The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #1895

00:00:01.000 Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out!

00:00:04.000 The Joe Rogan Experience.

00:00:06.000 Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day!

00:00:12.000 Hello, Matt Walsh.

00:00:13.000 Joe Rogan, nice to meet you.

00:00:15.000 Yeah, you too.

00:00:16.000 Officially.

00:00:17.000 Um, your documentary's, it's...

00:00:21.000 I can't tell you how many people have asked me if I've seen it.

00:00:25.000 I think it's one of the most eye-opening things that's ever been done on this whole gender confusion thing that we're going through right now in our culture.

00:00:38.000 And it was just like one of those things where I had to watch.

00:00:41.000 So many people were like, you have to see this.

00:00:43.000 You have to see this.

00:00:45.000 And I expected it to be like, I thought it would be like arguments with people or be very, you know, very confrontational.

00:00:55.000 But instead, I think you did it masterfully.

00:00:57.000 What you did is you just let these people explain themselves the way they would talk.

00:01:04.000 If you weren't there the way they would talk to people who agree with what they're saying and by not pushing back I think you allowed them to let all the crazy out and It's like It's just it's hard to describe to people that aren't aware of what's going on of how wild this stuff has gotten But first of all tell me what was the process of making this like how long did it take?

00:01:32.000 What was the motivation behind it?

00:01:36.000 Thanks for talking about it so much on your podcast, by the way.

00:01:38.000 It's been a huge boost for us.

00:01:41.000 I had this idea You'd really have to go back several years because it occurred to me maybe back in, I don't know, 2017 that when this transgender stuff was starting to really gain mainstream traction, which I think happened really, that was like maybe when Bruce Jenner became Caitlyn Jenner.

00:01:59.000 That was the moment that I think it exploded onto the mainstream.

00:02:03.000 Not when it began, but it exploded onto the mainstream.

00:02:06.000 Right around that time, it sort of occurred to me that the people promoting this stuff have a problem, which is that We're supposed to accept someone like Bruce as a woman, but then what exactly does that mean?

00:02:21.000 What are we accepting him as?

00:02:22.000 He says, I identify as a woman.

00:02:23.000 Well, what are you identifying as?

00:02:25.000 If you're a woman, I know what a woman was before, but if now we're including a guy like Bruce, then what is a woman now?

00:02:34.000 And so I started asking this question.

00:02:35.000 It was really basic.

00:02:36.000 Just like, what is a woman?

00:02:37.000 What are you trying to say about womanhood now?

00:02:39.000 And I couldn't get anyone to answer it.

00:02:41.000 I mean, and mostly it's just on Twitter, you know, and challenging someone on the left.

00:02:45.000 Just give me a definition.

00:02:47.000 What's your definition of the word?

00:02:50.000 None of them would do it.

00:02:51.000 So at a certain point, I thought, well, we have to find a way to go out and put this question in front of them.

00:02:57.000 And that's sort of where the idea for the documentary came from.

00:03:00.000 And we knew going in that we wanted two things, well, three things.

00:03:04.000 One is we have the mission behind it, the message that we want to get across.

00:03:10.000 But we also want it to be a piece of entertainment, you know, because a lot of conservative documentaries, not all of them, but many of them are just, you feel like you're We're good to go.

00:03:36.000 It would be satisfying for me emotionally, but it just wouldn't...

00:03:39.000 It wouldn't prove anything other than what people already know, which is that two sides yell at each other.

00:03:44.000 So we wanted to give sort of gender ideology a chance to hang itself by its own incoherences, which I think is what happened.

00:03:53.000 I think you definitely accomplished that.

00:03:55.000 And it's so funny that that question, what is a woman, is so difficult to answer.

00:04:01.000 And then they'll say, well, someone who identifies as a woman...

00:04:05.000 And you say, well, what does that mean, though?

00:04:07.000 And then they want to just stop talking.

00:04:10.000 What was the politician that actually had you leave his office?

00:04:15.000 Yeah, we had a couple that stormed out, but only one made it on camera.

00:04:19.000 That was Mark Takano, a congressman in California.

00:04:24.000 And he's one of the advocates.

00:04:26.000 There's a reason we chose all these people.

00:04:28.000 It wasn't just random.

00:04:29.000 He's an advocate.

00:04:30.000 He's not just a Democrat politician.

00:04:31.000 He's an advocate for the Equality Act.

00:04:34.000 Which is this push by Democrats to kind of federalize all this stuff on a national level so that all across the country, for example, men have the right to use a women's restroom and opens up all the sports teams and all that, just settles it, takes it away from the states.

00:04:48.000 So he's an advocate of that, and he's a good guy to talk to.

00:04:51.000 And he sat there for about 30 minutes, especially when I'm asking him the easy questions, and he would give his filibustering Answer.

00:05:01.000 But then once I started asking real questions, that's when he got really uncomfortable.

00:05:04.000 You could even see in the film, he keeps looking over my shoulder, and that's because his aide is standing right behind my back the entire time.

00:05:13.000 But she never...

00:05:14.000 I kept expecting her to cut it off and shut it down, but she never did.

00:05:18.000 And eventually he just had enough of it and he got up and left.

00:05:21.000 But the thing that made him leave was I didn't even get to ask him the what is a woman question.

00:05:24.000 I asked him...

00:05:25.000 I asked him...

00:05:28.000 You know, there are males who want to use the women's restroom or the women's locker room, but then there are females who don't want to see an individual with a penis in the locker room.

00:05:37.000 So you've got two competing claims here, two people who have feelings, the women who feel like they don't want to see this.

00:05:43.000 It makes them feel bad to see it.

00:05:44.000 And then the men who it makes them feel bad if they can't use the restroom.

00:05:47.000 So who wins out?

00:05:48.000 How do you balance that?

00:05:49.000 I think it's a fair question.

00:05:50.000 It's a very good question.

00:05:51.000 And that's when he just got up and said the interview is over and walked out.

00:05:54.000 In those scenarios, this is where women, particularly feminists who have always been hardcore lefties, they're finding themselves in this ideological quagmire.

00:06:07.000 They're feminists.

00:06:09.000 They're pro-women's rights, they're on the left, and they're not anti-trans, but then all of a sudden this is getting imposed into their world and they're told they have to accept it, or they're transphobic, regardless of this person's sexual history.

00:06:24.000 Like, if this person is a sexual abuser, if this person is, like, a literally registered sex offender, They can go into certain places, dress like a woman, and use women's spaces.

