The Daily Signal - Doctor Fired for Opposing ‘Gender-Affirming Care’ Condemns Transgender Takeover of Health Care

Episode Date: October 21, 2024

Dr. Eric Cubin, a Wyoming doctor removed from his state's Board of Medicine for opposing "gender-affirming care," joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to talk about an "unprecedented" medical scandal. How did medical groups that ostensibly pledge to "do no harm" end up supporting experimental transgender drugs and surgeries that leave kids stunted, scarred, and infertile? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Get the yes you've been waiting for at Capital One.ca.ca. slash yes. Terms and conditions apply. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, October 21st. I'm Tyler O'Neill. I sat down with Dr. Eric Cuban. He's a radiologist in Wyoming. And he got fired for supporting a bill restricting experimental transgender medical interventions, often you've mystically referred to as gender affirming care. And, you know, he got fired because he supported this bill publicly. in a letter to every single legislator in the Wyoming legislature. And he only did this because an organization of which he is a member, the Wyoming Medical Society, presented itself as not neutral on the bill.

They presented themselves as against the bill called Chloe's Law. And Chloe's Law is a very important law. It prevents these experimental transgender medical interventions on minors. specifically banning so-called puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries that remove healthy breasts or other sex organs. And so this very common sense law in a situation where we don't have good scientific data that these experimental interventions actually help people in the long run. What we do have, and what even people at the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, which is an activist group that pushes, quote unquote, gender-affirming care. Even they have admitted that there are very serious problems with the so-called care where side effects include liver cancer in teenagers, an increased risk of

suicidality, and, of course, sterilization. And so the idea that a child can give meaningful informed consent on these things is, you know, I would argue it's, clearly wrong and beyond the pale, but at least in the medical community, there should be a live debate on it. Instead, what we saw here, like we've seen in so many other cases, is the Wyoming Medical Society marching in lockstep in favor of this experimental care, acting really like we saw in the 1950s when lobotomies were considered a standard of care, or, you know, when sterilizing people because of their race was considered acceptable, in the 1920s. I mean, this is how horrible this is. And so Eric Cuban sat down with me,

and we talked about the magnitude of the medical scandal that's involved here, where you have medical agency after agency, you know, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Association of Clinical Endocrinology, and one after another, you just go down the list. They have signed up for this radical experimental, you know, and just abuse of children and abuse of minors who cannot give informed consent to these interventions. And so Eric Cuban has been fired from his position. You know, he was appointed by the Republican governor there in Wyoming. And the very same Republican governor begrudgingly signed Chloe's law. But then shortly after he signed the law, he removed Eric Cuban for.

from the State Board of Medicine because he said that Eric Cuban could not be, you know, trusted to be impartial because Eric Cuban had supported the bill. Never mind the fact that many other members of that Wyoming State Board, such as Renee Hinkle, for instance, have testified to the Wyoming legislature. And Renee Hinkle testified against giving life-saving care to infants born alive after botched abortions. And, you know, Governor Gordon did not remove her from the Board of Medicine. He actually reappointed her after that. So just parcel after parcel, Eric Cuban has a really important story.

And I want to get to him instead of going on and on. There's just so much here to unpack. And I think the most important thing he talks about is how bad this medical scandal is. He says the magnitude of the scandal is unprecedented. It's unbelievable. and I think he's dead on the money. So listen to my interview with Dr. Eric Cuban right after this. Your government is out of control.

It's doing things it has no business doing. It spends way too much money. It gets involved in way too many wars. It not only tells you what you can and can't say, it actively censors you. And the things your government should do, it can't or worse won't do it all. It can't keep your streets clean of crime and filth.

