The Daily Signal - What It's Like to Lose Your Children to the 'Transgender Cult,' From a Mom Who Knows

Episode Date: October 30, 2019

Lynn Meagher has two adult children who identify as transgender. "A lot of these kids have concurrent mental health issues, and they find a place to fit in because as soon as you say that you're trans, you get love-bombed," she reflects. "You get love-bombed online, you get love-bombed on at school ... As soon as you say you're trans, you turn into a star. And kids are thirsty for that kind of affirmation." Meagher joins us to discuss what parents should (and shouldn't) do, what resources exist, and what she thinks is going on. We also cover the following stories: A new witness testifies about President Trump's call with the Ukrainian president. Trump says another key ISIS leader has been "terminated." Teens are spending an insane amount of time staring at screens. The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet,iTunes, Pippa, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. 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 Wednesday, October 30th. I'm Rachel Daljudice. And I'm Kate Trinko. What would you say if your adult child told you he was transgender? Lynn Meager has had that conversation twice. She joins the podcast to share her story and her advice on resources for other parents in the same situation. And don't forget, if you are 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.

On Tuesday, a new witness testified during a closed-door hearing related to the impeachment proceedings. Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman. Vindman first came to the United States as a toddler, his parents, refugees from the Soviet Union. Vindman currently serves on the National Security Council and covers Ukraine in that role. In his opening statement before Congress, which was released, Vindman says he was listening in to President Trump's call on July 25th to Ukraine's president, Floyd Amir Selensky. He writes,

I was concerned by the call. I did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen, and I was worried about the implications for the U.S. government's support of Ukraine. I realized that if Ukraine pursued an investigation into the Bidens and Burisma, it would likely be interpreted as a partisan play, which would undoubtedly result in Ukraine losing the bipartisan support it is thus far maintained. This would all undermine U.S. national security. Following the call, I again reported my concerns to the National Security Council's lead counsel.

President Trump tweeted Tuesday, supposedly, according to the corrupt media, the Ukraine call concerned today's never-trumper witness. Was he on the same call that I was? Can't be possible. Please ask him to read the transcript of the call, witch hunt. And how many more never-trumper's will be allowed to testify about a perfectly appropriate phone call when all anyone has to do is read the transcript? I knew people were listening in on the call. Why would I say something inappropriate, which was fine with me, but why so many? Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and the number three in GOP House leadership, defended Vindman on Tuesday.

Here's what she had to say via the Hill. I also want to say a word about something else that's been going on over the course the last several hours and last night, which I think is also shameful. And that is questioning the patriotism, questioning the dedication to country of people like Mr. Vindman, Lieutenant Colonel Vindman who will be coming today, and others who have. testified. I think that we need to show that we are better than that as a nation. It is shameful to question their patriotism, their love of this nation, and we should not be involved in that process. Republican Congressman Doug Collins of Georgia says Democrats push to impeach President Donald Trump is a sham after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday that the House would be voting Thursday on an impeachment resolution that lays out parameters for the process. Here's what Collins told

the Fox News Tuesday morning. I mean, here we are again in Washington, D.C., when we should be doing the people's business. And now we've had another change of heart by Speaker Pelosi, who's now decided that everything that they've been doing for the last three weeks was wrong. We've been telling them that's wrong. We gave them plenty of notice that they was wrong and not fair to the American people or fair to the president. So now she's decided that the Republicans are really wrong, but we're going to vote to do something.

We haven't seen the text yet. In fact, they had to write it all night last night. That shows you how desperate they are. So we'll see what happens on Thursday. See, this is a sham. It's not going, it's something to simply cover their problems that they've had with this investigation all along, putting Adam Schiff in a closed room, leaking out stuff that he wants to leak out, and making it appear to be something it's not.

