The Daily Signal - INTERVIEW | New Book Follows Money Trail Behind 'Insane' Lie That 'Splits Families' and Causes 'Permanent Medical Damage,' Authors Say

Episode Date: March 9, 2023

A new book exposes the "lie" of transgender identity, the damage it does to children and families, and the money trail propping it up, the authors say. "The transgender movement is actually an industry," Jeff Myers, president of Summit Ministries and one of the book's co-authors, told The Daily Signal in an interview Wednesday. Pharmaceutical companies and activists use it "to elevate themselves into positions of political power and to earn obscene profits." The book, "Exposing the Gender Lie: How to Protect Children and Teens from the Transgender Industry's False Ideology," went live Wednesday and is available in a free ebook version on Summit's website. Myers co-wrote the book with Brandon Showalter, a reporter at The Christian Post. Myers and Showalter join "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss their new book and expose the transgender lie. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Tyler O'Neill, managing editor at The Daily Signal. This is a Daily Signal podcast for Thursday, March 9th. I'm joined by Dr. Jeff Myers, who is the president of Summit Ministries, and Brandon Showalter, who is a reporter at The Christian Post. I've been covering transgender issues for a long time. They are talking about their new heart-hitting book called Exposing the Gender Lie. Great to have both of you on the show. Thank you, Tyler.

Thank you, Tyler. So I think I want to zero in the first thing that I saw that got my attention about your book was this new polling from McLaughlin and Associates and Summit ministries showing that 71 percent of voters are angry and upset by the efforts to expose children to the transgender movement using tactics like drag queen shows, school curriculum, and social media. Can you talk to some of this anger and why voters are feeling this way? Well, I think that the anger is because it's the enforced absurdity of it. That's my opinion about this. When you see the sports issue, especially, it shows the disparity. It shows just how the gap, the unbridgedable gap that there is, that male puberty confers on a male body. And then you see women who had to fight for their own sports several decades ago with Title IX.

The sports issue really showcases just how illogical and insane all of this is. And it's not that women's sports don't matter, they certainly do. But that's just the very tip of a very big iceberg of what gender ideology is and what it causes. I think the worst of which, and we can probably discuss this more, are the medical issues and when we see children being put on blockers, hormones, and surgeries. but that's just in terms of the most grave harm being done because of this ideology. But I think the sports issue is extremely helpful to help people see this just because of how, I mean, Leah Thomas, Will Leah Thomas at the championships at NCAA championships in Georgia last year,

when people saw that man standing on the swimming block next to all those women, stealing their hard fought, their hard won awards, like placing on the podium when he doesn't belong there at all. that really that I mean I know of people who you know had been following this issue a little bit for years but when they saw that they said okay I'm done I'm going to contend against this

I'm going to be public about my opposition to this because they just saw how ridiculous it is so it doesn't surprise me to hear those polling results it's clear Tyler this anger that Brandon is talking about is a feature not a bug of the transgender project they intend to confuse people they especially intend to confuse children

and this is an entire industry that is shamelessly pursuing power and profits by victimizing children. And if you watch their public statements, they always say, you're attacking trans kids. This is the interesting thing about this e-book is we are not attacking children who are involved in some kind of identity confusion. Rather, we're pointing the finger at the industry and the ideology that intentionally target them for that confusion. and in a way end up preventing them from getting the help that they need. Well, and can we zoom out a little bit here on specifically the gender lie? How would you define that? And then, you know, the, how does it impact our society as a whole?

I would say that the gender lie is that it's somehow possible, that it's neo-gnosticism, that you can be born in the wrong body. This notion that human beings are sexually dimorphic mammals, can change sex? No, you can't. Now if you ask most people, do you think human beings can change sex? They'll still say no. But if you ask them, is it possible for a person to be transgender? They'll say, many will say yes. Transgenderism is fundamentally an attack on the sex of the body. And so they might say, I'm not changing my sex, I'm just changing my gender, but it's a sleight of hand. It's manipulation. If you're not changing your sex, why are you removing

sex organs? Why are you taking drugs, hormones, blockers that will impact your fertility? Yes, you are trying to change the sex of the body. And so this lie that you can be this some kind of person for whom your gametes are not, you know, relevant, that's the lie. No, human beings are only ever male and female and even those who have disorders of sexual development, Klein Feltor's Syndrome, Turner's Syndrome, these rare chromosomal configurations, all of those people are always, also only male and female. There are two sexes. That's it. There are 6,500 biological differences between males and females, Tyler. And every single cell, as Brandon is saying, in the body, with the exception of your, some aspects of your reproductive cells, is marked X,

