This week on The Liberty Alert, join Dr. Gregory Seltz and his guest, President of the Charlotte Lozier Institute, Charles Donovan. Pres. Donovan has served as Legislative Director of the National Right to Life Committee, leader of the Family Research Council, and most recently has been Senior Research Fellow in Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation. Chuck, and fellow guest, Focus on the Family’s Tim Goeglein talk with Dr. Seltz about how Roe has created polarization and vitriol in our society and how the Pro-Life message is the antidote whose time has come. Listen in for the legal, the cultural, and the faith perspective on these vital issues….as we continue to grow in the wisdom needed to be 2 Kingdom citizens for the country we love. Join us!

The following program is sponsored by evangelical life ministries.

Welcome to Liberty action alert with Greg sells, sponsored by our friends at the Lutheran center for religious Liberty here in Washington, DC, a program that cuts through the chaos and confusion in the culture today by talking to kingdom, citizenship, bold biblical principles for a robust public Christian life. And now your host, Dr. Greg Seltz

Good day, good day, Washington DC, and friends of the program all across the country. I'm Greg, Seltz welcome to the Liberty action alert where every week we try to cut through the noise, take on the issues, especially the public issues that matter to you. People of faith today, we're talking about the growing trend of medicating our children with puberty blockers, um, and cross sex hormones without parental consent or even parental knowledge. And this stuff is happening in our schools. And, and we're also looking at the trends which are very concerning, cuz they're not helping. They're actually, this kind of stuff is hurting. And so to talk about that, we have on the program today, senior research fellow from heritage foundation center for educational policy, Dr. J green. Welcome Dr. Green.

Thanks for having me on the show.

And also Tim Galine from focus on the family. Good friend of L the LCR L vice president of government affairs. Welcome Tim.

Thank you so much, Greg. It's great to be with you.

All right, Jay. Um, let's get right to the heart of this in, in your research. What are you seeing concerning this growing trend to hoist puberty blockers cross-ex hormones on our children without parental consent or knowledge and, and why is this more likely compounding the problems rather than offering solutions stuff?

So there there's a central claim that is driving a lot of this, which is, um, the claim that if we don't make puberty blockers and prospect hormones, widely and readily available, that kids will kill themselves. Right? And the, the reason why this claim is so important is that it's a form of emotional blackmail. It's a threat. And the only way you could get parents on board for doing things that their natural instincts tell them are not good ideas is if they fear that something worse could happen, right? The only thing that's worse than them really is that the kid will died and they'll go to extraordinary lengths to save their kids' lives, including reconciling themselves to things that they otherwise would find deeply objectionable, um, and unhelpful for their children. But at least their children will be alive. And so I was interested in what the empirical support was for this claim.

right. And as it turns out, it's a handful of studies, three studies that actually look at the relationship between these drugs and thoughts about suicide. Uh, using a comparison with just three studies two by Jack turban, who is a led by Jack turban, who is a, a Stanford medical school professor and one by the Trevor project, which is a trans advocacy group. And, uh, all three of these studies are really horrible. They're really weak studies. Um, and there are a variety of things about them that are weak, that we can go into. But the heart of it is that they are not, what's called random assignment experiments. That is, uh, the kinds of, of experiments where people by chance get the drugs and people by chance don't and then we compare their outcomes over time. Those kinds of experiments are necessary for the FDA to approve any drug in the United States for initial use.

Okay, these drugs were approved, but not for this use, they were approved for other purposes, right? And they're now being used off label as it's called. And so the kinds of evidence being produced by Jack turban and the Trevor project are, are not randomized experiments. Instead they simply compare adults who identify as transgender, who sought the, who say they sought these drugs as teenagers. And then it compares those who sought and got them to those who sought and did not get them. And one of the huge problems with this is that one of the criteria for getting the drugs is that you're supposed to be psychologically stable. So the control group is overrepresented with people who were denied access to these drugs, cuz they were not psychologically stable enough at the time they sought them. And then it would be unsurprising if they think about suicide more later on when surveyed. And so that's, that's all that their research shows. So, so I saw how bad the research was and then I thought of a better way to get at it. Not a perfect way, a a, a perfect way would be a randomized experiment, right. Uh, or a more perfect way. Um, but I did something better. And what I found is that rather than being protective against suicide, these drugs actually appear to be exacerbating suicide