It can't keep your neighborhoods safe enough for kids to play outside. can't even prevent your country from being invaded by millions of illegal immigrants. Why is that? Because your leaders no longer represent you. They represent themselves and their friends. In my new show, The Signal Sitdown, we'll expose how the sausage really gets made in Washington, D.C., with guests who have experience on the inside. Fingers will be pointed, names will be named. You ready? This is Tyler O'Neill, managing editor at The Daily Signal. I'm honored. to be joined by Dr. Eric Cuban, who is a radiologist who was removed from the Wyoming Board of Medicine because he opposed experimental, transgender, gender-affirming care, and by Buck Doherty,

who is senior counsel at the Liberty Justice Center, who is representing Dr. Cuban in court. Gentlemen, it's a great pleasure to have you with me. Thank you for having us. Thank you, Tyler. Dr. Cuban, if you could just go through briefly your story, and I think it's really shocking the way that, you know, Wyoming has a Republican governor. I think a lot of Americans might be surprised to hear that this Republican governor who even signed Chloe's law into law, nevertheless decided that you should not be on the board of medicine because you wrote a letter support. the legislation he ultimately signed. That's exactly right. Unfortunately, it's not a very brief story,

but I'll be as brief as I can. I'm a physician in Casper, Wyoming. I've been here working for 15 years. In February of 2023, I was actually appointed to the State Board of Medicine by Governor Gordon. I served that term out. It was a one-year term,

and then I was reappointed in 2024, both times unanimously confirmed by the Senate. During the legislative session in February of 2020, I received an email from a friend who said, take a look at this link. And I opened the link, and it was the executive director of the Wyoming Medical Society testifying before a Senate committee in regards to Chloe's law, in opposition to Chloe's law. Now, Chloe's law was a bill to outlaw transgender care, sex change operations, hormone therapy, puberty blockers in children.

And please keep in mind, we're talking specifically about children. This has nothing to do with adults. It's just children in our state. When I saw the video of her testifying, I was dumbfounded. And in my opinion, she was certainly misguided and certainly misrepresenting the physicians that she represents in this state, me being one of them. So I reached out to her and I just said, listen, I'm concerned that what you're saying is not correct. I think that you are misrepresenting a lot of physicians. You are certainly misrepresenting me.

And then I begged her to pull the membership of the Wyoming Medical Society to see where they actually stand. She expanded the audience to the president of the Wyoming Medical Society, who then expanded the audience to the entire 32 member board, which was music to my ears because I wanted all of them to hear what I was saying because what they were doing was wrong. It was just simply wrong. And over the course of a couple of weeks and many, many emails, I just implored them, please. And I didn't ask them to come out in favor of the bill, but I asked them to change their position to neutral until such time that they've pulled their members to make sure that they're appropriately representing their membership. because they were telling the legislators in Wyoming that all of the doctors in the state were unified in opposition to Chloe's law, and that's why we need to kill Chloe's law. As a matter of fact, in the previous legislative session, Wyoming Medical Society had successfully killed this legislation using the same tactics, and I knew that. And I begged them over and over and over, please pull your members, and you're misrepresenting me, and finally it got to the point where I had no choice. I either take action or I allow this to happen again. Well, I wasn't willing to let it happen again. And so

I sent an email to Wyoming Medical Society explaining that they had been misrepresenting me, and my voice was not being heard. And even though I've gone through all the appropriate channels, and I pay them to represent me, they're misrepresenting me, and I can't stand for that. And so I have no choice but to act on my own. And so then I wrote an email to the legislators in the state house in Wyoming. And the first half of that email was an indictment of Wyoming Medical Society and exposed them for what they were doing. And the second half was an explanation of why the bill should pass.

Then I got on the phone and I talked to several members of the House committee that were critical in getting the bill passed. And ultimately, to some extent, I had some effect in it. The bill that had previously been killed passed the House 55 to 6th. It then went back to the Senate where it was passed overwhelmingly again. The governor subsequently signed it into law. And then two weeks later, I got a phone call from the governor's chief of staff saying, because of the email that you sent and the position that you took against Wyoming Medical Society, the governor has decided to remove you from the State Board of Medicine.

So I was dumbfounded. I received that phone call simultaneously with the phone call. I received an email from another member of the governor's staff with a binding signed document from the governor saying that he was removing me from the Board of Medicine. Again, I was shocked. I was dumbfounded. I've never been fired from anything in my life. I didn't know what to do.

And so I took a little bit of time and I talked to a friend of mine who I was on a trip with. And he suggested that, you know, maybe you would rather have history represent that you resigned rather than were removed. And so he suggested to me that maybe I should reach back out to the governor and the governor's chief of staff and ask if they would accept a letter of resignation. So four days later, I sent a letter of resignation to his staff. But this was four days after I had already been kicked off the board. Can you break down a little bit for me? There seems to be a gap between the fact that the governor signed this law and then the fact that he removed you for supporting this law. His rationale for removing you, would you go through that and then briefly respond to it?