00:06:38.000 It's a wee spa case in Los Angeles.

00:06:40.000 Yes, that's exactly what it is.

00:06:41.000 I mean, there's so many instances of people gaming the system, right?

00:06:46.000 There's the prisoner who went to jail and immediately decided they were trans and impregnated two prisoners while they're in there.

00:06:53.000 Yeah, that's happening all over the country, by the way.

00:06:54.000 These women have no...

00:06:56.000 You want to talk about giving a voice to the voiceless?

00:06:58.000 These women have no voice.

00:06:59.000 They're in prison.

00:07:00.000 Who are they supposed to talk to?

00:07:01.000 And they're getting locked in.

00:07:04.000 Can you imagine that?

00:07:05.000 You're a woman.

00:07:06.000 And many women who are in jail are in jail for nonviolent offenses.

00:07:10.000 And now they're locked in a cage 24 hours a day with men.

00:07:16.000 Many of them are sex offenders.

00:07:17.000 Well, that guy was a murderer.

00:07:18.000 I mean, that guy had murdered his foster care father.

00:07:22.000 And the cops who went to the crime scene said it was the worst murder they'd ever seen.

00:07:28.000 He'd been stabbed from his face down to his ankles.

00:07:32.000 Like, he'd just been stabbed an insane amount of times.

00:07:36.000 Just a bloodbath.

00:07:37.000 This is the person that just decided, right after getting arrested, they identify as a woman.

00:07:43.000 You know, the other thing to keep in mind, too, is that Yeah, there are men who are just gaming the system, as you point out.

00:07:49.000 I think in prison that happens a lot because they'd rather be in a women's prison than a men's prison.

00:07:54.000 But also in general, like there are different categories of people who transition.

00:08:01.000 And we kind of talk about them like they're all the same, but they're not.

00:08:04.000 And you can kind of break it down by age.

00:08:06.000 Like there's the very young children, a five-year-old, and we hear that, oh, my five-year-old is trans.

00:08:12.000 That's a thousand percent the parent just deciding they're going to do that to the child because no child even knows what that is.

00:08:17.000 So you have to suggest that to them.

00:08:19.000 Then you have the adolescent girls and Abigail Schreier has written about this in her great book.

00:08:22.000 And that's the social contagion.

00:08:24.000 They pick it up from society.

00:08:25.000 But then there's the older men who are adults and decide one day that they're women and And for so many of them, this is a fetish.

00:08:35.000 I mean, this is like the thing we're not allowed to say or acknowledge, but it's totally true.

00:08:38.000 That for most of these older men who decide that I'm a woman, it's a fetish.

00:08:42.000 It's autogynephilia.

00:08:43.000 They're enchanted by the idea of themselves as women.

00:08:47.000 And so now we have to participate in your fetish.

00:08:52.000 Like, you get off on the idea of being seen as a woman, and I have to be a participant in that.

00:08:57.000 It's really a...

00:08:59.000 It's really degrading to all of us, you know, that we're all being forced into this.

00:09:04.000 Well, it's always been a psychological condition.

00:09:07.000 It's always been known as being like a psychiatric condition, like it's a mental health issue.

00:09:12.000 Right.

00:09:13.000 And now it's being accepted as a gender identity issue, where it was always just like a weird kink that people had.

00:09:21.000 And now, again, regardless of whether or not this person's a sex offender, a registered sex offender, Repeated sex offender.

00:09:28.000 You have to accept this.

00:09:30.000 Otherwise, you're a bigot.

00:09:32.000 It's just this rigid adherence to ideology is so cult-like.

00:09:37.000 It's so fucking hands-made tale.

00:09:39.000 It's so wild that people are just wholesale adopting this.

00:09:44.000 And this is not to deny that there's people that are trans.

00:09:47.000 I've met people that are trans.

00:09:49.000 It exists in nature.

00:09:51.000 I mean, you occasionally, guys will shoot a buck And they'll find out that it's actually a female with antlers.

00:09:57.000 Nature's weird, right?

00:09:58.000 I think nature does put people, make humans, for whatever reason, that really feel like they should have been born a female or should have been born a male.

00:10:10.000 But that's not all of what's happening.

00:10:13.000 And in our desire to be compassionate and to have care for these people and to love these people and respect these people, we're opening the door to all this chaos.

00:10:26.000 And I think that's what you highlight so well in this film.

00:10:31.000 And it's just, it's so strange to me how so many people on the left People that I, you know, before this, I generally respected their opinion.

00:10:40.000 Just buy into it wholesale and will spout out things as if they're facts about how much this helps people and keeps people from killing themselves and helps kids.

00:10:52.000 But it's not true.

00:10:54.000 Yeah, it's not true.

00:10:54.000 And the suicide stuff is so, it's just so sinister because this is the emotional blackmail that they tell parents.

00:11:02.000 That, you know, your daughter identifies as your son now, and then the classic line, the now classic line is, would you rather have a dead daughter or a living son?

00:11:12.000 Like, you have to affirm this or your daughter's going to kill himself.

00:11:15.000 And so many parents, especially, you know, you go back a couple years when this conversation wasn't being had on a At a very visible level, they don't know what to do.

00:11:23.000 They're panicked.

00:11:24.000 And they've just been told by a mental health provider who they trust that if they don't go along with their child's delusion, that their child's going to commit suicide.

00:11:32.000 So I can understand when you're told that, that you're going to kind of panic.

00:11:37.000 But it's just, it's not true.

00:11:39.000 The evidence, in fact, tells us the opposite, that suicidality, we cover this in the film, Scott Nugent mentions it, that The only reliable long-term study we have on this shows that suicidality is the highest years after transition.

00:11:53.000 That's the highest point for suicidality among trans people.

00:11:56.000 But the other problem, too, is that there are a couple of maybe reliable long-term studies, but there aren't that many because we haven't done this To people on this scale ever before in human history.

00:12:06.000 So the current crop of especially trans, quote-unquote trans kids, they're the guinea pigs.

00:12:12.000 We're experimenting on them.

00:12:14.000 And they're making a lot of the health care providers are making a lot of promises about how this is going to turn out when they can't possibly know this because we've never done it before.

00:12:23.000 Well, that's one of the more sinister aspects of it for me is the way they're encouraging hormone blockers.

00:12:29.000 And hormone transition for people that are going through puberty or haven't gone through puberty.