We'll see the Republicans vote against this because, again, you can't fix. Another win for the U.S. fight against ISIS, President Trump tweeted Tuesday, just confirmed that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's number one replacement has been terminated by American troops. most likely would have taken the top spot. Now, he is also dead. Teens are spending double the time watching videos in online entertainment now than they were in 2015, according to a report from Common Sense Media. The report found that the time teens spend on their screens went up by 42 minutes a day since 2015,

and almost 62% of teens spend over four hours each day watching media on their screens. Additionally, since 2015, 29% of teens use their screens for over eight hours each day. Next up, we'll feature my interview with a mom who's twice had children tell her that they are transgender. Do conversations about the Supreme Court leave you scratching your head? If you want to understand what's happening at the court, subscribe to SCOTUS 101, a Heritage Foundation podcast, breaking down the cases, personalities, and gossip at the Supreme Court. So we're at the Values Voters Summit with Lynn Meager. Lynn, thanks for joining us.

Oh, thank you so much for having me. Lynn, you were speaking at the Values Voters Summit on transgender issues, and you have your own personal experience with this in your family. So tell me about that. Well, I have unfortunately lost two of my children to the transgender cult. I call it a cult, and it really has some very cult-like. characteristics to it. So it's been a very painful journey for me.

And so I have learned a lot through that journey. So how old were your children when they decided that they were transgender? They were both college age, which is something that's not talked about a lot, but a lot of kids come home from college until they're, parents that they're trans. The trans narrative is promoted on college campuses deeply. There's like basically trans dorms, there's trans health care, there's trans clubs, and my kids weren't actually in college at the time, but it's actually a really common age for kids to decide that they're transgender. And the hard thing about it happening at that age is,

You don't really have a whole lot of control. There's not really anything you can do about it. They're adults. They get to make their own decisions, and you just have to kind of watch it happen, kind of like a slow-motion car wreck, you know. So that was my story. So you said your kids were older than college?

Were they in their 20s? Yeah, they were both 21. 21? Yeah. And if you're comfortable sharing, how did they approach you? Did they approach it as a done fact? Did they say, I'm thinking about this, or how did those conversations go?

It was a done fact. Yeah. And had there ever been anything in their past or when they were children that suggested they were uncomfortable with their biological sex? Not that I or anyone else that knew them could see, no. So how did you feel, especially when the first one told you? Well, when my son told me that he was trans, it was 2003. And this wasn't really a thing yet. knew anything about it and it was um i mean it was devastating and confusing and um just shocking and

i didn't know what to think um and then last year when my daughter um when i found out about my daughter it was i mean because i'd already kind of experienced it and i'd been involved in um kind of in the issue through my work with hands across the aisle and And so I was quite knowledgeable about the issue, so it was really devastating for me. And unfortunately, my daughter broke off her relationship with me as soon as I found out. So I've never actually had an opportunity to have one conversation with her about it. She didn't give me that opportunity. So even with her, you just never saw any signs of gender confusion?

No. No, she went to cosmetology school. She loves makeup. She wrote horses. She had a sleepover. She was a girl all her life. So you just mentioned that you work with hands across the aisle. Can you explain to our audience what that is and what your work is with them?

Sure. Hands Across the Isle is a coalition of women who have reached out across every political and ideological persuasion to work together to fight the gender ideology madness that's overtaken our culture. So we have radical feminists and Christians and lesbian. and all kinds of people working together. And we just lay aside all our differences, and we work on this. And it's been a real growth experience for all of us. So we've done interviews at Daily Signal with members of Hands Across the aisle before, and it's just fascinating the dynamic you described to me,

like people who probably disagree on 95% of the issues. But on this one, why do you think you're able to find common ground on this issue? I think it's because we're so. passionately care about, not only about children, but about women. The feminist members of our groups, they're largely passionate about women and girls, safe spaces for women. But whatever our, you know, whatever our personal reason for being so passionate about this issue, it really does transcend any other issue that we really could have in this time, I believe that this is, this is an emergency. If you're in a fire, you don't only pull some of the people out of the

house, you go get everybody. And across our world, there are kids being sterilized and mutilated and damaged for life. And there are women losing their spaces. and their opportunities. There's girls losing their sports scholarships. I mean, I could go on. But this is a big deal. So you referred to the trans cult earlier. Could you expand on why you think of it that way?