X if you're a woman, mark X, Y, if you are a man. Now, why is this, why is this coming up now? Well, for decades, the postmodern ideologues in our universities have tried to tear down the very idea that we can even know truth. So if there's no such thing as truth versus falsehood, then what other, you know, what other things are people going to look at and say, well, we know that to be true for sure. And that would be male and female, right? So if you can tear down the idea that there is such a thing as male and female, or the, or the, or, you know, that you can tear down, that those are relevant categories, then you can completely destroy truth. And that's what I've seen. I saw that as a university professor for many, many years. I'm seeing that now making its

way into the popular culture. If you can get children to look at one another and say there's no difference between a boy and a girl, you can indoctrinate them to believe anything. And Brandon, you've written extensively reported and interviewed a lot of people on this issue. What are the concrete impacts? How does this? lie actually hit people at home? Well, one of the things that I say a lot is that transgenderism is many things, but one of the main things that it is is a medical scandal. And it's also a family fracturing scourge. But because of the way in which powerful entities within the medical system, within our government, within, you know, the professions, therapy centers, counseling

offices, this lie is sewn into the minds of young people, and if parents are not willing to go along with this new identity of a child identifying as the opposite sex, in some cases the state by way of social services agencies or other entities will remove the child from custody. So this splits families. This wedges itself between parents and children. And that's even before you start to get to the medical harm, puberty blockers, the line that trans activists like to say is that they are completely safe and reversible. They are not. That is a lie. Cross-sex hormones, the effects of those are also not reversible. If you go on testosterone as a female, which you can now get within 30 minutes from a telehealth call-up plan parenthood, your voice will deepen

and you won't get that back. If you're on it for a few years, your uterus will atrophy and you'll need a hysterectomy. None of these, this is, we're talking about permanent medical damage. And then you get to the surgery, which the collapse of biomedical ethics is just astonishing in this space because of the incursion of gender ideology into society. Since when did it become a medically ethical practice to remove a physically healthy organ? I'm of the view. Jeff is of the view, and I hear this for many people, the doctors should first do no harm. Well, you certainly don't remove physically healthy body parts in pursuit of a physiological impossibility. That's just not ethical, and that's going to impede the functioning of the body as a whole organism.

Well, even these so-called puberty blockers, which they claim are completely reversible, that they can just restart puberty naturally at any other time. And these drugs, what else do they use them for? And are they approved by the FDA for this purpose? They are not approved. Well, they're not approved for the purpose of being puberty blockers. LuPron is the primary drug that is used. It's used to treat men who have prostate cancer, and it's used very effectively on label

for that purpose, also women who have endometriosis. But for children, there is no FDA-approved use. This is experimental medication under the assumption that you can mutilate the body to heal the mind. Tyler, and that's the part of it that I would focus on for the actual impact on mental health on young people. There are 42,000 young people just last year who were diagnosed gender dysphoria. the natural course of treatment, according to the medical standards of care, is to move them toward

puberty blockers and then cross-sex hormones and then surgery. That's not a possible course of action. That is the choreographed course of action outlined by the medical community because of its takeover by transgender activists. But the mental health issue is being left unaddressed. Just this last week, I was with two different families, completely heartbroken, a child who's been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, suffering. really from childhood trauma that is being left unaddressed because the doctors are telling them, we can medicalize this and fix them. And they're ruining these kids' lives forever. So, Brandon, you've also talked about the fracturing of families. What have you seen specifically

along these lines in American society? Well, the best thing that I have seen is showcased. I was recently a part of a film called Dead Name, which people can go see. on deadname documentary.com. Vimeo scrubbed it in January due to their hate policy, but that's how this works. It fractures families because transgender activism is so authoritarian. It hijacks our language. We've got a whole chapter in exposing the gender lie on

how trans ideology twists language in order to distort reality. And when you try to distort reality within a family structure, it just fractures the entire unit. If a child can come to believe that unless their parents go along with their desire to transition, so to speak, that their parents are then just bigoted and hateful and that they should reject them because of the way in which transgender ideology has redefined the terms, it just ruins human relationships. And I think we can talk about the medical damage and we should, but I think what holds the key, and this is very evident in the

dead name film, and again, I would urge everyone to go see it, deadnamedocumentary.com, is that when you see the human cost of this, the most people. painful things that we experience in life are, I believe, because of relationships when they, when they fall apart and when there's rupture in the family. I've known this to cause divorces, this, you know, grandparents who are devastated by this, siblings pitted against each other, aunts and uncles, and the fracturing that happens because of this dogma is devastating and horrible. But people don't really know that, but because, except for the Christian Post and, you know, churches and a few other ministries. Some radical feminists tell the truth about this. You won't see