00:12:34.000 We don't have any long-term studies on this and now they're finding that these hormone blockers aren't innocuous and that they cause a lot of health problems.

00:12:43.000 And they're saying this now out in the open when people have been for years, the last few years, promoting this as if it's a pause button.

00:12:53.000 And it's just absurd, because that's not how human biology works.

00:12:57.000 I think there's a lot of what they claim.

00:13:00.000 Intuitively, it doesn't make any sense.

00:13:01.000 It defies common sense, even before you look at the data.

00:13:04.000 And then you look at the data and you realize that, yeah, it doesn't make any sense.

00:13:06.000 But even before that, what's being claimed?

00:13:12.000 A child in a state of suspended animation where they're kind of lingering on pause.

00:13:18.000 That's not how the human body works.

00:13:19.000 What you can do is try to suppress the human body's normal natural functions.

00:13:25.000 But when you do that, it's a trade-off.

00:13:27.000 There are consequences.

00:13:28.000 There are always consequences.

00:13:28.000 That's how nature works.

00:13:30.000 And we also know that what are the drugs they use?

00:13:33.000 Lupron is a drug they use as a puberty blocker.

00:13:35.000 And it's just a fact that this drug, number one, to begin with is a cancer drug, originally for older men who have prostate cancer.

00:13:43.000 And they've also used it to chemically castrate sex offenders.

00:13:47.000 I think in Georgia they've used it for that purpose.

00:13:50.000 So it's an actual chemical castration drug used off-label for 10-year-old, 11-year-old, 12-year-old kids.

00:13:58.000 With no long-term data.

00:14:00.000 Right.

00:14:01.000 Because there can't be.

00:14:02.000 They're promoting it as, this is the silver bullet.

00:14:04.000 This is going to fix you.

00:14:05.000 Right.

00:14:06.000 This is the thing that's going to fix all your ales.

00:14:08.000 And the other thing they do is they say that, well, we don't...

00:14:15.000 Yeah, I think.

00:14:35.000 They're going to probably stay on it all the way to the surgery.

00:14:38.000 You've put them in the system.

00:14:39.000 You've put them on.

00:14:40.000 It is like a conveyor belt system, and they're most likely not going to jump off.

00:14:44.000 You start with the puberty blockers.

00:14:45.000 In almost every case, it's going to lead to hormone therapy, and then in a great many cases, they go from there to surgery.

00:14:53.000 The other thing, too, is that as they're going along with these drugs, you are taking away You're sterilizing them.

00:15:01.000 You're oftentimes permanently taking away their future fertility.

00:15:04.000 So, you know, you've taken away their capacity to, like a girl, you've made it so she'll never be able to have kids in the future.

00:15:13.000 You've already taken that from her.

00:15:14.000 She has given it up before she even could know what she's even given up.

00:15:18.000 And then for her, it's kind of a logical process.

00:15:20.000 Well, I've already given that up, so I might as well go get the double mastectomy and then all down the line.

00:15:25.000 Whew.

00:15:25.000 And then there's the euphoria that comes with taking testosterone that happens to them like almost immediately.

00:15:31.000 They have a different feeling and they go, oh, this is how I should have been all along.

00:15:34.000 Now the medicine is helping me.

00:15:37.000 It's also if someone identifies as male or identifies as female and this is just how they feel they are, what's the logical argument for starting to give them hormones that are not natural in their system?

00:15:55.000 I don't think there is a logical argument.

00:16:00.000 The only argument you ever hear from them, and I know because I've asked, is the emotional blackmail argument.

00:16:07.000 You have to do it because if you don't, they're going to kill them.

00:16:10.000 But another point about the suicide thing I want to mention is that You know, we know that trans identification has risen in the youngest generation has risen like 20 or 30 fold, right?

00:16:20.000 And what they tell us on the left is that, well, that's not social contagion.

00:16:26.000 This is just people now feel comfortable to live their truth.

00:16:29.000 So there's always been this many trans people.

00:16:31.000 It's just that in the past, they couldn't.

00:16:33.000 I think?

00:16:53.000 Mass epidemic across the world of people killing themselves in mass because they're not being affirmed as trans.

00:16:59.000 That's not what we find.

00:17:01.000 Shouldn't we see like, you know, you should be able to go back to 1850 and find millions of kids killing themselves because it turns out they were trans and not being affirmed.

00:17:10.000 But child suicide almost like didn't exist up until very recently.

00:17:15.000 It was basically unheard of.

00:17:17.000 So it's just everything they say, just when you...

00:17:21.000 Apply a little bit of common sense, it all starts to break down.

00:17:24.000 When do you think this...

00:17:26.000 Do you think it's the Caitlyn Jenner thing that shifted it?

00:17:28.000 Like, when did this become a big part of the cultural narrative?

00:17:32.000 Because I would have never imagined if you came up to me 20 years ago and said, in 20 years from now, like, gender identity will be one of the big points of contention in our culture among politics.

00:17:47.000 Yeah, I think you kind of decide where you want to start.

00:17:51.000 Because like in the film, we go back to Alfred Kinsey and John Money.

00:17:56.000 It's mid-20th century.

00:17:58.000 So these ideas were out there.

00:18:00.000 I mean, these are the guys who came up with it.

00:18:01.000 The phrase gender identity was invented by these guys.

00:18:04.000 Kinsey was a wild dude.

00:18:06.000 Yeah, he was.

00:18:07.000 They both were.

00:18:08.000 They were degenerate pedophiles.

00:18:11.000 And it's clear in both, especially Kinsey, it's pretty clear that he had his sexual fetishes and fascinations, and he wanted to prove to himself that he's not weird because everyone's like this.

00:18:23.000 And so he goes out and he declares, I think he said that 10% of adult males are gay or something like that.

00:18:30.000 And then you find out that he's mostly surveying prisoners and sex offenders and people like that.

00:18:36.000 He's not going to just a normal intersection of Americans.

00:18:40.000 So you go back to those guys, but I think...

00:18:45.000 What's the moment when all this exploded into the mainstream?

00:18:48.000 It was like seeded into our institutions.

00:18:50.000 And then there was a moment when it all became mainstream.

00:18:52.000 And I don't know if Bruce Jenner is the definite starting point, but I do think that that was a pivotal moment.

00:19:01.000 It was a pivotal moment, not just because now the media is celebrating this, but also because...

00:19:06.000 But conservatives, you know, had an opportunity right then and there to take a stand against this, to recognize it for what it is, for the threat that it is, and to take a firm stand.

