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Speaker 1

00:00

-♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ Moving on. Our main story tonight concerns LGBTQ rights, something that we've actually gotten better at discussing, given that this is how CBS News covered the existence of gay people in 1967.

Speaker 2

00:16

The Homosexuals, with CBS News correspondent, Mike Wallace. There is a growing concern about homosexuals in society, about their increasing visibility. This man is 27, college educated.

Speaker 2

00:29

He was unable to hold a job because of his inability to contain his homosexual inclinations.

Speaker 1

00:34

Okay, that is a big yikes from me, from the wildly homophobic language to the fact that this man's identity was concealed by placing him behind a plant, to the title, The Homosexuals, which sounds less like the name of a news report and more like how your grandpa refers to the Fab 5. Specifically, we're gonna talk about transgender rights. Now, we actually first talked about this 7 years ago, and the good news is that since then, more people do seem comfortable coming out as trans and gender non-conforming, which is great.

Speaker 1

01:02

But, as you have undoubtedly noticed, in the past few years, some on the right have truly lost their minds about trans rights, perhaps best encapsulated by their favorite new joke.

Speaker 3

01:13

My name is J.R. Majewski, and my pronouns are patriot and ass-kicker. My pronouns, conservative.

Speaker 3

01:22

Patriot. I'd like to declare something right now. My pronouns are U.S.A. How about it, huh?

Speaker 4

01:30

I'm Ted Cruz, and my pronoun is kiss my ass.

Speaker 1

01:33

-♪

Speaker 5

01:33

Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah...

Speaker 1

01:34

♪ -I do not like that man, Ted Cruz. I do not like his shitty views. I do not like him saying ass.

Speaker 1

01:40

I do not like him serving sass. I do not like him in a seat. I do not like him holding meat. I do not like him when he's smoochin'.

Speaker 1

01:48

I do not like him with minuchin'. I hate his stupid pronoun bits that Man Ted Cruz is full of shit. But look, it is clearly more than just bad jokes. This year alone, over a hundred anti-trans bills have been introduced in state houses and 12 states have signed or enacted them, with all of this happening against a backdrop of violence and threats, including attacks and harassment aimed at hospitals providing gender-affirming care to youth.

Speaker 1

02:12

And frustratingly, there are many on the left who seem at best reluctant to engage on this issue, and at worst, outright hostile to it. Either complaining about pronoun police, or arguing that this issue will cost Democrats elections.

Speaker 6

02:25

If you go to the middle of the country, people would say, if Your conversation during a presidential election is about some guy wearing a dress and whether he, she, or it can go to a... And go to the locker room with their daughter. That's not a winning formula for most people.

Speaker 6

02:43

Wow.

Speaker 1

02:44

It. Michael Bloomberg can fuck all the way off with that shit, but also, while this fun-sized billionaire is clearly good at a lot of things, like making money and end of list, maybe don't take advice on a winning formula for elections from a man who spent over a billion dollars of his own money to lose a presidential bid in just 14 weeks. But set aside the notion that it is worth sacrificing protections for a vulnerable group to chase a winning formula, let's also remember that it's not actually the left talking about trans rights nonstop, It's Republicans who see an advantage in demagoguing this issue. And to ignore them doing that is to allow them to have real calamitous impacts on people's lives.

Speaker 1

03:25

A few years ago, Vice profiled a girl named Kai Shapley. And just watch how happy she is talking about her hopes for a future, until she remembers something that changes her mood.

Speaker 7

03:34

Mama says I might grow up to be the president.

Speaker 8

03:38

Yeah? Mm-hmm. What would you change about the world if you were president?

Speaker 9

03:44

That trans people be free and go to the bathroom they want to go to?

Speaker 8

03:49

Are you able to use the girls' bathroom at school?

Speaker 1

03:51

-♪

Speaker 5

03:51

I'm a

Speaker 9

03:52

bad girl... ♪ -No. And now they just put security guards up for the bathroom security or whatever?

Speaker 7

04:02

Oh, I

Speaker 1

04:03

hate that. That is brutal. It is so dark, it's genuinely hard to watch, which would also, coincidentally, be a pretty accurate tagline for House of the Dragon.

