The Daily Signal - Missouri Attorney General Breaks Down State's Battle Against 'Child Mutilation'

Episode Date: August 29, 2023

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey spent the last week battling for the state's law protecting children from irreversible transgender interventions, both surgical and hormonal. "We're winning this fight and it's important to keep fighting and pushing forward not to give up one inch of space in order to protect kids," he stressed. The attorney general joined The Daily Signal podcast to break down why LGBTQ groups are fighting SB 49, the "Missouri Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act," which went into effect Monday. "Under this act, no health care provider shall perform gender transition surgeries on any minor," the legislation's summary states. "Until August 28, 2027, no health care provider shall prescribe or administer cross-sex hormones or puberty-blocking drugs to a minor for a gender transition, unless such minor was receiving such treatment prior to August 28, 2023." "A violation of these provisions shall be considered unprofessional conduct and shall result in the revocation of the health care provider's professional license," the summary continues. "Additionally, the prescription or administration of cross-sex hormones or puberty-blocking drugs to a minor for a gender transition shall be grounds for a cause of action against the health care provider, as described in the act." Republican Missouri Gov. Mike Parson signed the bill into law on June 7, warning at the time: "These decisions have permanent consequences for life and should not be made by impressionable children who may be in crisis or influenced by the political persuasions of others." But LGBTQ groups challenged the law — organizations that Bailey described to The Daily Signal as "radical left-wing activists that are more interested in social ideology and the protection of children." "That's why it was so important to actually go to court, get an open court, and test their evidence," he explained. "They're the plaintiff. They have a burden of proof if they want to stop this law from going into effect." On Friday, a Missouri trial court declined to block SB 49, citing “conflicting and unclear” medical evidence on the effectiveness of so-called puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. “The science and medical evidence is conflicting and unclear,” Judge Stephen R. Ohmer ruled Friday. “Accordingly, the evidence raises more questions than answers.” 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 the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, August 29th. I'm Mary Margaret Ollahan, and today I'm speaking with Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who spent last week in court defending Missouri's law banning the mutilation of children. Attorney General Bailey, welcome to the Daily Signal. Thank you so much for having me on. So before we dive in, can you break down for us? What does Missouri's law on transgender procedures for children entail? Yeah, it's Senate Bill 49.

goes into effect this Monday, August 28th today. This is a huge win in the fight for protection of children of the state of Missouri and a blueprint for other states to follow, but the bill includes several provisions. First of all, it prevents administration of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to children under 18. It also prevents referrals of children under 18 for irreversible dangerous surgeries

that result in sterilization. And it prevents state tax dollars for being used for these kinds of procedures, as well as prohibiting these procedures from occurring to the offender population to the Missouri Department of Corrections. So again, huge win, a sound policy, and a blueprint for other states to follow. And you said this went into effect today, correct? That's correct. Yeah. The law was passed by the General Assembly, signed into law by the governor, and then was subject to legal

challenge by Lambda Legal and the ACLU. And just last week, the plaintiffs asked for a preliminary injunction. We were in court defending the law. The judge denied the preliminary injunction and has allowed this law to take effect because of the hard work that we did in court. And just, just the plaintiff's Just for our listeners who might not be aware, these groups that challenged the law were a bunch of LGBTQ groups, right? And they had, I believe there were three different plaintiffs who were parents of allegedly transgender children. Am I, is that correct? Yeah, I mean, it's radical left-wing activists that are more interested in the social ideology in the protection of children. And that's why it was so important to actually go to court, get an open court and test their evidence.