00:19:16.000 And I think so many conservatives didn't because they just imagined that this is – either they don't want to get in trouble, be called a transphobe, or they just thought it's sort of a sideshow.

00:19:23.000 And so they just – many conservatives basically ignored it.

00:19:28.000 I don't think anybody realized it was going to get this big.

00:19:31.000 I think a lot of people didn't, but I mean – It...

00:19:37.000 It should have been more clear, I guess, woulda, coulda, shoulda, but it should have been more clear because they're waging an assault on basic, fundamental reality.

00:19:49.000 And so it goes way beyond.

00:19:51.000 This is not just about gender.

00:19:53.000 This is about reality.

00:19:54.000 That's why in the film, every conversation I had with someone on that side of it, every single one devolved into this, well, what is truth?

00:20:01.000 And who's truth?

00:20:02.000 And how do you know what truth is?

00:20:04.000 So I'm sitting in the same room as someone, But I can't get them to acknowledge that we exist in the same reality.

00:20:11.000 We can share a room, but we don't share a reality.

00:20:15.000 In the film, there's one woman that we talked to on the street, and she was giving me this, we all have our own truth thing.

00:20:22.000 And then I said, well, what if it's my truth that you don't exist?

00:20:25.000 And she said, well, then I don't exist.

00:20:28.000 She was willing to erase her own existence, if that's how I perceive it.

00:20:32.000 It's totally incoherent.

00:20:34.000 I found out about the...

00:20:38.000 The reaction that people have to this and how strongly they're committed to this when there was a transgender fighter that was hiding the fact found Fox hiding the fact that they were biologically male and competed twice As a woman,

00:20:55.000 beating the fuck out of these women.

00:20:58.000 And I was like, this is crazy.

00:21:00.000 And trying to say that it was just a medical procedure.

00:21:03.000 And when I, I thought, rightly, got angry at it, I saw all these articles written, all these pieces about how transphobic my position was and what a horrible person I was.

00:21:17.000 We're literally talking about someone not telling someone.

00:21:21.000 I said that, look, if you are a transgender athlete and you tell someone, hey, I was biologically male, but now identify as a female, would you like to fight?

00:21:31.000 And that person still says yes?

00:21:33.000 All in.

00:21:34.000 Go ahead.

00:21:35.000 Have fun.

00:21:36.000 Just like I think you should be able to ride bulls and go dirt biking and skydiving.

00:21:40.000 Do whatever wild, dangerous shit you want to do.

00:21:43.000 But to hide the fact that you're biologically male and you were a male for 30-plus years, that was madness to me.

00:21:51.000 But they had already drawn this line in the sand.

00:21:54.000 And I remember arguing with someone on Twitter about it.

00:21:57.000 When this woman said, she was always a woman.

00:21:59.000 I go, even when this person impregnated a woman and had a child with them.

00:22:04.000 She's like, even then.

00:22:06.000 Like, even then.

00:22:07.000 She stuck her penis in a woman.

00:22:10.000 Got her pregnant.

00:22:12.000 Became a father.

00:22:13.000 And even during that act, she was a woman.

00:22:18.000 Exactly, what is a woman?

00:22:20.000 What the fuck are we talking about?

00:22:23.000 What they're really saying is that this person, they're talking about self-perception, like this person perceived himself that way.

00:22:31.000 But self-perception is not always reality.

00:22:33.000 Of course, in most other contexts, we recognize that a person can have a self-perception that just is not true.

00:22:40.000 It's just inaccurate.

00:22:41.000 I mean, you could walk down the street in any city and find drug-addled homeless people talking to themselves, and if you were to ask them about themselves, they're going to say a lot of things that just don't line up with reality.

00:22:53.000 And in every other context, we're allowed to acknowledge that, even in medical context.

00:22:56.000 I mean, someone who has body dysmorphia in the form of anorexia, you know, a young woman goes to the doctor and she's 90 pounds and she says, I feel like I'm a 300 pound, you know, fat ass.

00:23:11.000 Yeah.

00:23:12.000 The doctor's not going to affirm that and say, well, if that's how you feel, fatness is on a spectrum.

00:23:16.000 They're not going to give her diet pills.

00:23:18.000 They're going to...

00:23:19.000 But why gender?

00:23:20.000 Why is gender this ideological battleground?

00:23:24.000 How the fuck did that become this thing where it's...

00:23:30.000 It's encouraging, like, this cult-like mentality, where you cannot—even if things are clearly odd, clearly don't make any sense.

00:23:38.000 They don't fit with logic or reality.

00:23:41.000 You have to adhere to whatever this ideology is promoting.

00:23:47.000 I think it's—I mean, at a most basic level, I think that this is a—like I said, this is an attack on truth, and this is—you know, if you want to— If your project is relativism and you want to get rid of objective ideas of truth,

00:24:04.000 what are you going to go after?

00:24:06.000 I mean, if you can go after someone's really fundamental understanding of themselves, it's not just that they're attacking reality.

00:24:15.000 It's like they're attacking the reality of the self.

00:24:18.000 And so they're depriving a person of the ability to understand themselves.

00:24:23.000 And once you do that, if you're successful on a societal level, then it's sort of like the sky's the limit.

00:24:29.000 You can go anywhere from there, I think.

00:24:31.000 Trevor Burrus So do you think this is like a conscious decision or do you think this is just something that people have adopted because it seems to be the ideology du jour?

00:24:40.000 It depends on who you're talking about.

00:24:42.000 I mean, at an institutional level, I think a lot of it is conscious.

00:24:46.000 Some of the people that I talked to in the film, I think that they know that this doesn't make any sense and that it's wrong.

00:24:52.000 And I think because they have to know it.

00:24:54.000 You know, if you're a doctor, you do have a basic understanding of male and female.

00:24:59.000 You must.

00:24:59.000 You wouldn't have been able to get through medical school if you don't.

00:25:01.000 So I think that for them, it's intensely ideological.

00:25:04.000 It's also profit-driven.

00:25:06.000 They've made a lot of money off of this.

00:25:09.000 If a six-year-old boy says, I feel like I'm a girl, and the response to the boy is, no, you're a boy, and that's what you are, and that's okay, and he'll get over it, and he'll get over it because it's just a phase, and he'll live a normal life, and that's fine, but there's no money in that.

00:25:22.000 Whereas if you encourage the delusion, now that boy individually is worth millions of dollars down the line to...