Speaker 1

04:12

But the point is, given what is at stake here, Tonight, let's talk about the latest round of attacks on trans rights, where it's coming from, and what it's doing. And before we begin, we're gonna be taking the arguments behind a lot of these anti-trans bills seriously, because of what they're doing, but not sincerely. Because so often, they seem to be based more on political calculation than what is actually happening. A pretty good example of this is that in recent years, 18 states have passed laws aimed at protecting youth sports.

Speaker 1

04:40

And South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem even made her state's bill a centerpiece of a campaign ad.

Speaker 10

04:45

In South Dakota, only girls play girls sports. Why? Because of Governor Christine Noem's leadership.

Speaker 10

04:52

Noem has been protecting girls sports for years and never backed down. Now Governor Noem has

Speaker 8

04:58

a bill that will give South Dakota the

Speaker 10

05:00

strongest law in the nation protecting female sports. Doing the work, delivering results. Governor Kristi Noem.

Speaker 1

05:07

Okay, if you time-traveled here from the past, and the first thing you saw was this ad, you would think 2 things. 1, wow! The campaign centers around youth sports.

Speaker 1

05:15

I guess, literally, every other problem in America has been solved. And 2, she is not pulling off that cowboy hat. And you would be right, but only about the hat part. People like Noam love stoking fear over the specter of trans athletes, girls specifically, having an unfair advantage and taking away scholarship opportunities.

Speaker 1

05:33

But there are vanishingly few examples nationwide of trans athletes attempting to compete at all. And in Nome State specifically, the head of their high school sports association could name exactly 1 transgender female athlete who competed and who graduated several years ago. So there are more athletes in this shot from Nome's ad than there are trans girls known to have competed in South Dakota schools. But even if there were more, discriminating against them would still obviously be wrong.

Speaker 1

06:00

And it would still be weird that state legislatures were getting involved in decisions that are usually made by organizations governing the sports in question. And it is worth knowing, even at the elite level, conversations around this aren't being handled with flat-out bans. The IOC has announced that it will set rules on a sport-by-sport basis, but working on the general principle that no athlete should be excluded from competition on the assumption of an advantage due to their gender. And it is pretty remarkable that a trans athlete could theoretically compete in the Olympics, but not in South Dakota Under-12s soccer.

Speaker 1

06:35

A sport that genuinely only exists to obliterate parents' weekends. -♪ Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ -And state's blunt force approach has led to absurd situations like that of Mac Beggs, who, as a Texas high schooler, wanted to wrestle boys, but was forced by state rules to wrestle girls. When he won a state championship, lawmakers tried to pass a law that would have made it impossible for athletes like him to compete, period. Which is obviously absurd, because As 1 of the wrestlers that Mack actually defeated pointed out, none of these people seem to think through the reality of Mack's situation.

Speaker 9

07:07

Do you really honestly think someone would change their entire gender just so they would win state? No. That's not how it works.

Speaker 1

07:17

Right. This obviously wasn't an effort to cheat. Kids aren't plotting big, deceitful, school sports-related cheating schemes just to get what they want. You're thinking of Lori Loughlin.

Speaker 1

07:28

That's who you're thinking of here. You're confused. So much of the conversation around anti-trans laws involves massively overheated rhetoric that does not match the reality of kids' actual situations. And interestingly, a lot of it's been fueled by some of the same players behind the Critical Race Theory panic, who, as we discussed in February, were using it as a wedge issue to promote school choice.

Speaker 1

07:50

In fact, 1 key architect of the CRT panic, Christopher Rufo, recently pivoted to attacking trans rights, and he has openly discussed the strategy behind doing that.

Speaker 11

08:00

What I'm looking at, and it's just kind

Speaker 3

08:01

of an ongoing series, I just started it, is to take that same system of reporting, that same style of reporting as I did with critical race theory, but now taking a look at gender ideology. What's happening right now is parents are feeling that, they're feeling the, oof, this is kind of weird, I'm kind of uncomfortable with this, but I'm scared to speak out. And so what we have to do is we have to give them the kind of media narrative, kind of a justification or validation or substantiation of their concerns to say, hey, this is the kind of thing they're teaching in schools, and then we have to give them the language where they can speak about it with confidence, they can speak about it directly, and they can speak about it with the requisite level of aggressiveness that it's gonna take to say, hey, wait a minute, we have to stop this.

