasha, can you tell us about her case and why you filed a lawsuit in the first place? So what we ended up filing is actually a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights of the United States Department of Education because we recognized that that was an avenue for her to get relief without having to go through the rigors and the terror and the horrors of federal court litigation system.

and that was it was a bit of a strategic decision on our part for various reasons. But we also understood that President Trump had changed the atmosphere in the Department of Education for these kinds of complaints and they were receptive. So we took that route, which is frankly less stressful on the family. And for those who aren't as familiar with Pasha's case, can you start from the beginning and give a little bird's eye view of what happened in her case, why you filed a lawsuit and her story, essentially. Yes.

So in 2017, a group of families had discovered that the city schools of Decatur had implemented, effectively implemented a policy that allowed students to access privacy facilities, bathrooms, locker, room showers, in accordance with their gender identity rather than their sex. And so it was allowing persons of the opposite sex into these facilities. It was all done in the dark. Unfortunately, by the time we caught hold of it, the statute of limitations for some things had passed. However, they began to advocate with school boards, with the school board to expose this and to encourage them to rescind this policy. In the midst of that, and after a couple of school board meetings that were highly publicized, during one of the school board meetings, there was a witness that's that warned this policy is going to be used by boys to access girls in private.

facilities for mischievous purposes. Literally one month later, a, we understand that a gender fluid boy was allowed access into a girl's bathroom in, in an elementary school, and sexually assaulted Pasha's daughter. So once we learned of this and interfaced with her and so forth, ultimately we then, ultimately we filed the complaint under Title IX with the United States Department of Office for Civil Rights. And that's where it's pending right now. So I was going to ask you what's next for the case. What could happen? What do you potentially forecast this thing? What may happen down the road? Well, we understand that the case has garnered a tremendous amount of interest within the Department of Education. And they are taking quite a bit of time to investigate this.

suspect that there's a lot of internal conflict over it. There are still actually some more witnesses potentially to be interviewed. So we don't know when the decision is going to come down. Of course, Ms. Thomas retains the right if she so chooses after a decision is made, and depending upon what happens, if she doesn't feel like she has been given appropriate relief, she would still retain the right to bring a federal court action for a violation of Title IX and violation of equal protection for the sexual assault and it's called it would be for sexual discrimination. So she still has a number of rocks in her arrows in her quiver.

And we're following this first step to see what happens here. What, if anything, can you share about how this little girl is doing, how her family is doing right now? How are they holding up? This has been very, very hard on them. Part of what we couldn't have shared is that the school had, called the Department of Family and Children's Services on this mother when this happened. They brought, they made a report that in truth was a smokescreen, in my view, concerning

her essentially poverty. This is a vulnerable mom. She's a single mother, African American, low socioeconomic, you know, financial scale. And I think they recognized that. and so they brought an economically based report that was extremely intimidating, extremely on her. So it has been very, very hard on them. So it's almost like, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but it almost seems like there's some social profiling going of the mother here in this case

to address this when that's not the... This school system wanted this case to go away. This case was exposing the very risk that we were warning them about. And they really wanted, I believe, this mother to go away and treated her in such a way. She was, they treated her horribly. So shamefully, did not want to meet with her. To this day, Superintendent David Dutie has never met with her. They did not want to.

And they were, of course, they were forced to meet with her. but the dismissive manner in which she and her daughter retreated was shameful. So, yes, I think there was some. That is tragic. So if parents face a similar situation as Pasha has and find out their school and has a transgender policy that allows children born the opposite sex to use the same-sex facilities, bathrooms, locker rooms, what have you, is there anything that parents can do? Yeah, there's a number of things that parents could do.

The most important thing that parents can do right now is to be very present. Look and see what clubs are meeting in your school. If there's a Grey Street Alliance, pay attention. A lot of times the activism is coming through there. You know, ask your children what's actually happening on the ground because there could be a policy quietly that's in place. If you have any suspicions that a policy has quietly been implemented through some sort of, you know, quiet channels, put forth at open records request.

Under every state in the nation, they have open record laws and sunshine laws, and we have templates to put forth the open records where to find out exactly what's going on. Parents have a right to notice. If there's a change in policies that involve, that affect your child, you have a right to notice. And if it was done in violation of your Open Meetings Act or some equal, equivalent state law, you might have a cause of action to undo that if you catch it in time. If they have, well, I'll leave it at that. You potentially, oh, and a second way is in the federal arena agency, of course, to file a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights.