00:25:33.000 We're good to go.

00:25:50.000 Being accused of bigotry, losing their social media platforms, losing their jobs, losing their friends.

00:25:56.000 I get this question all the time everywhere I go.

00:25:59.000 Well, how do I deal with this at my job?

00:26:00.000 Because if I reveal that I understand reality at my job, I'll lose my job or I'll lose my family.

00:26:06.000 This is what people are dealing with.

00:26:08.000 And it is what people are dealing with.

00:26:10.000 That really is what's happening, which is one of the more confusing aspects of this.

00:26:15.000 Is that there's no logical discussion about this.

00:26:18.000 It's just you are either on the good side or you're a bigot.

00:26:22.000 And that's the binary.

00:26:25.000 Yeah.

00:26:25.000 And that's because they know that they can't—the people that are pushing this stuff know that they can't defend it.

00:26:32.000 They can't defend it intellectually.

00:26:34.000 They also feel like they shouldn't have to.

00:26:36.000 I think that they—some of the people we talked to, what is a woman, they were offended that we were even questioning them.

00:26:43.000 Because from their perspective, especially if you're a college professor or something, the relationship is supposed to be, I pontificate and you just sit there slack-jawed and nod your head and go along with it.

00:26:52.000 So they feel like they shouldn't have to defend it, but they also know that they can't.

00:26:55.000 And so what are you left with?

00:26:57.000 You're left with speech suppression, scaring people.

00:27:01.000 That's the only tool in your bag.

00:27:04.000 And it's been really effective.

00:27:06.000 Unfortunately, so far.

00:27:07.000 Now, what has the response to your film been?

00:27:09.000 What's it been like?

00:27:12.000 Was anything surprising?

00:27:14.000 I guess I would say I was surprised by just how By just how big the response was.

00:27:21.000 I knew we had something.

00:27:22.000 I knew we had something with the idea.

00:27:25.000 And then once we filmed all the footage, before we even put it together, I'm like, I know we have something explosive here.

00:27:30.000 But you never know exactly how people will respond to something.

00:27:33.000 It's the first time I've been involved in a film myself.

00:27:35.000 So I was expecting a big reaction, but not quite to the extent that we got.

00:27:41.000 And across the spectrum, too, because, you know, I knew that our audience at The Daily Wire would love the film and appreciate it, but it's gone way beyond that.

00:27:49.000 I mean, I hear from people who tell me that they identify as liberal or they're independent, they're not ideological.

00:27:54.000 They saw the film, they tell everyone to watch it.

00:27:57.000 You know, I hear that all the time from people.

00:27:58.000 Well, that's where I got it from.

00:27:59.000 I got it from a liberal mother.

00:28:01.000 She was one of the first people to tell me about it, and she's concerned about it because she sees children in her kids' school that are identifying in this way, and she has this fear that it's a social contagion, but she also feels this oppression of that idea.

00:28:16.000 Like, that other parents, if she brings it up with them, they're either dismissive or they don't want to talk about it, and she's like, Jesus Christ, it feels like people are under a spell.

00:28:26.000 Yeah, it does feel like that.

00:28:27.000 It's like Invasion of the Body Snatchers or something.

00:28:29.000 Exactly.

00:28:29.000 It does.

00:28:30.000 And the other thing that I hear from people about the movie, probably the number one piece of feedback I get is that they just didn't realize how bad it was or how pervasive it was.

00:28:44.000 Even people that I thought were sort of politically engaged on the right, I hear the same thing.

00:28:50.000 I didn't know that it was this bad.

00:28:52.000 I didn't know that it had gone to this extent.

00:28:54.000 Well, when Jordan Peterson first started talking about compelled speech and compelled use of pronouns, I remember people thinking, like, why do you care about this?

00:29:04.000 This is, like, such a small issue with a marginalized group of people.

00:29:08.000 Like, let them have their identity and use the pronouns they want.

00:29:12.000 And, you know, this is like, what was it, 2015, 2016?

00:29:17.000 And I remember his warning, and I remember many other people, like, this is going to spill over.

00:29:23.000 Like, if you can enforce this on a professor, and if you can enforce compelled speech, because Canada doesn't have the same free speech laws we do in America.

00:29:31.000 And if you can, like, where does it go?

00:29:34.000 How are you compelling it?

00:29:35.000 Well, it means through violence, or through police, or through the fear of being arrested.

00:29:43.000 We're good to go.

00:30:05.000 And he was right.

00:30:07.000 Because there's also a difference between telling people they can't say something, which is what free speech suppression usually is, and that's bad enough, but then telling people that they have to say something, compelling them to actually say something, putting words in their mouth and telling them that you have to say this.

00:30:24.000 And it's not just...

00:30:25.000 Pronouns, it's not a small thing, because when you use the she for a he, you're not only being forced to say something, but you're being forced to...

00:30:35.000 Affirm and acquiesce to a claim that you don't agree with.

00:30:40.000 You're being forced to express a belief that's not yours.

00:30:43.000 I mean, it's not much different from a dictatorship forcing someone to profess belief in a religion.

00:30:53.000 It's forced conversion, basically, is what it is.

00:30:57.000 And once you allow that, it doesn't matter.

00:30:59.000 Of course it's going to start somewhere small.

00:31:00.000 It's just pronouns.

00:31:01.000 It always starts that way.

00:31:03.000 But like I said, it's actually not small.

00:31:06.000 There's a reason why the left makes a big deal out of it.

00:31:09.000 So anytime people on the right say, well, it's not a big deal.

00:31:12.000 In response to the left making a big deal about something, they wouldn't be making a big deal about it if it wasn't a big deal.

00:31:17.000 The fact that they're choosing this hill to defend should tell you that there's something here worth fighting over.

00:31:24.000 My kid was going to school with a girl who was a they-them.

00:31:27.000 She decided she was a they-them.

00:31:29.000 And she demanded that they talk in they-them way.

00:31:34.000 Like, you had to use when you were referring to her as a plural.

00:31:38.000 This girl wore makeup, dressed like a girl, just decided that she was a they-them, and would get angry if you misgendered her, and not calling her a plural.

00:31:50.000 Yeah, and what does that...

00:31:52.000 What does that mean?

00:31:52.000 We have enough of a problem getting someone who identifies as a woman to tell us what a woman is.

00:31:56.000 What's a they?

00:31:58.000 Describe to me the feelings of being a they.

00:32:01.000 Can you describe that?