Rates. Okay. Wow. And see, you know, to me, again, it, it seems like were gonna create a crisis. Uh, then we're gonna do a bait and switch on what these drugs actually do and don't do. And then we're gonna test them out on children who are confused but, and, and we're gonna, we're gonna test that stuff out in an environment where their parents are disconnected from these kids. I mean, this just doesn't seem like the right way to do anything. And Tim, that's my question to you. I mean, what's going on in our society when, before you had to notify parents and get permission just to give 'em an aspirin. Okay. And now we're talking about children getting drugs that could radically change their, their biology and their, their sociology and all these things. We're even talking about trips to the abortion clinic, all this stuff without parental knowledge, without parental consent, what's going on in, in our culture, because you know, you're from focus on the family, seems like they're targeting families and seems like they're targeting children. Well, well,

One of the things that, uh, I'm obliged to say right at the, the, uh, top is that focus on the family, uh, really appreciates and esteems Jay, and the research that he's done, because the beautiful thing about Jay's research and what the heritage foundation does is it doesn't offer a bunch of opinions, right? Uh, what it does is empirically, it goes to the data it looks at, uh, at, at empirical research and hard data. And then rightly heritage Jay, his colleagues say, what does this actually mean? And so it's very important for people and especially parents who care deeply, uh, about, uh, these issues. And we are talking about millions of Americans now that they go and look at the kind of research that the heritage foundation does with such singularity. The larger question, however, is who ultimately is in charge of America's children. That's it?

And that's a very large number in a very large complex continental nation of about 350 million people. So I think when we remove the family structure, when we fundamentally say that almost a third of American boys are not living with their biological fathers, then you have certain things that occur in cultures like ours. And I think, I think, uh, that this kind of thing that we're talking about today needs to be understood, not in a vacuum because nature of horrors, a vacuum we've learned that. Yeah. But that particular things happen in culture when you scramble the egg of the natural nuclear family.

Well. I mean, I think it's being driven by a really small, but incredibly vocal and well organized, uh, uh, group motivated by a gender ideology, not by any kind of empirical science and uh, and it's largely affecting girls. Uh, so fathers are really important for, for daughters.

That's my point. I wanted to get to that point too. Exactly.

And so look, um, it's tough growing up as a girl, uh, there are, uh, horrible, uh, social pressures on them, high rates of depression and anxiety and girls look for solutions to these problems. And in the past some very unproductive solutions that they had found included things like eating disorders or cutting, right. And when the adults in their lives would detect this, the adults would get together and recognize this as a problem, not as a solution to the underlying depression. Uh, and they would look for ways of solving the underlying issues. The same kind of phenomenon is going on now instead of cutting or eating disorder. These, the many of the same girls, uh, with underlying problems of depression and anxiety are being told by gender ideologues that their solutions are that they're can be found in the fact that they're in the wrong body.

Mm-hmm um, and, uh, rather than, uh, the adults in their lives at school that teachers, the guidance counselor saying, this is a problem the adults need to get together and, and fix this. Uh, instead they're being told, they should affirm it and say good for you being your authentic self. Um, and, uh, it leaves untreated the underlying issues that these, that these children have, uh, and it offers them a false solution that does not address their, their problem and creates other new problems for them, uh, that including, you know, irreversible harm, uh, over their whole lives. So that I think is, is, and this social transition is the first step. So the, I think a lot of the recruiting into this actually comes from peers. Girls are influencing other girls off and online mm-hmm , but then if the adults at school who should be detecting this and alerting parents and coordinating all of the adults in the child's life for solutions, and right now they're, they're actually exacerbating the problem and keeping it secret from parents.

So one of the things we need to do is push a parent bill of rights. So the parents are never cut out of this process. Sure are always informed and involved and have to consent to any kind of counseling, including gender counseling that occurs in school. And I think if we get parents involved in this process require that they'd be involved and get them as the leader of the team of adults, this problem fizzles out, because it requires new recruits all the time to keep it going. Yeah. And if they don't have new recruits, I, I think it, it, it fades away. Well,

I hope that's the case. You know, the one thing I worry about a little bit with, especially with the public school kind of stranglehold on a lot of these issues is that, you know, the, the unions behind the public schools are all in favor of this kind of stuff. And, and, you know, they can kinda lock the parents out. I mean, we've got your money, we've got your cash. You gotta cut a school here unless you spend extra money to go to a private school or parochial school. So you're, you're thinking though that, you know, if we can get parents involved in this, you really think that, uh, the pushback will be significant enough.

