The Heritage Foundation's Anti-Trans Booklets

it does. It does focus on LGBTQ issues for a decent a decent chunk of the book, mainly finding different ways to both legalize and protect discrimination against LGBTQ people and like banning the public presence of LGBTQ materials deemed deemed pornographic in public life, especially a schools, libraries, all that kind of stuff. Right, It's kind of this nationwide don't say gay bill type thing, along with legalizing it and protecting people's people's right to discriminate against for people.

So that's kind of the bulk of the of the of the tactics that are laid out in the Heritage Foundation's Project twenty twenty five. But Trump and a whole bunch of Republicans have been doing a lot of work to distance themselves from this document. At the RNC, I was kind of surprised that, like, I did not hear a single, a single mention of Project twenty twenty five unless I was the one to bring it up when

talking with people. They didn't. They didn't like talking about it because they know it's kind of this, like this toxic thing.

of choice for these issues. Now, Like gender identity quote unquote transgender ism were were frequent talking points at the Republican National Convention, way more so than the Democratic National Convention, in which they were kind of just brushed aside as a political inconvenience. But at the R and C these things were front and center. Almost every single person giving a speech on the main stage at least name dropped gender ideology in some way to receive thunderous applause from

the crowd. So it certainly was a very common topic brought up. And here's what the actual literature that was proliferating at the event had to say about it. So let's start. Let's start penphlet number one, how to speak up about gender identity, Questions and answers driving the debate, so it's a debate. Is the first thing we want? We need to know about gender identity? Again, I'm not

just reading out all of their propaganda. I think there is some use in actually learning what they're saying in like their biggest convention and then actually not like debunking because like, come on, I know who are audiences, but at least actually laying out what they're saying and how it relates to like the actual information I think does

does have sub use. So will I will be quoting from the Heritage Foundation saying some pretty stupid things, but then we will kind of springboard discussion, and I do have some little effect checks on some of the like these very common lies that you're now seeing like get repeated so often you may be trying to be tricked into thinking that they are real. So we're going to tackle the quote unquote the big questions, what are sex,

gender and gender identity. I'm sure this five page pamphlet will tell me all I need to know about the topics of what our sex gender, gender identity.

to some people while infringing on the rights of others. Now, this is a talking point that was brought up a lot when I was a kid around trans people. How they have special laws that give them more rights than your average person. And that's why, like a good like conservative basis should be opposed to them, even if you're like, you know, an accepting you may not like agree with them, but you're not going to kill them, but they shouldn't

have like extra rights. That was a big thing is framing, Framing things that either protect trans people from discrimination or framing things that ensure their healthcare as like special extra rights not provided to like regular regular Americans.

religion and conscience. What the freedom of conscience?

the introduction. Now onto page two. All individuals have human dignity and should be treated with respect citation needed, including those who identify as transgender and know they're very careful to never actually say trans people a transgender people. There's people who identify transgender, and there's there's transgender activists and gender ideology activists. They take great care to never actually say trans people are doing this. They say transactivists are

doing this, right, increates this degree of separation. That's one kind of a little rhetorical tactic that I noticed when first looking through this.

communities must be taken into consideration. Many treatments promoted by transgender activists are untested, can cause serious side effects, and come with irreversible developmental consequences when performed on children. So this is this is my first kind of pause, because this is a claim that we've been seeing, i would say,

at an increasing rate ever since Matt Walsh's documentary. This is like one thing that he really tried to like invent specifically that like quote unquote like puberty blockers cause like sterilization and like, yeah, you can't reproduce when you're on them, obviously, but you can when you go off them. But that's something that like they never talk about. They

frame it as like this permanent thing. Samantha Rosenthal has an independent piece in the La Times that talks about like the very long history of trans healthcare in the United States. Modern trans healthcare goes back to the nineteen sixties, and hormone therapy has been used to assist cisgender children in puberty since at least the nineteen forties. These these things are not untested. These are medical practices with a

long history. And saying that there's there's irreversible developmental consequences when performed on children, like the FDA approved hormone blockers for children back in nineteen ninety three. We've been using these for quite a long time, and these false claims are actually causing some like significant harm. I'm going to quote from ABC News here. Quote. England's National Health Service has banned the use of puberty blockers for the treatment

of gendernyspia, or gender incongruence in transgender minors. The NHS has not stated it will restrict puberty blockers for non transgender children and young people. An NHS bookesperson told ABC News the agency hopes to have a study into the use of puberty blockers in place by December of this year, with eligibility criteria yet to be decided unquote. So they are just like starting to ban these. And of course we've seen this in the United States as well, but

this is like the National Health Service. This is like a really a really big organization that's only banning it for trans people, not for cis gender children. So like it's really devastating.