00:32:03.000 What is that experience like?

00:32:06.000 Anytime you ask someone to do that, it immediately descends into incoherence.

00:32:09.000 Also, by the way, the actual...

00:32:12.000 I think a gender-neutral pronoun for an individual is it.

00:32:16.000 It's not they.

00:32:17.000 So it's interesting that nobody wants to be an it because it's dehumanizing.

00:32:20.000 That's offensive.

00:32:20.000 Right.

00:32:21.000 They want to be a they.

00:32:23.000 But yeah, if you're calling yourself non-binary, you have dehumanized yourself because human beings exist in a sex binary, male and female.

00:32:30.000 If you're rejecting that, you are rejecting your human identity.

00:32:33.000 And so you've already dehumanized yourself.

00:32:35.000 You are actually an it.

00:32:36.000 If it's true that you are not a male or female, then you are an it.

00:32:39.000 We don't know what else to call you.

00:32:40.000 And then maybe more importantly, one of the things that you're doing when you're doing that is you're giving people, especially if you do it to young people, you're giving them an opportunity to be special and to get special treatment without any special act.

00:32:53.000 They haven't done anything that warrants that.

00:32:59.000 Yeah, I think that's a really important point.

00:33:01.000 I think that's actually so much of this, and people don't notice it, but a lot of this is just standard narcissism.

00:33:09.000 Yes.

00:33:09.000 Especially, you listen to these, you know, why is this so common among celebrities now?

00:33:12.000 All the celebrities have trans kids, and they're coming out as non-binary and whatever else, and then you listen to, like, Demi Lovato or whoever, and You listen to them explain why they're they them.

00:33:22.000 It's always, well, I just don't identify with these labels.

00:33:26.000 I'm beyond that.

00:33:27.000 I'm above that.

00:33:28.000 It's like these labels were good enough for billions of humans before you, but it's not good enough for you.

00:33:34.000 You can't find yourself there.

00:33:36.000 But all these other billions of human beings, it was fine.

00:33:39.000 They had no problem.

00:33:39.000 But you're so special that we need to change the rules of the English language for you specifically.

00:33:45.000 It's incredibly...

00:33:48.000 Egotistical.

00:33:49.000 It's bizarre.

00:33:50.000 It's like if you feel that you're different than everyone else, You're still a female.

00:33:56.000 You're just a different human being who happens to be a female.

00:33:59.000 If you're so unique, go prove it with your actions.

00:34:02.000 Prove it with your work.

00:34:03.000 Prove it out there in the world.

00:34:05.000 But to demand this very special attention.

00:34:09.000 And that's what we give people.

00:34:11.000 Like, if you give people that thing today, there's groups of people that will tell you, you're amazing, you're incredible, you're beautiful, you're brave.

00:34:20.000 It gives them positive affirmation for making these decisions.

00:34:24.000 It's also part of what you're describing is personality, right?

00:34:28.000 So, if you're saying, I'm a female, but I don't identify with girly things, and I don't like the color pink, and whatever.

00:34:37.000 Okay, that's your personality, and it's fine.

00:34:40.000 There are many ways...

00:34:41.000 To be a woman.

00:34:42.000 There are many ways to be a man.

00:34:43.000 It's like almost infinite ways of doing it because each man and woman has their own personality, their own perspective of the world, and that's fine.

00:34:50.000 So I think that what I'm expressing is more – the kind of traditional idea is much more expansive because it allows you as a man to just be who you are.

00:35:01.000 You're still a man, but be who you are.

00:35:03.000 The idea now is that if you're – well, if you're a man but you – You have interests or ideas that fall outside of the standard norm.

00:35:11.000 Now you lose your manhood.

00:35:12.000 You're actually a woman.

00:35:13.000 So they're actually reinforcing the gender binary while trying to destroy it at the same time which is interesting.

00:35:18.000 But I think most of what they're Trying to describe as actually just personality.

00:35:23.000 And now we have this situation where, you know, you could have a person who has five different genders and six sexual orientations, but no personality, because their personality has been subsumed by all of these labels.

00:35:35.000 They've categorized and labeled and everything, and it's really strange.

00:35:39.000 The art exhibit recently where the girls threw soup on the Van Gogh.

00:35:43.000 You know about that story?

00:35:44.000 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:35:45.000 They asked, someone was interviewing them.

00:35:48.000 Oh, Patrick Bet-David was interviewing them and asked them, can I ask what your pronouns are?

00:35:53.000 And she said she was he, she, they.

00:35:57.000 He, she, and they.

00:35:58.000 So you're masculine, you're feminine, and you're plural.

00:36:01.000 She's all of them.

00:36:02.000 She's everything.

00:36:03.000 She's basically like a Hindu god.

00:36:05.000 It's like, what are you?

00:36:07.000 This is just laziness.

00:36:08.000 At least choose one.

00:36:09.000 It's just pompous nonsense.

00:36:12.000 It's just, in that particular case, thinking that you're gonna fucking cure climate change by throwing soup on a...

00:36:20.000 Priceless painting, and then gluing yourself to a wall.

00:36:24.000 And also, what does it tell you that the person interviewing her knew that she definitely has different pronouns?

00:36:30.000 You just know it comes with the package, which tells you, again, that this is an ideological and political thing.

00:36:36.000 It's not an actual identity.

00:36:38.000 If you were one of those people that thought that there was a literal attack on the foundations of this country to try to destroy it from the youth up, What better way to do it than with social media reinforcing all this stuff?

00:36:54.000 I mean, how many TikTok videos have you seen?

00:36:57.000 Like libs of TikTok is a fucking insane account.

00:37:00.000 So many people get so angry at that account.

00:37:03.000 She's not creating anything.

00:37:05.000 She's curating.

00:37:06.000 So she's finding all these videos that absolutely exist and you're angry that someone puts these videos that actually exist of people actually saying insane things about recruiting kids and about you know teaching kids things in class that makes parents upset about Gender and that all your kids are gonna be trans and all these videos that she's posted and people are furious calling it this hard-right,

00:37:35.000 you know far-right account of hate-mongering account.

00:37:38.000 It's a curated account.

00:37:40.000 She's just finding insane shit that kids are actually being exposed to.

00:37:46.000 In mass, and bringing it to people that may not be aware of it.

00:37:51.000 Which is journalism.

00:37:52.000 I really think Libs at TikTok is one of the most important journalists in America.