Speaker 1

08:46

Yeah, he's basically giving people a script to repeat. And say what you want about Chris Rufo, like, for instance, that he's a fear-mongering troll who looks like what would happen if someone made the recipe for Ryan Gosling, but forgot to add the hotness. --LAUGHTER --He is very deliberate in how he tries to influence public opinion.

Speaker 1

09:02

Rufo suggested branding the discussion of trans issues under the umbrella of radical gender theory. And he tweeted out that conservatives should start using the phrase trans-stripper in lieu of drag queen. It has a more lurid set of connotations and shifts the debate to sexualization. And sure, anything can have a more lurid and sexual set of connotations if you just rename it.

Speaker 1

09:24

I'll show you. Rain, SkyJizz. There, much worse. Immersion blender, soup vibrator, spaghetti sauce, noodle lube.

Speaker 1

09:31

See, This works on anything. But in the conservative playbook, that tactic is a really big 1, linking discussion of gender identity to sexual predation and teachers grooming students. A related tactic is arguing that the rise in kids identifying as trans is due to social contagion. That it's just a mass delusion, a trendy fad that is rapidly spreading among young people.

Speaker 1

09:53

Just listen to Abigail Schreier, a vocal proponent of that theory, laying all of this out.

Speaker 12

09:58

If you want to see Brainwash, check out these young teenagers who suddenly decide they're transgender. They immediately cut off their families. They very often drop out of school.

Speaker 12

10:08

They very often start tattooing themselves and using drugs. And they are creating a world for themselves that is so healthy, so built around sexuality, and they lose all their hobbies. Their only hobby is being transgender.

Speaker 1

10:21

Okay. So there is a lot there, but let me just address the claim that trans kids lose all their hobbies. Because I will point out that when they try to have some, like, I don't know, school sports, for example, a bunch of asshole adults try to keep them from doing it. Shreyas sometimes dresses her argument up by using the term, rapid onset gender dysphoria, which is total horseshit.

Speaker 1

10:42

It comes from a study published by a researcher in 2018, hypothesizing that some kids identify as trans due to peer pressure. But it's worth you knowing, that study was based on a survey of parents, not actual trans kids, and it targeted parents from organizations dedicated to opposing trans ideology, which is instantly disqualifying. It's like citing a study claiming that all postal workers are terrifying hell demons sent to attack your family, but then learning that the researchers only surveyed a collection of anxious dogs. That's some heavy sampling bias that clearly skewed your results.

Speaker 1

11:18

And to be very clear, there is ample evidence of gender variance throughout human history, and as far back as historians have found evidence of trans people, they found trans children. As for the rapid rise in kids identifying as trans, As the writer Julia Serrano has pointed out, when you look at a chart of left-handedness among Americans over the 20th century, you see a massive spike when we stopped forcing kids to write with their right hand, and then a plateau. That doesn't mean everyone became left-handed, or that there was a rapid onset Southpaw dysphoria. It means people were free to be who they fucking were.

Speaker 1

11:54

And to the extent that some young people are just exploring their gender identity, how exactly is that a bad thing? Who the fuck are they hurting? Watching the conversation around this, it is hard not to feel, like, to the extent that there is any social contagion here, it is among adults who have whipped themselves into such a frenzy, that they can find themselves repeating some humiliating nonsense. Perhaps the stupidest of which is a new talking point about what accommodating children's gender identity has led to.

Speaker 5

12:23

I even heard from 1 person here recently said that a student identified as a cat and wanted a litter box.

Speaker 3

12:35

They think they're a cat. A cat. They put tails on and they demand that they have a litter box in the school.

Speaker 13

12:44

We've literally got kids who think they're cats and dogs using litter boxes in classrooms.

Speaker 14

12:50

I'm still hearing from students and parents, they believe there is

Speaker 15

12:53

a litter box in that school.