Now, it is helpful to have an attorney, truthfully. We have filed on Pasha Thomas's behalf, but one does not have to have an attorney. And so you can get advice to an attorney and then file it yourself. Thirdly is using the federal court system. My law partner and I in the child and parental rights campaign have done a rigorous analysis of the case law. And we've come to the conclusion that under the 14th Amendment, fundamental parental rights, doctrine, due process fundamental parental rights, that there is a case to be made that what schools are doing is crossing the line. On the one hand, the case law says that schools have the right to determine curriculum, the use of facilities, and to regulate the environment of their school. However, there's a line of cases in different parts of the country that says when schools that begin to pry into private family matters, begin to interfere, directly interfere with the relationship, the decision-making of parents over their children, or begin to coerce children.

to affirm a belief system that's contrary to their family's beliefs, their parents' beliefs, in violation over their parents' objections, that it crosses the line now into interfering with the legitimate domain of the parents and the right of parents to be able to direct the upbringing and the care and upbringing of their child, an education of their child. After this analysis, we do believe that there is some opportunity for exploiting that, particularly with when you, now that we're seeing these materials coming out by Glesson and HRC and so that is tutoring teachers and counselors to find ways to circumvent or avoid informing parents about socially transitioning children. These are medical decisions. These are mental health decisions, which lie with the parents. I think that that would really bolster a claim.

And then if you have conscripted speech, pronoun usage, I think there's a case to be made that we're now indoctrinating children. We have captive audiences that are you being conscripted to affirm a false worldview, or certainly a worldview that is legitimately contrary to many parents, its beliefs and understanding of science, and that schools have overstepped their bounds, and we need to hold them accountable through actions. What about curriculum?

You mentioned parents' rights. Legal actions, excuse me. Yeah. When it comes to curriculum, do parents have any legal recourse? We were talking about that when it comes to schools and what the steps they should take should be. But how can parents address a curriculum if they see their kid bring something home, a book they're reading, what does that action look like?

Curriculum is a very tough area right now. Unfortunately, the case law, because of the Fields decision and the Brown versus hot, sexy, and safe decision out of the First Circuit and out of, well, out of the Ninth Circuit and out of the First Circuit, it has really set back parental rights in the area of curriculum. So right now, the case law is saying that schools have the authority to set curriculum. And just because curriculum has material that is objectionable to parents, the parents really don't, they don't have the right to come and and try to change the curricular decisions of the school. So it's in a very tough state.

However, what my law partner and I are beginning to question is there's got to be an outer limit to that. And whether we have hit that outer limit in the area of transgender ideology, you're going beyond simply exposing children to information by having them read a book, having to learn about something that you might not want them to, to coercing affirmation, particularly when you're actually having them engage in activities that reflect, I accept this is true. and if it can be shown to have a harmful effect on them physically, if it's facilitating social contagion, if it's facilitating children walking down a path that leads to sterilization, interference with their healthy body development, their fertility, and even the loss of healthy body parts,

if that case can be made, and the foundations of this ideology can be effective, attacked. I think we've left the ideology in place for too long. I think we need to actually attack its roots in some case, in some public forum and make a record of that. I find myself wondering if this might be the case where we can say, the right of schools to choose curriculum is not infinite. It has an out of boundary, and we've hit it. When it begins to harm children, it begins to deceive children, it begins to indoctrinate children, then that's where it needs to stop and we need to push it back. What alternatives would you suggest to parents who don't want their children to be

subjected to a public school education as this issue becomes more and more prevalent? What suggestions do you have for parents? You know, the easiest response is choose private school because in private school, you have, you know, you have, you have far more control, far, far, far, far, far more control over what happens. I don't know if parents realize, people, parents do you understand this, public schools are protected from most lawsuits, particularly state lawsuits under a doctrine called sovereign immunity, at least in Georgia, and I believe it's probably very, very similar in most states. Your child could be beaten to death by another kid at school. and it is almost impossible to sue the school for liability under the protections of sovereign immunity for schools,

okay, at least in Georgia, and I suspect that most states are pretty similar. You have to find a federal hook, okay, in order to be able to successfully sue schools, for the very most part. There's some exceptions like violations of Open Meetings Act and things like that, procedural issues. So you have, you lose a great deal of control. Private school, homeschool, but you know what? If you, if you, not everyone can afford this. Or as a matter of principle, you say, I've paid taxes. And so I have a right to send my children there.

Then my answer is this. Be very present. Okay, two full hands. Be very, very present. I believe and facilitate and help organize organizations that will, have a ameliorative effect on the school. A Bible's club, okay, a, you know, Empower Girls Club, a Fellowship of Christian Athletes Club, a club that, you know, other clubs that would be able to speak with opposing voices because students have free speech rights, be very, very present.