00:37:56.000 One of the only ones, because there aren't many journalists out there that are actually doing their job of finding things people don't know about and alerting them to it, because that's what you're supposed to do.

00:38:04.000 But I think a lot of it is, yeah, these are things that people post on their own.

00:38:09.000 Also, when she posts...

00:38:12.000 Stuff from a children's hospital saying that these are the procedures we perform on kids.

00:38:17.000 They're just reposting what the hospital said themselves, but the point is that they don't want us to see it.

00:38:24.000 So the children's hospital, they've got it on their website, and they want only the people who have already bought it.

00:38:29.000 Because if you're going to a children's hospital's website to look up gender affirmation care, quote-unquote, then most of the time you've already bought in, and so they want you to see that.

00:38:38.000 TikTok, they look at that as like it's all the young progressive people.

00:38:41.000 And they're okay with them seeing it, but they don't want us outside of those bubbles to see these things.

00:38:46.000 Yeah, and the idea is against it, is that it's misrepresenting, that she's unfairly highlighting these radical people that are not the norm.

00:38:58.000 Like, says who?

00:39:00.000 Says who?

00:39:01.000 All you're doing is looking at real videos.

00:39:04.000 If you look at Project Veritas and you catch Twitter employees talking about how they silence conservatives and they have some hidden camera, the argument, oh, they caught those people off camera.

00:39:14.000 How do you fucking know?

00:39:15.000 Are you talking to them?

00:39:16.000 This is our only window into this.

00:39:19.000 To deny that you get a chance to see a doctor saying, we'll get a kid in at 16. It's okay.

00:39:26.000 Well, I thought you only do it at 18. No, we'll do 16. They've said that before.

00:39:31.000 So we will accept minors for surgery.

00:39:33.000 Yeah.

00:39:35.000 In Nashville, we've got Vanderbilt Hospital, and they were doing this stuff to kids, too.

00:39:42.000 And I did my own Libs and TikTok routine where I put on Twitter, I had this whole thread outlining what Vanderbilt, all the services they provide.

00:39:52.000 And I was accused of the same thing.

00:39:54.000 Oh, you're taken out of context.

00:39:55.000 This is misinformation.

00:39:57.000 I'm documented.

00:39:58.000 This is what they said.

00:40:00.000 This is on their website.

00:40:00.000 I have the documents.

00:40:01.000 I have the videos.

00:40:02.000 And they said all that.

00:40:03.000 But then the interesting thing is that after we reported on it, and it was this big deal, Vanderbilt Hospital, after a couple weeks, sent a letter to our state legislators saying that they're going to put a pause on gender affirmation surgery for minors.

00:40:16.000 Well, If you're pausing it, I thought it wasn't happening.

00:40:19.000 Because if you're pausing, it means that it was happening.

00:40:22.000 Because, of course, it is happening.

00:40:25.000 Another thing that they do to kind of obfuscate is they say, well, genital surgeries are not happening to minors.

00:40:32.000 And even that isn't true because that is happening.

00:40:34.000 But that is more rare.

00:40:36.000 What is much more common...

00:40:37.000 Are double mastectomies on minors.

00:40:40.000 And that is very common.

00:40:41.000 And that's happening in almost every state in the country at exponentially increasing rates.

00:40:49.000 You're taking the body parts away from girls.

00:40:53.000 Without them understanding again what they're actually giving up or what the What the consequences will be in the future and especially knowing what we know about the human mind and The development of the human mind that you know your frontal lobes not even fully formed till you're in your 20s to make give these people this Even to give them the option to change your life forever irrevocably You're going to give them A surgery.

00:41:21.000 You're gonna allow them to have a surgery or force them to have a surgery or encourage them to have a surgery.

00:41:26.000 That's gonna change their life forever.

00:41:27.000 You don't allow them to do that with anything.

00:41:29.000 You can't even get fucking tattooed.

00:41:31.000 You can't get tattooed until you're 18. Yeah, I mean, when I was growing up, I remember the job of adults was always to stop us from doing all the incredibly stupid things we always wanted to do.

00:41:41.000 Especially as you become a teenager, you're hormonal, you're impulsive.

00:41:47.000 And so the job of an adult is to be the guiding person.

00:41:51.000 Forced to provide insight, to be a source of maturity, but they've just abdicated that completely.

00:42:00.000 Dwayne Wade has a quote-unquote trans kid, the NBA player, and now his ex-wife has come out and said that she thinks that he is encouraging this and has imposed it on his son so he can profit off of it,

00:42:15.000 which seems like a fair theory to me.

00:42:19.000 There was an interview he did where he was on a red carpet somewhere and he was being praised by the journalist saying, oh, you're so great.

00:42:25.000 Do you have advice for parents out there?

00:42:27.000 And he said that, yeah, your job as a parent is to sit back and see where your kids want to go and go there with them.

00:42:35.000 And I'm thinking, I mean, I have four kids.

00:42:37.000 And if I... Adopted that strategy as a parent, all of my kids would be dead by the time they're two years old.

00:42:43.000 Like, sit back and see where they want to go and just go with them?

00:42:46.000 That's like the opposite of your job as a parent.

00:42:49.000 Your job as a parent is to be, you can listen to what they want, but then you are going to, you have their desires and their opinions, and you're filtering it through your own understanding, your much superior understanding of reality, and then you decide what makes sense for them to do.

00:43:05.000 Yeah, that's a ridiculous notion that you're just supposed to sit back and watch.

00:43:09.000 You're supposed to have wisdom.

00:43:11.000 You're supposed to have a life lived longer and more knowledge, more information, and you do your very best to help them develop and find their own way through life while protecting them from dangers and from things that they don't understand yet.

00:43:25.000 And protecting them from themselves.

00:43:27.000 Yes.

00:43:28.000 And, you know, this notion that this is the one time where we're supposed to abandon all these principles when it comes to gender.

00:43:35.000 That's what's so confusing.

00:43:40.000 There's a political push for this that comes from the left.

00:43:44.000 And one of the things that I found when I was going over that prisoner case was that the whole thing about it...

00:43:56.000 Where they made it optional.

00:43:59.000 It was...

00:44:00.000 Let me try to find this fucking article.

00:44:02.000 I know I saved it.

00:44:03.000 But the story about it was that it was something that George Soros was involved with.

00:44:12.000 That would surprise me.

00:44:13.000 Yeah.

00:44:14.000 Let me find it here.

00:44:15.000 So that person has a website...

00:44:18.000 And you can go to the website, and it's like Justice for Demi.