Because I believe you don't exactly agree. Well, so I am not a mathematician, but I do know some basic things. when one plus one doesn't equal two, something is being added to the equation. So I don't know whether the governor actually was opposed to this bill but signed it because he knew that he couldn't, he couldn't, that any veto would be overridden. Or if there is someone of influence and in a powerful enough position who was upset about enough about what happened that they wanted the governor to extract a pound of flesh and it happened to be my pound of flesh that was extracted, I don't know. It absolutely makes no sense. At the end of the day, I was doing what was right. I was standing up for the children in the state.

Everyone knew that. So I don't know whether the governor just personally disagreed with the legislation or if somebody in one of these organizations that was involved had twisted his arm a little bit to say, this Cuban guy's got to go. I don't know the answer to that question. But what I do know is that it's a real problem when Americans are not free to have opinions and when Americans are not free to petition their legislators. I mean, those are fundamental rights of every American.

That's all that I did. I tried not to do it myself. I tried to have the Wyoming Medical Society help me out and at least represent my beliefs as well. They refused to do that, so I was left with no choice. But it's a fundamental right, and I was punished because of that. So Buck, we now have this lawsuit where Dr. Cuban is suing. He claims discrimination.

He claims, you know, a bridge. of his First Amendment rights, both free speech and then also, as he mentioned, you know, the right to petition your government for redress of grievances. You know, it's always part of the First Amendment, but you don't hear it as much. I think it's Taylor connected to this case. But could you break down why you think he has very strong claims here and what the next steps in the litigation look like? Sure, Tyler. As Dr. Cuban mentioned, he had been appointed to the Board of Medicine. And just to give a little background, the Board of Medicine oversees disciplinary procedures of physicians in Wyoming. And so when he wrote the email to the Wyoming House

of Representatives, he did so as a private citizen. He did it from his own email address. He was not required as part of his official duties on the board to communicate with the House. So he did it, as he mentioned, because he was frustrated with the Wyoming Medical Society's portrayal and uneven portrayal of Chloe's law. And so he sent an email and he's allowed to do that. The Supreme Court decades ago, going back to the 60s, said that just because a public official or a public employee, you know, has, you know, works for the government, they don't lose their fundamental constitutional rights. One of those being the right to free speech. And the law that has stood the test of time going back to the 60s is that a public employee or a public official, like Don

Dr. Cuban in this case, can speak out as a private citizen on a matter of public concern. Well, he certainly did that. He was a private citizen. He did not write the email to the House of Representatives in his official capacity as board members. He did so as a private citizen and a physician. And as he pointed out in his email, who was born in the same hospital that he works at in Casper, Wyoming. And he spoke out about a matter of public concern, Chloe's law. It was being, it was a bill that was being debated.

before the House. And so that's what, as Dr. Cuban said, that's what people do. That's what Americans do. We have ideas. We have laws. We have bills. And we debate those. And our elected representatives vote for those. And the other, as you mentioned, and as well as Dr. Cuban mentioned, the right to petition the government is a fundamental right. He's a Wyoming citizen. He can write an email to the legislature, as he did, and communicate whatever thoughts. or opinions or ideas or concerns that he has, and he did so as a private citizen. And a government employer, in this case, the governor of Wyoming, Mark Gordon, clearly retaliated against Dr. Cuban for his email, for his protected speech.

That was protected speech, that email. He retaliated against him. Going back to the Pickering versus Board of Education decision in the 60s, it's very clear Supreme Court has said government employees, government officials, do not lose their constitutional rights just because they accept government employment. So we think he has a strong case, and we look forward to presenting that argument at the upcoming preliminary injunction hearing. Yeah, he's filed a motion to be given his job back, and that's in a preliminary injunction,

which would be restoring his job for the case over the case of the lawsuit until it is finally adjudicated, which, of course, could take quite a long time. But that hearing is for next month, correct? That's correct. It's set for Friday, November the 8th, and that's right. We have asked for a preliminary injunction, and certainly losing your First Amendment rights is one of the areas that the Supreme Court has said, that's a reputable harm where, you know, entitling someone to a preliminary injunction. In this case, we've asked for him to be restored. And the court to order the governor to restore him to the Board of Medicine. So Dr. Cuban, I want to hear a little bit more.