They're the plaintiff. They have a burden of proof. If they want to stop this law from going into effect. way, when you've got two branches of government, the General Assembly and the governor saying this is constitutional passing the bill and signing into law, that should be given deference. And luckily, this court did. But, you know, at the end of the day, this is about protecting kids from sterilization. And I'm proud to live in a state where we're able to accomplish that objective. Yeah, it's very, very interesting. I saw your tweet thread breaking down kind of what

this week was like. Can you tell us a little more about some of the tactics that your opponents used to say that this law was, you know, violating the rights of parents? Yeah, absolutely. Well, the plaintiffs raised challenges under the Missouri Equal Protection Clause and the Missouri Constitution. And what they ignored was the fact that that equal protection clause at the state level is coextensive with and analyzed in the same way as the federal equal protection clause. And 100 years of Equal Protection Clause jurisprudence is built around the premise that government can't discriminate based on immutable characteristics. And yet the plaintiffs think that gender is mutable. So their entire legal argument falls on its face. But it's important for us, again, we didn't want to just submit affidavits or ask for judgment on the pleadings. We want to go to court, put on evidence, make that plaintiff put on their evidence and then test the veracity to that evidence through cross-examination. And so the quote-unquote experts for the plaintiffs who opine that it is a state has no compelling interest in preventing this quote-unquote gender affirming care, which number one, I reject that this is health care at all. This is a left-wing social ideology masquerading his medicine.

And we began to chip away at that and expose that in court through our cross-examination by getting the experts on the other side to admit in open court under oath, that their opinions were based on weak science and that they were ignoring the medical opinions coming out of Europe, nations which had curtailed these procedures because they recognize how dangerous and irreversible and negative the harmful consequences were on a generation of children. And some of these experts, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that they have like vested interest in this, you know, so-called gender affirming care. We reject that phrasing. But in this kind of ideology continuing and flourishing. Yeah, that's right. They have an ideological and, financial stake and interest in this litigation and having it turn out their way. And that's why,

you know, we were able to fight back and demonstrate that through our questioning in court. And why, again, a hearing on this matter was so important to be had. And ultimately, we were able to succeed on that issue. Did you learn anything in particular? I'm curious, because I think we're going to be seeing this a lot more. Did you learn anything in particular about the tactics that these type of groups are using in these types of situations? Yeah. You know, at the end of the day, before we embarked on this litigation, we were able to coordinate state attorneys general from across the nation and learn what has worked in other places and things that other states wish they had done differently. And that has helped us drop a winning play here that we're going to pass on to the next state.

I think there are other states that were holding off on legislation to see what would be upheld in court. And so, and other state attorneys general who are, you know, just now formulating a litigation strategy to defend the bills that have been or will be passed. And so, again, we're proud to partner with other states. are going to hand off a winning play to other states. And I'll point out, too, not only is the national mood changing on this issue, in large part, because of the efforts we're doing to take the fight to the enemy and expose this for what it is. Shine the light of truth on these issues. Call them what they are, which is nothing short of child sterilization, gender mutilation. It's not gender affirming care. But also the legal landscape is shifting. Just last Monday, the 11th Circuit Court of

Appeals also handed down an opinion saying that the state of Alabama had a compelling state interest in passing a similar statute. So we're winning this fight, and it's important to keep fighting and pushing forward not to give up one inch of space in order to protect kids. And I think you said that your state could kind of be presenting this blueprint for other states to follow. Do you think there's been states that have been a little too cowardly to just actually get over the hump and put this kind of legislation out there that might be encouraged by what Missouri is doing? Yeah, I would hope that other states would be encouraged by their work we're doing and see the positive benefits of this and would do the same thing. I mean, I don't know why

protecting kids should be a controversial issue. Again, what we pointed out in court and why the court process was so important is that there is no science or medicine to back this up. There's zero FDA approvals for puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to treat gender dysphoria. There are zero clinical assessments showing these kind of interventions are safe or effective. And certainly we see European nations that are far to the left of America culturally that have curtailed this in the interest of protecting children years of. ago. And I don't think history is going to look kindly on this. I mean, look at the 1940s and 50s where quote unquote leading scientific experts at the time thought that lobotomies were a safe and effective

way of treating mental health conditions and we're cutting out people's brains that presented mental health problems. And we look back in horror on that now as a morally abhorrent. And I think the same thing is going to be true about this transgender issue. And just really quick, I'd like to also talk about the experts that you guys brought forth. I believe Chloe Cole was one of them. That's true. Yeah. Chloe Cole. Also, uh, uh, Jamie Reed, the Will. The whistleblower from the clinic here in St. Louis? I mean, that's significant. You've got, number one, you've got victims of this system. And, you know, we applaud their, their courage. And it takes, you know, are so thankful that they're willing to step forward in the name of protecting