We all hear stories about how parents sometimes are the drivers of, you know, saying that their, that their child, uh, you know, expressed that they were in the wrong body even before they could speak or something like that. And these, these, these are very unusual cases,

Right?

In most cases, the parents are victims here, along with the kids. They are not the perpetrators of this. They're not the ones pushing it. They're the ones grudgingly being dragged along with threats that if they don't do so, their kids will die. And they also only get to that point after it's been kept secret from them by the school for quite a long time. So, right. So the parents are victims here and we need to empower the parents to regain control over raising of their own children. And if they do so, they're very unlikely to inflict nonsense on them.

Great. Well, Tim, you, and I see this all the time on the hill, um, you know, doc green has just already told us, you know, it's a very, very small, very, very unusual case is that actually our foundational to this, but somehow, uh, it crisis has created, we, we whipped this anecdotal example into like, everyone's going through all of this. And the next thing you know, we've got public policy, that's lowering standards and allowing whomever's working these things in our schools to start operating on our children. For me, we always gotta come back to things like fundamentals. I mean, if you've got law, that's disenfranchising families and parents from their children that is bad law, uh, honor, your father and your mother. So is it, is it a matter of, we just gotta get back to some fundamentals, people have enough common sense. They may not know all the issues that are going on with this stuff, but they have enough common sense to realize. I love my, I love my children way more than any doctor will. Is that where we gotta go?

Yeah, I think the answer is yes. And yes. And I, and I do categorically agree with, uh, Jay's analysis and agree very much with the, with the kind of conclusions that Jay has drawn. I do think that the parental, uh, bill of rights that Jay, uh, mentions will be, I trust an excellent, uh, catalyst for so much of the practical application of what we're discussing here. Uh, I'd like to, uh, add if I may, uh, a note of genuine optimism that I think is also empirical, which is that I think that we are witnessing all around the nation, the best kind of parental rebellion and the Commonwealth of Virginia. We had a former, uh, governor, uh, who wanted his old job back. And one of his appeals was that, you know, parents essentially, uh, should stand down when it comes to, uh, curricular and other decisions that were being, uh, decided in, uh, in public schools and that really teachers and administrators, experts, you don't have to, yes, experts ought to be, to be left to these, uh, you know, to make these decisions. And just as you snap your fingers, a kind of wildfire began, uh, burning, not through kind of historically conservative or Republican or G O P or whatever the application is onclaves, but actually affluent educated suburbs, which often, uh, were, uh, bluish. So I, I don't think, and this is more good news that I don't think it is a necessarily a right left, you know, kind of applicable.

No, I don't. Yeah.

Uh, question in the public square, uh, I think the good news is Jay is outlined is that, uh, very often, uh, parents and their children are, are victims being led by a relatively small, noisy influential group, which is really recommending very bad policies. So I'm, I'm, I'm equally hopeful that the parental rebellion that we're seeing is going to have a practical effect and will begin to take head on many of the things that Jay is discussing.

Well, uh, Jay, just to let you know, Tim is our resident positive thinker on all issues. I mean, he's always hopeful that we are just turning the corner and as I am too, I just think I wanna make sure our people know that they have to roll up their sleeves on this though. I mean, they really do. They cannot, this has gotta stop when it comes to our children, because when you see, I, I just think of it this way. Uh, when, when I, when someone says, well, this is what your child needs, Mike, first question is, will you be there on the Saturday night when they're weeping in the home and, and at their bedside, will you be there when your policy doesn't help, but hurts them? And the answer to that is, of course they won't be there because they're not going to be that concerned about even bad.