Because I really believe so much of this is done in the dark, because there's a, there's a recognition on the other side that if it's understood what they're doing, parents would fight back. So if you make it clear, I'm present, when we are present, we're watching, we're informed, we're prepared to act, I have this feeling that that would disempower the bullies and put them a little bit off, put them a bit more on their heels. So final question. You are involved in the child and parental rights campaign. You're the president and general counsel. Can you give us a sneak peek on how you started this campaign and what you guys are up to right now? Oh, wow. So I was a very happy family law practitioner for 13 years, 13 years after having been a prosecutor for a while on a commercial litigator. And I got broken for normal with the Pasha Thomas case and what happened to Decatur. and I just came to, I hit this wall, I could not have it that this was happening to our children. I have a 13 year old daughter and an 19 year old son, excuse me, 15 year old daughter was wrong on me.

And I just knew, I just knew I could not be in this world comfortably. I could not coexist with this madness, with this child abuse. It is child abuse. I was a garden at Lytton for 12 years. I represented the best interest of children in high conflict custody divorces. I went to bat for them in all kinds of cases and I just could not coexist with this evil.

And so long story short, early in the year I made a decision to begin to shudder my private practice and joined up in partnership with Mary McAllister and we've just hired a paralegal and we're just going live like now. with our website and it's the whole point is to begin to represent and defend parents, to be able to guard their children against the harms of gender identity ideology, whether it's in cases in the courtroom or its advocacy with legislation or before school boards

or just getting out information and speaking and activating people in the public square. We want to be there. Where can listeners follow your work if they want to get involved and read the research, the work that you're doing? Sure. So our website is just gone live and it's www. childparentwrites.org. Awesome.

Vernad, thank you so much for being with us today. You are so welcome. This is Jared Stepman. I've been joined by Jackson, Elliot and Aaron Cordueur, two interns at the Daily Signal who recently saw this new movie called The Joker. It's a kind of comic book movie that has had a, huge amount of impact. It's been one of the, I believe now the highest grossing movie of all time in the

month of October, which is pretty incredible. And both have come in to kind of talk about and give their thoughts about what I think is, I guess you could say, culturally a fairly impactful movie. Of course, Jackson actually wrote a piece for us in The Daily Signal, a very good kind of review, preview of this movie. And so thank you both for joining us on the Daily Signal. Glad to be here. It's a pleasure. Thank you very much. So I want to get both of your impressions. Jackson, what did you think of this movie?

Did you think it was a good movie? Did you like the message of the movie? Can you kind of lay it out for us? Yeah, well, for the movie itself, I got to say it's brilliantly acted. There's definitely a great amount of production value put into it and just expert cinematography. As for the message, well, it's kind of, it's something that's very much. very, very nihilistic. It's supposed to be where what I think they want it to be is a portrayal

of how someone becomes a sort of mass shooter or killer that we see so often in today's society. But so they're trying to portray how that happens, but what they end up doing in avertently is accidentally portraying it almost from the viewpoint of someone. Like, you know, the people in these manifestos or whatever, we'll always write things about how everyone always treats me badly. And the Joker takes him at their word and does a movie where there's a character, you know, the Joker, Arthur Fleck, and the movie where everyone always does treat him badly. But that's simply not realistic. Life's never entirely one color or another. And, you know, when you decide to take that at face value, what you get is an inaccurate portrayal of life.

And that's my problem with it. Interesting. Aaron, what was your impression of the movie? Did you also think it had a kind of nihilistic viewpoint as Jackson was explaining? I think, yes. I think it definitely is nihilistic. It's extremely, extremely dark. I can't stress that enough.

But I don't think it's the greatest movie in the world, but I do think it's an important movie right now. There are some issues philosophically with it, which I think, some people will see as inaccurate to reality. But on the other hand, there's a lot of big social issues it brings up that I think it's definitely, I think they maybe go a little bit overboard in it. I would appreciate a little bit of subtlety.

But at the same time, I think to a certain extent, they do hit the nail on the head on several societal issues that were faced. nowadays. There's a scene in the beginning where you kind of get a brief picture on the main character of the Joker's mental illness. And there's a moment where his, one of his friends, hands him a gun. And that's a moment, I think, where I watched it and felt I just cringed physically

because I feel like I've seen this so many times on the news with these, shootings that happen all the time. And so I think that is something they're trying to do. They're trying to portray something that expands what we think of as a comic book movie and it tries to show something that's true about society nowadays. And I think they largely succeeded in that. I think obviously life isn't as dark as it's presented in this movie. but I do think there's something to be said, something valuable in how they really try to break the boundaries of what a movie can say about our current time.

I think that's why the movie's based sometime in the 70s, because there's so much that is reminiscent of what we see in the news that they do want to set a certain distance from that with this fictional character. and also with the time period. Yeah, Jackson, I think, and you made this point in your piece. I thought it was interesting going on the kind of message in this movie. You kind of compared it to the Dark Night movie, of course, the Heath Ledger performance, the Batman movie from the early 2000s. And there was a very different message in that movie compared to this one. Of course, in that movie, you know, the Joker kind of stands for anarchy.