And there was a recent study in twenty twenty two in the journal Jama which found the use of puberty blocking drugs did not lead to an increased chance of receiving gender affirming therapy in the future, and actually we're slightly less likely to given the extra time to explore gender in the body without the onset of irreversible effects of puberty. Possible bone density losses largely remediated upon the presence of sex hormones, whether from either just to ceasing

the blockers or starting HRT. And this study also says at the end that perhaps we should just stop using the term puberty blocker, because it makes it sound like it just completely blocks puberty, like from ever happening, like it just is like now you don't go through puberty, and instead opts to say, like, maybe we should just describe what the drug does mechanistically and clinically, because maybe maybe puberty blockers is just a it implies something more

than what the drug actually like does temporarily. Yeah, so I found that to be an interesting note. And the whole point of of and this something well probably talk about later. The whole point of this drug is so that you can have more time to actually decide what you want to do with your body and your gender. And most people that do go on blockers, whether SIS or not, are doing it to prevent irreversible changes from puberty. And most people opt to not actually go on cross

sex hormones. And that's like a successful treatment, Like that is that that is what the drug is supposed to do. But there's definitely this idea among these like anti transactivists that like, if you go on blockers, that means you're more likely to become quote unquote like fully trends in the future, which also just like isn't true. But do you know what is reversible.

oh wait, wait wait oh. The citation is when Harry became Sally responding to the transgender movement, The Anti trans Book of twenty eighteen by Ryan T. Anderson. Oh God, that's not a real philosophy, biology or psychology book. Oh okay, well.

other species that sectually reproduces. This is completely consistent. I get no citation because that's not That is not how biology actually works. No, nor is your genitalia necessarily determined by your chromosomes. Nope? But sure, why not the best biology? All support this understanding there, Yeah, the best biology from a first grade textbook. Ye.

even if it goes against their biological sex. They deny their biological reality by suggesting that biological sex was merely assigned at birth. A little known fun fact, you actually can like scientifically change your biological sex. Yeah, rules, it takes a little bit of time, it takes a little bit of effort, but your biological sex can actually just be like a completely changed. This is something that is not like set.

not into that freaky stuff anyway. According to the American Psychological Association, gender identity refers to a person's internal sense of being male, female, or something else, hey, something else nice. It is distinct from either sex or gender. Activists claim that it is a person's internal sense of gender, activists claim. They also assert that it's more than just male or female.

It's fluid, and there's a spectrum of various options beyond man and woman, like a gender fluid, intergender, or non binary. I've never heard the term intergender before.

Transgender can refer to a man who identifies as a woman or a woman who identifies as man some activists. Some activists go so far as to say that a trans woman is a woman. Crazy. Not all people who suffer from gender dysphoria identify as transgender, Not everyone who dentifies as transgender except from gender dysphoria. Surprisingly woke statement.

It's a surprisingly controversial and woke statement from Heritage Foundation here, anti transman, anti truth, coum a foundation, What the fuck base?

they're doing. The reason we have separate facilities in the first place is not because of a gender identity, but because of the bodily difference between males and females. That's interesting. I wonder what happens when some of those bodily differences start to change, or your social rules in mel fem walill also change, Like a young trans girl going into the men's bathroom. That could maybe a little bit uncomfortable anyway.