families' voices. You won't see moms and dads who are crushed by this highlighted in the legacy press. And I think that's probably some of the worst suffering that this has caused. And we are only now just beginning to see some of it manifest. Well, and Jeff, because you know, you lead a Christian ministry, what led you to decide to write this book and why is it so important to set the record straight on these issues. Well, when Brandon and I decided to write exposing the gender lie, we had a lot of discussions internally. Our ministry is focused on equipping and supporting young adults to embrace a biblical worldview, to embrace God's truth. And why would we get involved in an issue like transgender? And the answer became very clear to all of us. This idea of the

transgender industry is an attack on truth itself. As I mentioned earlier in the show, if you can get children to look at one another and say there's no difference between a boy and a girl, then you can indoctrinate them into anything. So it's really a stand for truth at this point. And the truth is the transgender movement is actually an industry. It is run by organizations intending to use it to elevate themselves into positions of political power and to earn obscene profits. The lobbying that they're doing at the congressional level, the tens of millions of dollars that are being put into congressional campaigns and to buy off elected officials is extraordinary.

And it's all in the service of tearing down the idea of capital T truth. Does your book get into some of those economic incentives there, this idea of buying off politicians? Like, frankly, I've been astounded to see the left fall in almost complete lockstep. There are a few of those who previously were in the Democratic Party like Tulsi Gabbard, who is now speaking out on this issue. But most of them are just completely buying it, hook, line, and sinker. Is there a money trail that explains that? There's a money trail.

We cover one aspect of it in the e-book, and then I'll share with you other facts that are not in this particular book, but that are relevant to the conversation. The money trail in the book is that the transgender medical industry, starting with the idea of how you treat children who have gender dysphoria who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, moves them toward medicalization. The standards of care, these are the standards that doctors use because doctors can't know everything. And they just look, here's step one, here's step two, here's step three. it naturally and inevitably moves toward medicalization. And by that I mean giving children puberty blockers, giving them cross-sex hormones. Just take the puberty blockers. If someone is being treated for prostate cancer, their bill for using the Lupron might be

$7 or $8,000 a year. For a child being used as a puberty blocker, it's $30,000 a year that that particular company is making. There have been market analyses done. now. Tyler is saying that next year, this will be a $2 billion industry. And the market analysts are saying, get in on the ground floor while you can because, you know, you can take advantage of these children's confusion, my word's not theirs, in order to make a tremendous amount of profit. But the pharmaceutical industry, as you know, lobbies Congress. They spend last year about $700 million. It's more than

almost $1.5 million per member of Congress. That's three times as much. as the next nearest industry. The particular company that makes Lupron spends millions of dollars. They contribute to political campaigns, mostly people on the left, but also Republicans. So you'll find the left strongly against this for financial reasons. You'll find Republicans soft on it, also for financial reasons. Now, I'm not saying that, you know, getting a check from a company always change as a member of Congress's vote.

But, man, when you watch these testimonies in these hearings, you can see. see that these individuals supporting this agenda are mouthpieces for an industry. And I have to emphasize, this is all victimizing children. The children are not the problem here. It is an industry hiding behind children in order to expand power and profit. Well, and from a Christian perspective, I mean, one of the articles I wrote at PJ Media years ago was three promises the Bible makes for transgender people. Because even back in 20, I saw that this was going to be a big issue. Would you speak briefly to, you know, almost the positive other side of this that, you know, Christianity, the Bible, the gospel, speaks to people who are suffering, who might be confused about their gender, who are dealing with underlying psychological issues. And this isn't just a, oh, Christians hate trans people or whatever. This is, we do have a compelling alternative for them. question. And in the exposing the gender lie book, the last section of the book is very detailed in

talking about how a biblical worldview actually solves this problem. A biblical worldview shows the theology and the biology coming together. As Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sachs said, science takes things apart to see how they work. Religion puts things together to see what they mean. If you start in Genesis 1, 2, and 3, you see a very uplifting account of human beings being made, in God's image as male and female, lifting up men, lifting up women, and showing how they work together in a creative tension, sort of like two pitches of a roof. Either side would collapse if it didn't lean on the other, but leaning together, they actually create strength. So we talk specifically about biblical aspects of male and female, how to help children be gender secure, and then the

frequently asked questions section of the book. We do talk specifically about how you help children who are almost all, almost all children dealing with gender dysphoria, have underlying childhood trauma. That could be caused by early sexual abuse. It could be caused by an experience of divorce or early use of pornography. All kinds of things can cause it.

When you deal with the underlying trauma, somewhere between 75 and 95% of children grow out of their gender dysphoric symptoms. But if children go through the medicalization, the studies are showing there's a 19 times higher chance that they will be suicidal later in life. Yeah, that's just horrifying. Have you seen reasons for hope?