Speaker 14

12:55

And when everybody will turn the other cheek to allegations, A rumor is just a rumor until it becomes true.

Speaker 1

13:03

The fact you seem to genuinely think that that's happening is just heartbreakingly stupid. Because when you think about it, for literally 2 seconds, the whole thing falls apart. For 1, if kids were using litter boxes in class, a state representative from Minnesota would not be the 1 breaking that news to you.

Speaker 1

13:21

You would have fucking heard about it. If a kid shat in a litter box in first period, it would be the only thing anyone in that state was talking about by lunch. Minnesota would change its state motto to, Minnesota, you know, the state where that kid shits in a litter box. And notably, young people are showing up in public forums where adults are fear-mongering about letting trans kids into youth sports and bathrooms and trying to talk some sense into them.

Speaker 16

13:50

I will not let a board full of people who barely represent me tell me who I am and what I can do. Grow up and fix your behavior. I'm not worried about a trans person harassing me, I'm worried about if I'm gonna fail Spanish in my next class.

Speaker 17

14:03

I have used these bathrooms repeatedly alongside trans people and have never once felt threatened. You know who I have felt threatened by? The actions of this school board.

Speaker 18

14:15

You've embarrassed yourselves, Gardner and the state of Kansas, for your lack of knowledge in sex and gender studies. You've also highlighted the severely inadequate sex education we give our students today.

Speaker 1

14:25

Yeah, the adults in those rooms just got humiliated by teenagers, as we all know, the most brutal form of humiliation that there is. And credit to those teenagers for showing up and skipping whatever young people are doing these days, like hanging out at the vape talk store or whatever. I don't know.

Speaker 1

14:41

I'll be dead soon. So much Of the fear of and arguments against transgender people seems to flow from misinformation and misunderstanding, and maybe the biggest and most dangerous area of ignorance surrounds the concept of gender-affirming care. In recent years, 4 states have enacted bans or restrictions on youth access to it, and over a dozen more have considered similar legislation this year alone. And they have been fueled by a lack of basic knowledge about what gender-affirming care actually consists of, summed up by comments like this.

Speaker 19

15:12

If a child walked into a doctor's office and said, Doc, I want you to cut my fingers off. The doc would say, you've got some problems, kid. We need to refer you to a psychiatrist.

Speaker 19

15:22

If the same child walks into that doctor's office and says, Doc, I want you to cut my uterus out, the doctor would say, that doctor would say, Oh, well, you're a wonderful, brave person. You're so right. We do need to cut your uterus out as soon as possible. Let's get this young lady over to the operating room.

Speaker 1

15:40

What are you talking about? Absolutely every bit of that is unrealistic, from the fact that no 1 in this country has ever been able to have 1 conversation with a doctor without first discussing insurance, to the notion of a young child using the term doc. Why is the fictional child in this bullshit scenario using the same vocabulary as a chaotic rabbit from the 1940s?

Speaker 1

16:01

None of this makes any sense. But to hear some tell it, as soon as a child declares themselves trans, there is an immediate, irreversible surgical decision undertaken, and there just isn't. So let's break down exactly what gender-affirming care consists of, Because in younger children, it can mean nothing more than a social transition, like calling them by a new name, or giving them a new haircut, or clothing, or providing them with psychological or behavioral support. Because to be very clear, prepubescent children are not eligible for medical interventions.

Speaker 1

16:32

Now, at the onset of puberty, an adolescent and their family might consider puberty blockers, hormones that delay puberty. And importantly, if that treatment is suspended, then puberty will resume, meaning that this is reversible. Think of it like a pause button, the thing you can't do easily on the HBO Max app. Now, the next potential medical intervention is usually hormone therapy, which boosts levels of testosterone or estrogen.

Speaker 1

16:58

Opponents of gender affirming care make a lot of alarmist claims about hormone therapy, from saying that it's experimental, which it is not, to arguing that it sterilizes people. And look, for some, in specific situations, there can be risks to fertility, but for others, the effect is anticipated to be reversible if the medication is discontinued. But there is definitely an informed decision to be made there. And you will notice that none of what I've mentioned so far is surgery.