Preventing sexual assault is another major area of concern when gender identity determines who may enter a women only space. Public safety experts such as Kenneth V. Lanning, former FBI Supervisory Special Agent assigned to the Behavioral Science Unit. They're doing the Buffalo Bill at the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime at the FBI Academy for over twenty years. It is just the Buffalo Bill. Guy explains that predators abuse gender and the policies to gain access

to victims. While victims law enforcement become less likely to report incidents for fear of having misunderstood and being accused of discrimination. The primary concern is not that people who identify as trends will victimize women, but that predators will exploit to gender identity policies to do so. So this is interesting. They're actually not doing all trans women are

secretly rapists. They are doing the what is actually more like more legit is that no, like men will be fucked up and men will like do fucked up shit. The thing is they don't need those policies to do fucked up shit. Men will do it regardless.

The first result was from the reputable news publication the Daily Signal, which is a Heritage Foundation puppet site, and the article is just listing like a handful of like trans girls across the country who participated in school sports. And that's like, that's like all it is. And then of particular interest to James this next sentence, Oh, god, fucking man who identifies this some transgender? Well that's that's

an interesting one. A man who identifies as a transgender has also won the women's cycling World's title.

those dudes gets popped for using testosterone. And like, I don't see that in the Heritage Foundation's complaints, Like this is just asshole, really, they've she has been a particular target for these people. Cycling has been a particular target for these people for a very long time, and it's very funny that they continue to like put out this propaganda which completely misunderstands, like the things that let you win the Master's track World Championship are having money and

having time, Like it is inherently unfair. It's it's a hobby sport, right, thirty five to forty four. There are not professional athletes in that age group, like the people doing this. So the people who have the time and the money, they buy the fancy bikes, they travel to the race. It's if you care, If you care about fairness in master's cycling, there are a million other places to go after it.

affects your personal liberty transgenderism. That's a good one. Trans Gender policies also violate our freedom of speech and freedom of conscience by forcing people to speak or act in ways contrary to their personal judgment and deeply held beliefs. In New York City, you can be fined up to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for misgendering. What's the citation that they do have a citation? Okay, hit me, they do, go to the NYC Commission, and this isn't true.

Despite the citation, they're trying to take like a city ordinance and twist it to make it sound like you will be fined a quarter of a million dollars for calling someone the wrong pronouns. And that's not what the audience is. Yeah, it's employment law, right correct. It was first written in the early two thousands. It was then revised in twenty fifteen. I'm going to quote from Snopes quote discrimination it gets a transgender individual could resultant finds

to up to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. But these fines won't be handed out for accidentally misusing pronouns. According to the new guidelines, the Commission can impose civil penalties up to one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars for violations of the law, and extreme circumstances two hundred and fifty thousand for violations that are the result of wilful, wanton and malicious conduct. Yeah, this is for like employment discrimination.

You have to provide health care. So they complain about all that kind of stuff, and then the last section of the pamphlet is on child development. TRANSNT ideology is now promoted in schools where children are taught that gender is fluid, falls along a spectrum, and is detached from bodily sex. In addition, activists seek to punish anyone who expresses anyone'serveces about radical treatment plans for gender dysphoric children.

These plans can include socially transitioning children as young as four, administering puberty blocking drugs as young as nine, cross sex hormones as a young as fourteen, and surgery as young as eighteen. This ideology threatens parental rights. In Ohio, a Catholic family lost custody of their daughter when they oppose treatment of gender dysphoria with cross sex hormones. So, actually, this is actually a pretty good breakdown of like how

gender like affirming healthcare could work. Is Yeah, if a kid wants to like socially start transitioning very young and they want to, yes, that's great, there's no harm in that. If getting on puberty blockers at around nine, that makes sense, hormones as a teenager, yeah, and surgery maybe a little

bit later. Yeah, that all seems quite quite reasonable. And in terms of this Catholic family, So a transfer of parents lost custody of their seventeen year old trans son in twenty eighteen after inducing suicidal idea for refusing to let their child receive hormone therapy prescribed by a medical team who had been treating the child for two years. Custody was transferred to his grandparents. So this wasn't the

state just like stealing this child away. It's like, no, you're like basically abusing this kid, So we're going to move custody over to the grandparents. Also, like you're opposing this for a seventeen year old, this is almost like a full legal adult. I'm going to qute from CNN here. Quote. The parents' attorney had argued that the child was not even quote close to being able to make such a

life altering decision at this time. Unquote. The county prosecuting attorney argued that the parents wanted to stop the treatment because it violated their religious beliefs unquote. So yeah, you're so scared that this seventeen year old is going to make a choice that you personally find a little bit icky, Like ka'bah.