I mean, I think of countries in Europe and I think in Florida where they're trying to put together, you know, standards of care that would emphasize more psychological treatment, more finding the underlying issues and a little bit less of this, you know, as Ian Pryor said, the school to scalpel pipeline. Where do you see signs of hope on pushing back? Well, I don't always recommend that we follow Europe's example. But in this case, countries like Finland and the UK pioneered transgender medical treatment. They have backed almost entirely away from that and are now recommending psychotherapy as the first line of treatment. So they've changed their standards of care. They realized they were taken in by people in the

transgender industry and now they're backing away from it. In the state of Florida, same thing. They've done a couple of things that I think can be very helpful. First of all, they set up a medical board that is not controlled by the transgender industry that is rewriting the standards of care and developing the medical basis for the proper treatment of children who have identity confusion. And the second thing they've done is expand the statute of limitations to 20 years for medical harm. You know, when doctors say there's absolutely no harm to giving puberty blockers, well, then they can say that because the statute of limitations in most places is only three years. Those problems will not manifest in three years. So expand it to 20 years.

If you think there's no harm, expand the statute of limitations and let people go back and have a medical claim of harm, even decades later, if it turns out that those false claims of the transgender industry were not true. I think many people who understand the issue who might agree with the perspective, you know, the biblical definition of male and female, the biological definition of male and female, might feel little, there's this growing tension, I think, among those who are speaking out, that perhaps some aspects of the response to transgenderism are going to. too far and that we need to have more of a moderate approach, not necessarily compromising, obviously, but making sure that it can appeal to those who are on both sides of the political spectrum because, you know, unfortunately, largely because the left has seized on transgenderism so much, it appears right now to be more of a conservative issue when it really should appeal to people on both sides. I think it is behind the scenes, Tyler, it is a bipartisan issue.

When we poll on this, we pulled, for example, we're releasing a new poll this week. 80% of people say they think that having men participate in women's sports is harmful. 75% say that they support, actually, well, somewhere between 70 and 75%, say they support legal liability for medical harms caused by transgender treatment. Those are Republicans, Democrats, and independents speaking. The members of Congress, unfortunately, are now being caught with their pants down because they have taken so much money from Planned Parenthood, from the human rights campaign, from the pharmaceutical industry, that they are beholden. And it's going to have to be a bipartisan effort on the part of Americans saying, hey, I'm, you know, I may, we may not agree on political issues, but we can at least agree that we ought to protect kids. And that's our laser focus in the book exposing the gender lie. We're primarily concerned with the way children and young adults are being manipulated by this industry and then what to do.

How broad is that? How broad would you talk about the harms? We obviously were talking about Lupron. We're talking about, you know, puberty blocking drugs. But would you even say that the ideology, you know, that some of these books that are encouraging transgender under ideology, that children need to be protected from those and how and in what way, you know, would you encourage Americans to protect their own children, but also to think about protecting kids in their local school districts and, you know, in the states at large?

It seems to me that sharing the truth is an antidote to lies. if the problem really is an industry and an ideology pushing this, then banning a book here or there is not going to be nearly as effective as, you know, just take our book. It's free and available. You just go to summit.org slash protect, get this copy of book exposing the gender lie, and you'll see the information that you can give to children. Listen, children experiencing gender confusion is not new.

Children experiencing identity confusion is not new. What is new is an industry that has been built around carefully taking advantage of that confusion to try to promote a particular viewpoint. And we're now to the place where some surveys say that 39% of young people identify as LGBTQ. They somehow believe transgender means that they're above gender. They're above having to make those decisions. And you can imagine why a young woman who is experiencing sexual abuse or bullying might want to be a boy just out of self-protection. The sexual revolution has led to this, and it's time for, I think, believers and non-believers to stand up and say, no, there's a difference. The difference is meaningful.

The difference is good. It is beautiful. You are not born in the wrong body. You're made in God's image. You have incredible value to him. let's just set aside all the stereotypes of what a culture says masculine people do or feminine people do. Set all of that stuff aside. That's not as important as the fact that you're made in God's image. Well, thank you so much. Dr. Jeff Myers, where can people follow you and read the book?

I think you already mentioned, but just another shout out. I snuck it in there. Summit.org slash protect. The book is called Exposing the Gender Lie. I'm my co-author, Brandon and Showalter from the Christian Post and then our team at Summit Ministries here are offering that available at no charge. Download a copy of the e-book and you can send the link to other people. We want to get the word out as quickly as possible because this is a battle that we can win on behalf of America's kids. Thank you so much. This has been Tyler O'Neill, managing editor at The Daily Signal, joined by Dr. Jeff Myers and

Brandon Showalter on their excellent new book, Exposing the Gender Life. That will do it for the Daily Signal podcast. Thank you for listening. If you've gotten a chance, be sure to check out our evening show right here in this podcast feed where we bring you the top news of the day. Also, make sure you subscribe to the Daily Signal wherever you get your podcasts and help us reach more listeners by leaving a five-star rating and review. We read all of your feedback. Thanks again for listening. Have a great day.

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