You know, I'm familiar with the story of Chloe Cole. What really convinced you that Chloe's law was worth pushing back on the Wyoming Medical Society and saying that they were misrepresenting you? Why is this issue so important? And do you find Chloe Cole's story particularly convincing on that score? So, in all honesty, I knew nothing about Chloe's story before this all started. I knew that her name was on the piece of legislation, but I didn't know any details. I just fundamentally think that these things that we're doing to children are being done without adequate oversight from the medical community.

I think that the data that's being quoted is of the lowest imaginable quality. Some of it is fabricated. Some of it has been altered to achieve an outcome. I think that the data that they're pointing to is being used to advance a political agenda rather than actually take care of these children. I believe that these children suffer from mental illness and they need to be treated with love and kindness and psychotherapy, not with sex change operations, physical mutilation, and hormone blockers. So just fundamentally, I think we're doing the wrong thing for these children. And I think that as a society, we're doing it for the wrong reasons. I think there's a political agenda being pushed here, and the people who are pushing it are willing to sacrifice our children to advance their political agenda, which I find to be just absolutely appalling.

So I fundamentally believe that what I did was right, what I stood up for was right, that I was standing up for the children and doing the right thing. I can tell you that in no other field of medicine, would any of these interventions be accepted without far better data than what we have for transgender care? After I stood up, there was a whistleblower within an organization called W-Path. W-Path is the worldwide leader in gathering and collecting data for transgender care. And they were exposed, that what they were doing was being done to drive this political agenda rather than to take care of children, that their data was weak, that they knew they were harming children, that they knew that children can't adequately give informed consent. And those are all the things that I was saying.

And the truth is that there is data on both sides of this issue. It's a very controversial issue. We really don't necessarily know what's right and wrong because we don't have long-term data. But in any other field, you have to have long-term data, and you have to have proof that these interventions are effective, and it's actually help patients rather than hurt them. And I just don't think we have that in this case, and that's what I was saying. Well, in files from W-Path, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health,

which presents, it's really an activist group, but it presents itself as the medical authority on this issue. Those internal documents showed that doctors at W. Path knew that these transgender interventions were associated with a higher risk of liver cancer in teenagers, that, you know, they had somewhat sterilizing effects. And of course, the issue that you brought up, they put these children on a lifelong path, of continuous interventions to which the children cannot, you know, cannot give informed consent. If you're talking to a six-year-old, a seven-year-old, even a 14, 15, 16-year-old, and you say, look, if you get on this path, you're going to become sterilized, you won't be able to have children of your own, they have no earthly idea what that really means.

And they can't, you know, they can't give informed consent. So it's the basic nature of this issue. And to my mind, this is a medical scandal of epic proportions because we have an entire medical industry that is suddenly going hook, line, and sinker for this ideology that not only goes against common sense, goes against basic biology, goes against traditions of various faiths throughout the world,

you know, Christianity, but also, Judaism, Islam, you know, the basic traditions of the world all say that you can't change. You know, if you're a boy, you can't become a girl. If you're a girl, you can't become a boy. And yet, you know, we have a medical industry that's grabbing this, putting these kids on a lifelong intervention that, by the way, lines the pockets of these drug companies, these insurance companies that will, you know, continuously be having these kids. with these interventions. I just wanted to hear from you how big you think this medical scandal is

and what it's going to take for doctors to acknowledge the very real concerns that you've brought up and turn these bodies away from this ideology. I think the magnitude of the scandal is unprecedented. It's unbelievable. And what it's going to do, unfortunately, is serve to undermine people's faith in the medical establishment. COVID did not help, and this certainly does not help. And what happened was W. Path was very effective at getting their message delivered to the powers that be at many, many, many different medical professional organizations. For example, the American Association of Pediatricians, the American Association of Endocrinology. There's all of these big professional organizations that represent doctors.