the Supreme Court declined to hear the parents' case. So so there you go, big health for them. They then talk about quote unquote research, what the research says about transition. The view that social medical transition is the appropriate treatment for people, including children, who feel at odds with their biological sex, is becoming more widely accepted. However, transitioning treatment, including puberty blocking hormones for children and sex change surgeries

for teens and adults, come with serious consequences. Today, parents are told that puberty blockers and cross sex hormones may be the only way to prevent their child from committing suicide. However, according to the DSM five, as many as ninety eight percent of gender confused boys and eighty eight percent of gender confused girls eventually accept their biological sex after naturally passing through puberty. Okay, let's go over this because there's

some weird phrasing here, Because no, that's not it. That's all with the DSM, actually, says A writer named Micah b broke down this claim in a medium post from twenty eighteen. This exact sentence has been reusing a lot of like writing publications over time, so accept their biological sex after naturally passing through puberty. It's a very like

loaded phrase. Like a child who suffers from genitusphoria may receive like treatment, whether that's through like like speech therapy like talking about it with with the therapist, or hormone blockers, and they may then choose to cease treatment and go through their natural puberty. Right like that is, but yeah, that's not them like like qu one unquote like naturally passing through puberty. Like no, that that also involves a

degree of treatment. Now, the reason why these numbers are might be a little bit kind of odd and also they're just false, like the way that they're like being framed here. But in particular for kids, like the criteria for children and having genitysphoria is different from the criteria

for teens and adults, right, those mean different things. They also say as many as ninety eight percent as many reason I'm saying because the DSM five actually says that quote in natal males, persistence has ranged from two point two percent to thirty percent. In natal females, persistence has ranged from twelve percent to fifty percent. So they took the lowest possible number and switched the stat around by saying that as many as ninety eight percent eventually accept

their quote unquote biological sex. So that's that's a cute little little flip around. And then also, according to the DSM, a majority of boys sixty three to one hundred percent who quote unquote grow out of gend dysphoria just later turn out to be gay. Right, there is a difference

between like gender dysphoria versus like gender deviance. That's why you, yeah, you should like work with an actual medical team if you have like a kid who's like pre puberty, who has a degree of gender variance, because yeah, that could result in a whole bunch of a whole bunch of things, and the fact that some of them just grow up to be like gay kids is like the result of like successful medical treatment, and like it's like like a

loving family, Like that is a good outcome. Similarly, the DSM says that thirty two to fifty percent of girls whose gender dysphoria does not persist later identify as gay. So there we go. That's pretty pretty pretty average stuff.

They then go onto list all of the quote unquote side effects of gender affirming treatment, saying quote meanwhile, radical gender affirming therapies post serious medical risks, including disfiguring acne, high blood pressure, weight gain, abnormal glucose tolerance, breast cancer, liver disease, thermioprosis, and cardiovascular disease. These are all the consequences of just puberty. Yeah, like, depending on what puberty you go through, Yeah, it's gonna have different effects. That's

just how puberty worries. They also include uh, and of course sterility, and this is this is still a hotly debated topic. There are some recent studies that show that there's actually a pretty good chance of people who go on estrogen being able to like regain fertility after after like a six months of ceasing treatment. It's not consistent, right, everyone who everyone who goes on like HRT has an understanding that it can affect how they reproduce in the future.

You're definitely encouraged to, like, if you want to have kids or think you might want to have kids in the future, Like you can save your sperms, you can save your eggs, you can you can get that stuff ahead of time. Yeah, but this is also something that people are like working on of being able to like maintain the ability to have kids even like during or like after. Gender affirming health care treatment has like commenced.