future generations and explain the turmoil that they've had in their lives, having been victims of this system and how, you know, at the end of the day, they're serving life sentences. Jamie Reed, the whistleblower who came forward from the clinic here in St. Louis that was a, is a self-described progressive who volunteered to work at a pediatric transgender clinic because she believed in transgender rights and what she saw crossed the line and was too much and was morally abhorrent. She made accusations of child abuse. She swore out an affidavit back in February. That launched our investigation in this matter and really prompted the General Assembly to act and ultimately enact the bill that we're now defending in court. But, you know, she was willing to come forward

and testify at this trial and undergo cross-examination, which lends credibility to everything she said, which is exactly what I've been saying all along, but also medical experts who say, hey, why are we treating this mental health condition differently than others? In no other context would we race to hormone treatments for people with mental health conditions. So why are we doing it in this instance, especially when there's no signs or data to back that up? Right. Now, in this case of Jamie Reed, the whistleblower, who if our listeners aren't familiar, this is a whistleblower from a gender clinic in Missouri who blew the whistle on all this insanity

that was going on in this gender clinic. I'm talking about children who are being rushed down the path to gender transition surgeries and hormones. what's the status on the Missouri Attorney General's office's investigation into all of that? Well, once she came forward, once Jamie Reed came forward with her allegations and was willing to swear under oath to their truth and veracity, you know, again, we took those very seriously. There's a lot of credibility there when you have someone who's probably ideologically opposed to most of the work that we do, but even she was willing to call this child abuse. We had to take that seriously. We launched the first of its kind in the nation, multi-agency investigation. We're going to leave no stone unturn.

That investigation is ongoing. But I'll point out, within the last week, the New York Post and New York Times have both independently corroborated some of the allegations that Jamie Reed is making. And if you look those articles up, I mean, they clearly demonstrate that what she was saying was true. And again, I think that points to the fact that when you go to open court and you shine the light of truth on this and you expose it for what it is, even the lame stream media can't hide from it. Right. No, and the New York Times must cover it if it becomes that big of a deal. And so I think that that probably was a huge win for you guys to have that covered in the New York Times. of all places and that acknowledgement that this is happening.

Did that feel good to see the New York Times actually covering this? Well, you know, the whole purpose of so much of what we've done, again, is to expose the light of truth on this. You know, at the end of the day, it is. It's a sad state of affairs that the, you know, the nadir of depravity of the left, that they would harm children in order to advance some social ideology. And so that's what we're up against. But, yeah, I mean, it is, we've been saying all along that we have to give credibility

to what Jamie Reed is saying, that anyone that's willing to come forward, who is motivated on the other side of this issue, but even she's willing to call this what it is, those allegations have to be taken seriously and are now corroborated in the public domain. And last thing, just for our viewers who might, or our listeners that might not know who Chloe Cole is,

she's a detransitioner who's become so courageous and speaking out about her story. Do you think that her sharing her witness and I believe there's another detransitioner sharing her witness also last week during these court proceedings, had any effect on, the courtroom or the people that you were interacting with.

You think that there'll be any outcome on a personal level from all of this? Yeah, I mean, it's moving testimony. Again, these are victims of a system. They were children when they were pushed down this assembly line towards sterilization and have survived that, but are serving life sentences with the trauma that inflicted upon them and are standing up, you know, extreme cost to themselves in order to stand for what's morally right here and expose the negative side of this and expose it for what it is. It's not health care. It's child sterilization. And so,

you know, their courage, their bravery, their willingness to put their name on the line and come forward to protect future children is really inspiring. And I think it is moving. And I think the court was moved by it. I know that the audience, an open court was moved by. And again, it's hard for the media to hide from. And keep calling it gender affirming care when they have to look the victims in the face and acknowledge what happened to them. It's very powerful. Well, thank you so much for everything you're doing. And thank you for joining us today. We so appreciate hearing about what's going on in Missouri, and we're definitely keeping tabs on what happens next. Hey, thank you so much for having me on. Look forward to

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