W.Path was able to effectively lobby them. They then subsequently took the position that W-Path was promoting, even though they were wrong. And even though it was all based on this horrible data that had come from W-Path. But in that way, and somewhat under the cover of darkness, they insidiously were able to get their policies into each of these professional organizations. And then the members of the professional organizations started promoting the policies because this is what their professional organization says. And the wheel just keeps on turning. So it's unfathomable. It's horrific. I mean, it's disgusting and it's embarrassing to the entire medical establishment, in my opinion. The problem is, I don't know that it's being talked about enough. I don't know that enough people know about what happened here. And I don't know how to effectively get the word out. I think if and when people hear what happened with W-Path, they'll be horrified and they'll be outraged. But at this time, I don't think that that message is being adequately done. deliver to the people in our country.

And you went directly to the legislators here and now face pushback from the governor. What do you encourage other doctors to do amid this scandal of these epic proportions? How can doctors make an impact here? Well, I hope that what I've done would encourage doctors to stand up and speak out when they know that what's being pushed upon them is wrong. And that's part of the whole reason for this case is the reason doctors don't stand up and speak out is because in many cases their whole livelihood is on the line. Everything they've worked for for their whole life is on the line.

And if they stand up, they're worried that what happened to me could happen to them. And that can't be allowed. And that's what this case is all about. So I would hope that they would speak up. We need to speak up. The only way that these things are adequately addressed and corrected is for people to speak out and say, no, what you're telling me is not correct. And so I hope it encourages people to speak up and stand up and fight because, I mean, we cannot allow these political agendas to be pushed upon us anymore

to the detriment of our children or anyone else in our country. So Buck, what does this case look like going forward? You know, we have the November 8th hearing on the preliminary injunction. But these cases can sometimes take, you know, months, years to adjudicate. Do you think that we could be seeing here a potential precedent to, you know, really curb back cancel culture? I think of, you know, the Liberty Justice Center, which immediately, I think of the 2018 case of Janus v. AFSCME, where, you know, you had the free speech rights of those who refuse to join a union being violated by being forced to pay for effectively union dues, even though they chose not to. And that case set a very important free speech

precedent. Do you think that this case is at all similar? And do you think this will have the impact that Dr. Cuban hopes it might? Well, I can't predict that, but I agree with what Dr. Cuban said. This is a very important case from a free speech standpoint because I think so many doctors and physicians are silence and they're afraid to speak out. And what Dr. Cuban mentioned that this case is about, he hopes it empowers and encourages other physicians to speak out when something or when they don't believe that something is being conveyed properly. So more speech is always better than less speech.

And, you know, to answer your question, we're going to ask for the doctor, we've asked for Dr. Cuban to be restored to his position. We're going to ask for at that hearing that he be restored before the end of this year because currently his position has not been refilled by Governor Gord. So it's an open position. There's supposed to be eight members on the board of medicine and currently there are only seven. Beginning in January, the legislature will reconvene and whoever is appointed to the board has to be confirmed by the advice and consent of the Senate. So we think that could be problematic. We don't want someone to be reappointed when we're trying to get Dr. Cuban reinstated to his position, rightfully so.

And so we think that could cause a time crunch. So we're going to ask for that at the hearing before the end of the year. So I can't predict when the judge might issue a ruling, but that's why these preliminary injunction motions are brought. because when there's a situation like this where if Dr. Cuban had to wait a year and a half or two years to trial before he got restored to his position, it really at that point, the win is not really a win. So that's why you have these situations legally under the rules to provide for a situation like that. So we are going to request reinstatement as soon as possible. And if we win, then the other side could appeal to the Tenth Circuit. And if we don't win, we could appeal immediately to the the Tenth Circuit. So, yes, it could be precedent setting in that sense, but it's always hard to predict that. If I knew that, I would have figured that out a long time ago, how federal judges are going to respond. But we do think it's an important case, and we're very proud and honored at Liberty Justice Center to be able to represent Dr. Cuban. So, and Dr. Cuban, one of the things

that really shocks me about the way that gender affirming care is because, being foist upon us, often by so many in the medical community, is that it has ramifications for parental rights, for, you know, if child protective services considers it a form of abuse for a parent to refuse to put their kid on puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones or, God forbid, have them undergo surgeries, that that could be considered, you know, not doing for them what they need to do under child protective services, and therefore this could be a threat to parental rights. We just saw earlier this year, the Department of Health and Human Services put out a foster care rule that has a specific promotion for training along these lines for