Well, in a cult, you have an ideology or a thought. In a typical cult, you have a leader. That's really the only thing that this is missing. So instead of like a personal leader, it's more of like an ideology type thing. But typically then the members begin to identify very strongly only with the other people in the cult who agree with them. They have mantras that they say over and over again. Some of the trans mantras you might know, trans women are women. Have you heard that before?

Yes. There's a reason. They have mantras like a cult. they are told that anyone who doesn't agree with them is dangerous to them. That's because if they talk reasonably with any reasonable discussion about this, will in just a matter of moments tear it down. And so they can't really be exposed to those rational ideas. So there's really no alternative for them but to band together and cut them.

the world out. So as soon as you try to engage or talk about this, they just start screaming that you're a hater and you're a bigot and you're a transphobe and you're trying to erase them. And you can't have a discussion about this. You just can't. Rachel McKinnon was famous for her Mother's Day speech where she told kids that if their family doesn't accept them, it's perfectly okay to leave their family and join her glitter family. And if that's not cult talk, I really don't know what is. So I think one of the baffling things that we've encountered in modern times in the past few years, really, is the amount of kids who seem to be identifying as transgender or, you know, maybe something

else on the LGDBQ area. Yeah, and it's, you know, huge numbers. I believe a study showed at one school or someone was saying anecdotally that a quarter of kids identified this way. Do you think there's a contagion going on? Oh, absolutely, absolutely. It happens so often that, you know, a kid is trying to find a place to fit in. A lot of these kids are kids that have, you know, they have troubles. They're on the autism spectrum.

They're a little bit different. they're maybe a little socially awkward. Maybe they're just really, really smart. My kids never fit in because they were really, really smart, and they were kind of, you know, they kind of had some social, you know, difficulties. And a lot of these kids have concurrent mental health issues. And they find a place to fit in. Because as soon as you say that you're trans, you get love-bombed.

You get love bombed online. You get love bombed at school. Your social status goes up by at least 10 ranks. As soon as you say you're trans, you turn into a star. And, you know, kids are thirsty for that kind of affirmation. And as well, most of us can probably remember puberty and the awkwardness that comes with it. Yeah, not a great time. It is.

It's a hard time. And so they're struggling. with the way their body is changing. You know, the girls are like, oh, I'm growing breasts and I hate it. And I have to wear a bra. And, you know, all these changes are happening in your body, and you feel really weird. And, you know, it's a really, it's always been an awkward, difficult time.

Now, when these kids express that they feel funny about their body and, you know, they don't really like how it's changing. They're immediately told, well, you know, the reason you feel so awkward is you're really a man. and you know you can you can you can stop all these changes they don't have to happen to you right you cannot tell me or any rational person that one quarter of of any kids in any school are really actually born in the wrong body and their transgender I mean that's just not rational so what would your advice be to parents if their child and let's say their child is you know

above 18 um like your situation and they come to you to the parents and say, I think I'm transgender, or I am transgender. How would you recommend parents handle that? Oh, boy. Well, it's really a tough situation. First of all, you need some support. A lot of times it's really hard because you can't find any support. You don't know anybody in your life that knows anything about it.

If you look online, every single resource that you find if you look online will be what they call affirmative or agreeing that your child is trans. And so if you're not, if you're doubting that story and you want the other side, you really can't even find it by Googling. You can't find it. So there's a couple of places online. There's a blog called Fourth Wave Now.

It's 4-T-H-W-E-N-O-W.com. Or is it dot org? I can't remember. But it's Fourth Wave Now. That's a block with a lot of articles and information and, you know, parents can write. It's a public forum, so it's not really designed to be basically a support group. There's also the Kelsey Coalition, which is a group of parents that are supporting each other and acting in concrete ways to try to stop this.