Speaker 1

17:24

But when it does come to that, some teens may be eligible, for instance, for top surgery or chest masculinization. But you should know, not only is that pretty rare, it, like all of this, would only happen after a team of medical professionals discussed all of its risks and benefits with their patient and their patient's parent or guardian, all of whom would have to sign off. It is a long, involved process, even before you get to the fact that it's also incredibly expensive, which is why working class families, families of color, and people with less resources are way less able to access it. Basically, no kid is casually dropping into an operating room because they just decided to get their uterus removed with impulsive recklessness normally associated with getting bangs.

Speaker 1

18:05

Because that is an absolutely ridiculous thing to say. And the very notion that the state would suddenly interfere in any of this is understandably infuriating for both trans kids and their parents. Just watch this mom in Arkansas, where legislators were banning, among other things, hormone therapy for young people. Describe what it did for her son, who suffered from severe depression before transitioning.

Speaker 20

18:28

I'd say like a month to 2 months in,

Speaker 9

18:31

I started seeing that kid come back, come out of his shell, talk to us more, laugh. What did that feel like as a mom? It was like, that's it.

Speaker 9

18:39

This has been the answer all along. Why would anybody want to take that away from them? There's no reason why you should be butting in to my care for my child.

Speaker 5

18:51

What do

Speaker 8

18:51

you want to say to these legislators? Fuck you.

Speaker 1

18:55

Right. Right. Because transitioning isn't taking your kid away from you. In some cases, it can be giving you your kid back.

Speaker 1

19:03

This is not 1 of those instances where it is okay to butt into someone's care for their child. This isn't Pig Pen. And by the way, do you need help, Pig Pen? Blink your filthy eyes if you need help, Pig Pen.

Speaker 1

19:17

So, the benefits of providing care are immense, and the risks of withholding it are dire. A survey of around 28, 000 trans people found that of those who wanted hormone therapy and didn't receive it, 58% reported suicidal thoughts in a given year, which is why the 3 major professional associations of child and adolescent doctors, psychologists, and psychiatrists have endorsed gender-affirming care and condemned efforts to deny it. And you may have seen or heard from a small subset of people who detransitioned. But it is worth knowing, such cases are rare and highly individualized.

Speaker 1

19:52

Studies show an average of just 2 percent of people who transition express regret, and that the vast majority of those who have opted to detransition did so not because of changes in their gender identity, but due to external factors such as stigma and lack of social support. And look, I could keep reading you stats and studies. I do, after all, love doing that. Or I could just let you watch this boy talk about what it felt like to have someone actually see him for who he was.

Speaker 4

20:19

Dylan explained how as early as fourth grade, he'd had confusing feelings that stretched on until his teenage years.

Speaker 13

20:27

I really wanted to cut my hair, like, really bad. And So when I did that, that felt really good. And then I held the door for somebody and they said, thank you, sir.

Speaker 13

20:36

And I was like, oh yeah, that. Yeah, that. This little thing? Little thing.

Speaker 13

20:41

That sir put words to how I was feeling and I was like, oh, yeah, that felt nice.

Speaker 1

20:46

Yeah, that's incredible. For some, a haircut is just a routine activity where you go to your barber, ask for the business in the front, business in the back, and leave. But for a trans kid, it can be a life-changing experience.

Speaker 1

20:58

That boy is currently suing his state's AG in a trial that starts tomorrow. And he's not the only trans kid who's found himself forced to become an activist. Remember Kai from earlier? She's now 11 years old, and she went to the Texas state legislature last year to speak out against bills that would ban doctors and parents from providing gender-affirming care to young people, and she fucking crushed it there.

Speaker 7

21:21

Hello, my name is Kai Shapley. I love ballet, math, science, and geology. I spend my free time with my cats, chickens, FaceTiming my friends, and dreaming of when I will finally meet Dolly Parton.

Speaker 7

21:35

I do not like spending my free time asking adults to make good choices. It just, it makes me sad that some politicians use trans kids like me to get votes from people who hate me just because I exist. God made me. God loves me for who I am, and God does not make mistakes.