parents in the foster care system who might be fostering kids who identify as transgender. And so you have this, what I would consider, perverse system where the federal government is endorsing a, you know, pseudo-religion, and then endorsing a form of medicine that is arguably the exact opposite of medicine. And then the ideological, you know, the natural conclusion, the logical conclusion of it is that every parent has to be forced to endorse this or they might be abusing their children. Do you think that this is that big of a threat to parental rights or am I, you know, I hope I'm wrong, but. Well, so my answer is as crazy as that sounds, I would have never expected to be where we are. So for me to say that that could never happen would be a short-sided thing to say because the things that are happening right now are equally crazy. And I wouldn't have believed it if you'd have told me 10 years ago that we would be here.

When you look at the people at the Department of Health and Human Services, you look at the deputy director of the Department of Health and Human Services, you look at the people who are forming policy on behalf of our country. Very clearly, they have an agenda. And very clearly, they're pushing that agenda. And that agenda is outside of the medical community. It is a government-driven agenda. And so it's not just the medical community. The government is absolutely complicit in this as well. I mean, the two are. are working hand at hand. And for better or for worse, I don't put anything past them. It is scary. It's horrifying. The idea of what you, I mean, the situation that you described is horrifying. It's also terrifying to think that one of the things that they're talking about doing is saying that a facility can't collect federal Medicare and Medicaid dollars if they don't provide transgender care for everybody. Well, there are, I mean, there are physicians who are not very excited about doing that. You know what I mean? So, so, so there are all towards. rights for physicians, you know, it's important.

There are all sorts of strong-arm tactics that are being talked about, any of which, you know, depending on the direction that this country goes, any of which could be forced down our throats. And I just hate to even envision a world where that's the case, but I don't, I can't rule anything out. Well, is there anything else you'd like to add about the case, about the governor? I mean, it seems a little bit weird to me that you want to rejoin the board from which the governor, you know, removed you on these weird pretences when, you know, somebody else on the board had been, had testified for a very controversial thing and then not getting kicked off. And yet you, you want to work for the governor again.

Like, I mean, I don't know if you, you know, you're overseeing the medical industry there. So, you know, maybe it's not exactly the same thing as working for the governor, but the governor would have to renominate you at the end of your term even if you're reinstated, correct? I'm not sure about the mechanics of that, and it would depend on my assumption. I would defer that to buck to some extent. I assume that that would have to do with what the court found. But the answer to your question is, this is a matter of principle. And so do I seek being, am I in desperate need of having my seat back on the board just for the purposes of being on the board? the answer to that is probably no.

But the principle is far greater than that. And standing up for the integrity of our government and the integrity of our rights and just doing what's right. And being somebody who is willing to stand up and say, what's happening here is unacceptable. We can't stand by and allow this anymore because our silence is what has allowed this country to get where it is today. And so good people need to stand up and fight back when something like this happens. happens to them. And if I don't take on the fight, how can I ever ask anyone else to do that? Well, thank you so much, Dr. Cuban. Thank you, Buck Doherty. Is there anything else either of you would like to add? No, just we really appreciate Tyler you covering this case. We look forward to

presenting Dr. Cuban's position on November 8th in Casper, Wyoming in the federal courthouse. Thank you very much for having us on today. Hey, my pleasure. And where can residents of Wyoming, but also Americans more broadly learn about the case and support Dr. Cuban in this effort. Sure. Our website, libertyjusticecenter.org, libertyjusticecenter.org. And you can go to the case page and see all of the media and all of the documents that have been filed in court. That was Dr. Eric Cuban and also Buck Doherty, who's the senior counsel at the law firm representing Cuban, the Liberty Justice Center. Again, this is Tyler O'Neill. If you liked what you heard here, if it made you think, if it, you know, if it enraged you,

if it involved you in any way, please leave a five-star rating and review. We read all of your feedback. And, you know, don't forget to come back here at 5 p.m. this afternoon for our top news edition. It's where we go through the top headlines of the day that you need to know on your evening commute to stay informed. So again, this is Tyler O'Neill with The Daily Signal. Thank you so much for listening. And remember to tune back in at 5 p.m. for our top news edition. The Daily Signal podcast is made possible because of listeners like you. Executive producers are Rob Louis and Katrina Trinko.

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