Parents are more concerned than a lot of these people, uh, when it comes to their what's happening in their children's lives. So I love what you say, parental right rights. Um, uh, that's, that's the first way, but you also talked about tightening the criteria and the reason want to bring that up too, is we're seeing this in the culture today. We're tightening gun rights, you know, they can't get it till they're 21. That's what people want. I mean, we gotta be able to lo tighten those things so that the wrong people don't get it. Uh, same thing with drinking laws. I mean, some of that's starting to go back up and yet in this case, they're loosening, uh, these things so that this can happen to children who are in a lot of ways, just confused. So it talk about why that's also part of the solution.

Sure. I mean, a number of countries, uh, that kind of were earlier and experiencing all of this, then we in the United States, uh, so in Sweden, Finland, the UK, they started, uh, puberty blockers, and Crosstex hormones as an intervention for what's called gender dysphoria, um, several years earlier than in the United States. And they began noticing all the problems that we're beginning to notice and they're tightening their criteria. Now they're raising minimum age, uh, tightening eligibility requirements. And again, the important thing about, about tightening the requirements and raising the min minimum age for accessing these drugs is that it just takes the steam out of, out of this craze. It's, it is a craze that requires constant new fuel to keep it going. And if you just slow it down, get people to think about it a little bit longer. Um, see if you can work on other underlying issues that people have. These things often resolve themselves without the need for resorting to any kind of medication. And, and so I think every effort we can make to slow this down, uh, by getting parents involved and by raising, uh, requirements for accessing these drugs is, is going to slow the momentum and turn this corner that Tim is so optimistic, wild. And so am I?

Yeah, well, so I heard, I heard the, I heard the optimism from both of you, so I, I wanted to multiply it today. Uh

Well, yeah. May, may, may pick up on, may pick up on the second part of what Jay,

Go ahead, go

Ahead. Shared with us because I, I think it is really important, which is the following. I think when we are, as we've done here, when we are, uh, appealing on a rational basis and when we are appealing to the better angels of the nature, right. That, that is inherent in, in good parenting. I, I think that that is remarkably attractive. And I think so often in discussions around topics like we're discussing here, so often the temptation is the kind of knuckle in a chest approach, you know, that we can, uh, just kind of rattle you into seeing a particular view.

Well, absolutely. And I would just add one more thing. Um, I think parental choice, I think that's, that's really gotta be the ultimate answer to this too, because that also breaks the, the power of those who have kind of control of what goes on in our public schools, but that's a topic for another day. But, but again, when you think about these things equal access to good education, a good education for the sake of our children, what is best for our children. And that's what this is about. And so even all these solutions, whether tightening these things or, or bringing it to the parents, IJ, I love what you talked about there. I kept thinking that's the ultrasound, you know, slowing it down and showing what's really going on. And then once the people see it, they go, wait a minute, wait a minute. I wanna do what's best for my children.

The same thing happened like in the whole abortion debate. When you finally show the child in the womb, most peoples just say that, oh my gosh, that's my baby. So it's kind of a similar thing. And I think that your wisdom here and your research here is so, so very important. And so thank you for being on the program today to, to show us again, kind of the sh that's out there, where people are saying, well, if you don't do this, your kid could die. Well, you're pointing out. No, let's not be, let's not be pushed by those fears. Let's be pushed by good data. Let's be pushed by. What's good for our children. And, and then let's make sure that the families and the children are making good decisions for each other. And, and that's where you, your data's pushing us. Isn't that, is that correct?

That's exactly right. Let's put families, parents in charge of the education and healthcare of their own children. Right. And on average, that's gonna be way better than if other people are making decisions on behalf of your children.

Well said, well, thanks again for being on the program today, Jay, and bringing this good information to us and also for bringing us a, a good perspective on this. I think the truth is finally getting its its own hearing and, um, it it's winning as it blesses our children and our parents. So thanks again for being here.

Thank

You and Tim, thanks for being again with us. It's a real pleasure. Thank you so much. Thanks for tuning in today to get to know our LC LDC work better. Check out our website@lclfreedom.org contain there. Our resources to empower your public square dynamic discipleship, or check out our weekly word from the center opinion piece every Friday at facebook.com/l C R L freedom till next time, God bless you. Always I'm Greg sells have a great week.

You've been listening to Liberty action alert with Greg Seltz executive director of the Lutheran center for religious Liberty in Washington, DC. This program has been brought to you by the Lutheran center for religious Liberty.