There's a group called the Parents of ROD Kids. which is an in-person support group type thing, and there are chapters opening up all over the U.S. There's a British blog called Transgender Trend, that's really good. And so, you know, there are resources. You just really have to know what they are. You have to know how to look for them. As far as relating to your child,

I would highly recommend that you do everything you can to maintain your relationship with your. your child. And that is a very tough, tight line to walk. It's just almost impossible. Somehow, you have to gently but firmly in the best way you can just express that you care about them, you love them. You can't agree with it. Whether you decide to use their pronouns or not as a personal decision. I just was unable to do it. I felt like I was lying. I really can't tell anyone what to do in their own situation. It's really tough. But one thing that doesn't really seem to work is a lot of argument or pressure or presenting them with information, making them read articles,

making them talk to people. And whatever you do, don't take them to a gender clinic. The hard thing is you can't, in a lot of times you can't take them to counseling because in a lot of States there's a therapy ban and if you take your trouble kid to counseling they'll be inside the gender clinic before you know it on hormones and you will be shut out of the process you will have no input you won't be able to stop the train um so that's really tough um you know sometimes if you gently and you know if you just ask around with other parents that are in your area you can find someone who will treat your kid um that's um rational and not gender affirming.

Sometimes that's really a struggle. There's a few people that do it online over the phone. So, you know, I think, and then try to remember a lot of times this is a self-limiting thing. A lot of times after five years or so, it kind of cycles out if you can just hold on. Just try to be there for your child. I mean, I don't, it's very hard. So there's so much pressure on parents these days from the media and others that say, unless you immediately embrace your child as transgender,

your child is at risk for depression or even, God forbid, suicide. How would you, what do you think about those charges? How do parents sort of walk that line? Okay, well, first of all, I have to say that that is the worst kind of a moment. emotional blackmail that I have ever heard of. And that is, we don't emotionally blackmail people and tell them that if, you know, if you don't give me my way, I'm going to kill myself. And you don't do that to parents. So the study that's frequently cited says 41% of transgender kids are, basically they try to tell parents that, you know, 41% of the time your kid's going to kill themselves.

This was a really flawed study. And all the studies that they try to claim, if you know anything about science, statistics, and doing studies in the right way, they are so, these studies are, they're garbage. They're junk science. They decide, first of all, what they want the study to say, and then they design the study to say that. So basically, they took a random, just like sampling of trans kids, and they said, have you ever thought about killing yourself? in the last year, have you ever thought about it? I've thought about doing a lot of things that I'm not going to do. Okay? And these are kids that a lot of them have very complex mental health issues to start with. So, yeah, maybe they've thought about it. To be honest, I've thought about it.

I lost my kids. It's hard to find a reason to keep living, but that doesn't mean I'm going to do it. So, I mean, that's not a scientific study just to ask some kids. Have a generalized, really wide open question like that? Have you thought about ending your life? And then they make that study sound like 41% of kids actually will end their life, which is not true. Statistically, there is somewhat higher chance,

but it is not 41%. So I think I find that emotional blackmail line to be incredibly irresponsible. And is there anything parents can do? Because, you know, as you've just mentioned, this is an extremely stressful situation for a parent. How can parents, you know, get the support they need as they're going through this? Well, you really do have to find, you have to find support yourself. You have to, like the sources that I mentioned, it's really important to find people that have walked this line before you. And people that understand the process.

A lot of times parents are, you know, it's a crash course. You know, they don't really know anything about this. And all of a sudden it's the middle of their lives. And so it's really helpful to have some people around you. And I think that that's the number one thing. A lot of parents find some, you know, a little bit of, you know, a little bit of, help in trying to help other people. That's been really helpful to me. So I became a parent advocate. I've started Facebook support group. I travel around. I go to conferences. I speak out. I educate people.

To me, that puts a little bit of meaning in it, I guess. I mean, it's not like you can just go on and act like it didn't happen. you know like life is still normal it's not so i'd say um and also try to take care of you um because um your child needs you and they need you to be healthy and whole they need you to be strong and you can't do that if you're completely um if you're completely under water worrying about your child. You have to take care of you too. And so just remember that, you know, you need and deserve a good life and some self-care and some support. And, you know, it's not your fault. You didn't cause this. A lot of times parents are just overwhelmed. What did I do? Did I say the wrong thing? Did I, you know, did I not, you know, was I, did I miss something? Was there something I?