So that's cool. Finally, quote puberty blocking therapies and cross sex hormones non reversible, largely untested, and highly dangerous, especially for children. We've already we've already talked about how all of that is not true. We've already gone through all of that. Sex assignment surgeries have not been shown to reduce the extraordinarily high rate of suicide attempts among people who identify as transgender forty one percent compared to the

general population's four point six percent. So this is also just like not true, Like everything, it's just not true. Also, there's no there's no citation here. A pear of you studying the Journal of adlast in Health found that hormone therapy for trans youth reduced the rate of depression and suicide by forty percent. It also found that having like parental support during this process also like heavily impacts the

effectiveness of this treatment, specifically on depression and suicide. Like if if you're going through this treatment and your parents still hate you, yeah, that's going to actually, it's going to hurt the ability of this healthcare to actually be effective mentally. An investigation by doctors of the University of Washington found that trans youth who received gender if herming healthcare reduced their risk of suicide by seventy three percent compared to those who do not receive care, and a

policy brief in the VA wrote quote. Since in nineteen seventy five, more than two thousand scientific studies have examined gender affirming care, supported by over thirty leading medical associations, including the World Health Organization and the American Medical Association, gender affirming care is deemed evidence based and effective at reducing suicide rates. This is all widely understood. This is such like a non objectionable stance that even famous woke institution,

the VA, is like, yeah, no, it's actually really effective. Okay, And now actually, finally, for this pamphlet quote, the most helpful therapies for children experiencing gender dysphoria do not try to remake the body to conform with thoughts and feelings, which is impossible, not impossible, but rather but rather to help people find healthy ways to manage their tension and

move towards accepting the reality of their bodies. Unfortunately, fifteen states have passed laws of banning talk therapy for miners who struggle with gender dysphoria, and there's a bill in Congress which would do the same. There's no bill banning talk therapy. This is a conversion therapy, bann This isn't This isn't like actual talk therapy, which is a part of like actual healthcare treatment. This is against like conversion therapy. That is what they're actually talking about. So that is

the bulk of the pamphlet. I also got given this this other kind of I think it's called a fact sheet, which is ironic by the Heritage Action Group, which is the kind of lobbying activist arm branch of Heritage. It goes over a whole bunch of like the same stuff. They particularly don't like that the Department of Education released a report banning the use of offensive and inappropriate terms

like mother and father in school. This isn't true. What they're talking about is that there's been a push to include this more gender neutral language, like instead of saying your mom and dad, just say parents. Like, yeah, that makes sense. That's specifically what they're complaining about. They complain about like books and schools. They call The Gender Queer a graphic novel, a book riddled with pornographic and pedophilic content.

Not true. It's just simply isn't true. All these kind of old lies that we have talked about on the show, like many times before. And then they also just rehash a whole bunch of the claims from the other pamphlet. They talk about the claim that in Virginia a girl was actually assaulted by a teen boy pretending to be a girl, and this is not an isolated incident. We've talked about that claim before. This was a fake story

invented by the Daily Wire. This person was not trans. This was someone who was in a relationship with this girl who's actually assaulted her in a bathroom. Not a trans person, just a regular CIS gender male. And then they talk about sports. They talk about how men have more upper body mass and that puberty blockers do not change height, organ sized, skeletal structure, muscle mass or any of the biological characteristics that make men unequal. Opponents absolutely

do hormones. Literally, they just list all the things that hormones actually change, like, they actually famously do change all of those things, height, skeletal structure, organ size, and muscle mass. Those are the main things. Yeah.

about gender ideology. That was kind of the most in depth it ever got. Most of the speeches did not even get into any specifics. They just like threw out keywords fractual like discussion, this is, this is this is the most in depth stuff they have, So this is largely like the bulk of like the average RNC attendees knowledge.

This is actually probably more in depth than most average RNC attendees, at least in terms of what Heritage is putting out publicly, that is, their talking points, Any any kind of closing thoughts.

so easy to be like this just isn't true. And most of them just have no idea because if the information they're getting is in line with this kind of thing, it's it is just an alternate reality that that they are living in. Yeah, and some of them are fueled by like actual ideological hatred, and some of them are

just actually like legitimately just like misinformed. And that's something like I can't tell you how your family thinks because I don't know your family, but it is it is a good thing to to like keep in mind that there is ways to talk about some of the sort of things. There's also if you just want to avoid avoid it all together and play Nintendo in the basement during Thanksgiving dinner with your cousins. That's also yeah sometimes the move yep support that. Well, this has been exciting.

We will see you again probably tomorrow for more breaking news. And it is news that breaks you slowly that that is our demo news that breaks you.