Speaker 1

21:56

She's awesome, right? I wholeheartedly agree with Almost, almost everything she says there, though, in the interest of fairness, God does make mistakes. If he didn't, how would you explain goblin sharks?

Speaker 1

22:09

I mean, just look at this fucking guy. He looks like an eel wearing a shark costume that doesn't quite fit. A sick eel. Ehh!

Speaker 1

22:17

Look at this mess. He looks like he's going, ehh! If God doesn't make mistakes, how do you justify the existence of this stupid creep who looks like a child trying to draw a xenomorph from memory? Again, I support Kai with my whole heart, but to say God doesn't make mistakes is just not true, Kai.

Speaker 1

22:33

He does, and they look like this. Ehh! And look, look, I am glad that Kai is advocating for herself, but if a child has to be an activist, we have already failed that child. Because she should just get to be a kid and enjoy her life.

Speaker 1

22:50

And I'm actually glad that you got to hear her talk about ballet and FaceTime and Dolly Parton. Because there is something that too often gets left out of these stories, and that is joy. While opponents of trans rights will say that these kids are either a menace or brainwashed. Their defenders will often gravitate towards the same sad statistics that I've shown you tonight of depression and suicide.

Speaker 1

23:10

And while that is understandable on 1 level, it's the most devastating harm that can be inflicted by these bills, it's clearly not the whole story, which is that when supported, trans kids can experience full, vibrant lives because trans people are not by default unhappier or more prone to suffering than everyone else. That is something that we are putting on them. As that boy that you just saw, who is suing his state AG will point out, he's got other teenage boy stuff going on too.

Speaker 13

23:39

I'm 15, I shouldn't have to do this. I shouldn't have to sue the state of Arkansas because they are trying to tell me how I can and can't live. I have my collection of hats and my trans flag that I got for Christmas.

Speaker 4

23:54

This soft-spoken teenager is more comfortable

Speaker 13

23:57

in his bedroom. He's a bearded dragon. Come here.

Speaker 4

24:00

Surrounded by his fish and bearded dragon lizards.

Speaker 13

24:03

And so he's got a missing foot and a crooked tail. And, you know, he's just... He needed an extra bit of love.

Speaker 1

24:10

Right. Dylan should get to be a kid and spend his time with his collection of hats and feeding his bearded dragons whatever the fuck it is that bearded dragons eat. I wouldn't know I've never owned a bearded dragon, although I would probably get along great with that 1, because I too am a love-starved, pale creature with a lopsided ass. All the Kids we've seen tonight shouldn't need to be activists.

Speaker 1

24:34

They should get to dress how they want, go to the right bathroom for them, and play the sports they want to play. Remember Mac? When he got to college, he was placed on the men's wrestling team. And just look at How happy that made him.

Speaker 4

24:46

All I ever wanted to do was wrestle men. And now that I am... It's freaking dope.

Speaker 18

24:56

It's freaking dope.

Speaker 1

24:59

Yeah, it is freaking dope. Do you see that joy in his face? Hold that in your mind going forward.

Speaker 1

25:05

Not because the road ahead isn't rough, but because as the trans actress Michaela J. Rodriguez points out, it is important not to lose sight of what is at the end of it.

Speaker 21

25:13

When it comes to legislatives and laws being passed, We have to constantly stay diligent and make sure that they don't get passed and call up as much as we can. But I think also while doing so, we have to live our lives and show people how happy we are. We can't live in the sorrow, though there is many struggles when it comes to us.

Speaker 21

25:32

In the times of adversity, and in the times of despair, I choose hope and joy, and I let those shower all over those haters and people who don't see it fit for us. And it usually wins. It has won.

Speaker 1

25:45

Exactly. Hope and joy are crucial here. They are the fuel that powers the ongoing fight for equality. And while there is a lot of fear and uncertainty right now, it is worth remembering that progress, while not always linear, is always possible.

Speaker 1

26:00

Because we are working toward the goal of every trans kid knowing that they are loved, valued, and indispensable as Dolly Parton-loving, weird pet-owning, freaking dope individuals. And never, ever going back to a point where anyone feels that if they appear on TV, they have to hide behind a fucking plant.

Speaker 5

26:30

You