He, you know, doesn't have a face in the people of Gotham to do the right thing. And ultimately, he, to a certain extent, is proved wrong. Batman stands for justice and the people there actually do make the right decision. This movie was very different than that. Would you kind of explain those kind of contrasts that compare and contrast these movies? Absolutely. So the big thing that stood out to this movie is compared to the Christopher Nolan Batman series is it's something actually that I get a lot in what I like to do, which is I'm a minor in Russian literature, which is, is if you read Russian literature, one thing that runs through all of it is the human willingness

and urge to destruction, the feeling that I'm a victim, I've suffered a whole lot, and that gives me the right to destroy things. That gives me the right to burn down this corrupt and unjust world where everything about it is something I don't like. And what the Joker shows, I think, very much is a society where you have a lot of that. and you don't have a lot much else, where everyone from the politicians, the leaders, the men in suits are all going around saying everyone else are contemptible clowns. And of course, the contemptible clowns are very contemptible and go around burning things down and destroying things too. And you get sort, because of course they look up and say the entire system is corrupt. and you get kind of this whole bunch of people who are all just very, very upset, very filled with rage,

and who channel it into politics. The Joker says he's not political, but you see in the movie all these movements that are political that ignite from him that just harness anger to go into a cause and into a political, political rally or movement where it's less about the political movement and even more about the anger. And the Christopher Nolan Batman, it's more, I think it's almost more of a discussion of human nature. It's saying there's despair, there's suffering, there's evil in the world, and then portraying a contrasting worldview of like, what about good? What about which one is better? Which one is going to be triumphant in the human soul? Which one is going to be triumphant in the human soul?

which one is going to win in Gotham. There's the test at the very end of the movie where the Joker has two boats full of people who are given kind of this little prisoner's dilemma situation. And the test, of course, in the movie it resolves in the favor of good that people aren't going to necessarily blow each other up out of self-interest because there's something more valuable than that. but in this Joker, it's the sort of thing where I think if they had the same scene, it would basically be the Joker would blow up both boats because he was just so upset at how disgusting people were and how surely everyone in those boats deserved to be blown up anyway.

You'd get that mindset. Yeah, it does seem like this movie's about, you know, the descent of a, ultimately a terrible villain, but without the element of the hero. I mean, the hero is missing from the story. There is no hero in the Joker movie. You know, the Joker, of course, as you say, is the man, oh, he's had things rough. You know, he has dealing with mental illness and makes these terrible violent decisions. But the heroism is gone.

The leadership is gone. The man running for mayor, Thomas Wayne, is condescending. He's out of touch. And there's no Batman. The Batman doesn't exist. So, you know, the movie kind of devolves into anarchy and violence with no real resolution. It is very different. So that seemed to be a huge contrast in these movies.

And maybe to a certain extent, kind of the tenor of the times, you know, early 2000s compared to now. It is interesting when these movies come out, obviously both very, very popular. Aaron, one kind of last thing to kind of touch on here. There was a lot of discussion before this movie that, you know, this could encourage people to be violent, that this movie was maybe not really suitable. It was very dark. I think a lot of people don't want to go see this movie. Do you think that there's some reason to think that now this movie could create copycats?

Or do you think that it was a little overblown? Yeah, I really don't see the argument that this will inspire other people. I think that it's certainly dark. It's certainly disturbing. But I think the tendency to blame movies or blame video games for violent behavior in real life is just a cop-out. I think that this movie For all of its mistakes You know like we said

It is there's an it is certainly absent of the Element of Hope that exists in the Dark Night In the Dark Night They say the Night is darkest just before the dawn You know there's this element of hope Of heroism even if that hero is an anti-hero But that is absent here I think there's been a lot of critics that have

Tried to argue that The Joker movie is meant to have you sympathize, have you, you know, really kind of take the Joker's side on this. And I did not come away with that impression at all. You know he's a villain. You know he is very evil. But what it does give us is a sense of understanding. Even though we know he's evil, we do kind of have an understanding of the pain that's going on in there and the depth of his despair.

I'm not going to try to put myself in the head of a person like that, but I think there's a lot to credit in Joaquin Phoenix's performance that he's able to get that across. And in just the first few scenes, you really are able to see the pain he's dealing with. And so I think while certainly the Joker in this movie is not a hero, he's not an anti-hero, he is a pure villain. but any reasonable person will watch this and understand that there are people in the world that exist like this.

And that's something that's true. And I think ultimately that's valuable for a movie to show that. And I don't think that this is something that will inspire other people. Well, that's a good summation of the movie. Jackson, Aaron, thank you so much for joining us on The Daily Signal.

Thank you so much, Terry. Much appreciate it. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to The Daily Signal podcast brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation. Please be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or PIPA, and please leave us a review or a five-star rating on iTunes to give us any feedback. Robin Virginia, we'll see you Monday. The Daily Signal podcast is executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis.

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