I should have noticed. And, you know, it's really, it's not your fault. Is there anything, and I'm not saying this means that it can be prevented, but is there anything parents can do to try to help their kids be more secure in their biological sex or get them ready before college for this onslaught of propaganda? Hmm. Well, I think that foreknowledge is really helpful. You know, we need to talk about this issue.

We need, you know, being proactive, sometimes is, you know, making sure your kids understand the issue, even though it's a really hard one to talk about, they're going to hear about it. And whatever you do, don't let your kids go on Tumblr. Is Tumblr a place where a lot of this is? Tumblr is a cesspool. There are people on Tumblr just going around looking for distressed kids and trying to pick them into the, pull them into the cult seriously. Some other really bad ones, deviant art. A lot of artistic kids do this.

There's a one called fan fiction where they write stories for each other. It's a lot of that on that. Reddit is pretty bad. And, you know, I'm an old lady, so there's probably new ones that I don't know about. Those are the big ones that I've heard a lot. So watch what your kids doing online seriously. And then, you know, we really, have to

we have really got to get to the place where we first of all accept our own bodies for what they are we do a lot of body shaming in this culture I'm fat I'm too short you know if you're worrying about your body all the time what do you think your child is

doing acceptance of themselves acceptance of their bodies the way they are allowing them you know if they have some differences and some hobbies that aren't gender stereotypical they need to know that, you know, some girls like to do motocross. And there's lots of ways to be a girl.

And, you know, every single time someone says, you know, I'm trans, it's because I like the clothes, I like the sports, I like the activities, I like the haircut. It's all this gender role stereotype stuff that we thought we were getting away from. And it mystifies me that all of a sudden these gender, stereotypes are the center of freedom for people, or it's this huge, huge thing. You never hear anyone describing their thought that they're transgender with any other thing but these stereotypes. So, you know, girls need to know that, like I said, that there are a million ways to be a

girl, and you're not a girl because you feel like one. You're a girl because you are. and it's very hard to resist for them to resist this new ideology that gender is a spectrum and you know one one study said that there's like over a hundred genders now supposedly they keep making up new ones well there's not there's not a hundred genders but there are 500 billion personalities. You know, be yourself, but love your body the way it is. Because no child is born in the wrong body. We are all born in exactly the right body.

And fighting your body for the rest of your life is an incredibly heavy chain to put around the neck of any young person. And I would say shame on this culture. Shame on you all. I don't know how how dare the schools and the libraries and the doctors and the psychologists and the media

and all these other people, how dare they tell children that there's something wrong with their body. You know, I just I don't know how we got here. But, you know, hold your kids tight and keep telling them they're all right. Whoever they are. It's such a powerful point, and I really like the point you made about, you know, there's a lot of different ways to be a girl or to be a boy, because I agree that you often see when people identify as transgender, they take the most stereotypical male or female, and it's sort of like, well, you could, you know, it might not be my favorite thing, but you can be a boy and wear a nail polish. You can be a girl and have very short hair. Those are not incompatible.

It does not mean you need to chop your body up and take hormones. And a lot of these kids, too, are struggling with sexual orientation. And they are trying to make sense of their feelings in that arena. And, you know, I don't know of anything more homophobic than deciding that you can't be a lesbian, so you must be a man. Absolutely. That is the greatest homophobia. that ever was. You know, I mean, that's, it's a tragedy that a girl would feel that she has to,

she has to have a mastectomy and a hysterectomy. She has to have a beard. And, you know, rather than just kind of figuring out who she is in her own body. I think we just need to stop. We just need to stop this. Okay. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. Yeah, thank you too.

Okay. We appreciate having you coming on. Oh, thanks. 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 Spotify. And please leave us a review or a rating on iTunes.

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