00:44:22.000 They call themselves Demi now.

00:44:24.000 And again, this is the person that stabbed their foster father 27 times at age 16. And then afterwards got arrested and said that they were female.

00:44:36.000 But that it was a part of a program that was like a gender self-ID. That was the program behind it.

00:44:45.000 Yeah.

00:44:45.000 Gender self-ID policy.

00:44:49.000 And by George Soros Open Society Foundations.

00:44:53.000 So they're the ones who pushed this through in New Jersey.

00:44:55.000 So gender self-ID is like a policy that they instituted for prisoners.

00:45:01.000 That they had done that in New Jersey just a year before that.

00:45:04.000 And so this was just like, what are you?

00:45:07.000 I'm a boy.

00:45:08.000 Okay.

00:45:08.000 You get to go to the boys' prison if you're a girl.

00:45:11.000 What are you?

00:45:12.000 I'm a girl.

00:45:13.000 You get to go to the girls' prison if you're a boy.

00:45:15.000 All you have to do is just say it.

00:45:19.000 Which is fucking madness when you're talking about someone who got arrested for fraud, has a fake Rolex, three criminal aliases.

00:45:25.000 He would never lie.

00:45:26.000 This is like a literal liar and a murderer.

00:45:30.000 And you're like, well, he wouldn't lie about gender.

00:45:32.000 It's impossible.

00:45:33.000 There's no way someone's scamming the system.

00:45:35.000 Well, they really have no choice but to institute policies like this.

00:45:40.000 This is the corner they painted themselves into.

00:45:42.000 Because if they suggest that you have to offer any proof at all, then that is to acknowledge that there's some sort of reality...

00:45:53.000 Outside of the individual whim, you know?

00:45:57.000 Even to say that, well, there has to be a letter from – because this used to be the thing.

00:46:00.000 You've got to get a letter from two mental health providers who will affirm that this is true about you.

00:46:05.000 Well, they don't even want that because then who's to say – why does that person get to say?

00:46:09.000 He's like, only I. I'm the only one who gets to determine my own biological identity.

00:46:14.000 And you end up with policies like that.

00:46:16.000 And not surprising that George Soros is behind it.

00:46:18.000 Well, Oregon is one of the weirder ones because Oregon will allow places to prescribe testosterone to young girls when they're as young as 15 years old without consent from the parents at all.

00:46:29.000 Yeah.

00:46:29.000 There's not another thing that you can get at 15 that's going to change your life like that.

00:46:35.000 Yeah.

00:46:35.000 And that might change because they are...

00:46:39.000 You know, they are changing the ideas of consent that we've all agreed to.

00:46:46.000 We all understand.

00:46:47.000 We all understand that children cannot consent, even if they say yes to something, not really consenting, because they don't understand what they're doing.

00:46:56.000 They don't have a fully formed consent.

00:46:58.000 Especially taking hormones that aren't natural to your body at 15 years old.

00:47:03.000 And you're sterilizing the kid.

00:47:06.000 They're not going to be able to have kids in the future.

00:47:08.000 And you can say all you want.

00:47:09.000 Well, we told them that and they were okay with it.

00:47:11.000 At 15, they were okay with it.

00:47:13.000 I had started having kids when I was 26. If you had asked me when I was 24, I would have said, no, I don't want any kids.

00:47:20.000 Because even when I was 24, I couldn't imagine having a kid.

00:47:23.000 I couldn't imagine wanting a kid.

00:47:24.000 Now I have four kids.

00:47:25.000 I can't imagine not having kids.

00:47:26.000 But those are the changes that happen.

00:47:28.000 Even in your mid-20s, people go through changes like that.

00:47:31.000 So the idea that a 15-year-old can just resign from childbearing, and that's supposed to be a meaningful choice, like they know what they're doing, it's total madness.

00:47:42.000 Now, have you received offers to debate people that have differing opinions on this?

00:47:48.000 Oh, no.

00:47:48.000 No.

00:47:49.000 No, no.

00:47:49.000 I would love to.

00:47:50.000 I've challenged.

00:47:51.000 I've put the challenge out there.

00:47:53.000 I go around to college campuses.

00:47:55.000 We're on a college campus tour right now screening the film.

00:47:58.000 And everywhere I go, of course, there's protests and everything, but it's a YAF tour and Young America's for Freedom.

00:48:05.000 And the policy there is if you're in the room for the lecture, we get to the Q&A portion.

00:48:10.000 If you disagree, you move right to the front of the line.

00:48:14.000 But no one...

00:48:15.000 They'll stand outside with signs and they'll scream...

00:48:18.000 And one of the most recent ones I was at, they were tearing pages out of a Bible and eating them.

00:48:23.000 So they will eat the Bible.

00:48:26.000 But they won't come in and just talk to me.

00:48:29.000 Isn't that in the Bible?

00:48:30.000 That might be in the Bible.

00:48:32.000 I don't know.

00:48:33.000 Maybe the sign of the apocalypse.

00:48:34.000 People are eating the Bible.

00:48:36.000 It might have kind of an exorcism type of fact.

00:48:38.000 I don't know.

00:48:39.000 We'll see.

00:48:39.000 What the fuck?

00:48:41.000 No, they only want to talk to you if you're a conservative, if they think they can roll you.

00:48:49.000 These are the conservatives that are allowed to go on CNN and all the rest of it.

00:48:52.000 They believe that you're going to play the patsy, but if you make it clear that you're not going to play that role, then they have no interest.

00:48:58.000 Did you see that Jon Stewart very confrontational interview that he had with that woman who was bizarre?

00:49:05.000 Yeah, the whole episode was just frustrating to watch because it was total nonsense.

00:49:13.000 He was burning down a whole bunch of straw men with that episode.

00:49:16.000 And then John Oliver did the same thing.

00:49:18.000 And the woman that he was, that was the Attorney General of, I forget, Arkansas, I think.

00:49:24.000 Yeah.

00:49:28.000 You know, it's not everyone.

00:49:31.000 What she is doing to protect kids is great.

00:49:34.000 I mean, she's a great American for doing that.

00:49:35.000 And she has a lot of political courage.

00:49:37.000 But not everyone is equipped to sit in a room with the cameras going and, you know, defend their position in that kind of environment.

00:49:45.000 And so she got kind of she did get a little bit rolled during that conversation, which is unfortunate.

00:49:49.000 I would love to sit down and talk to him.

00:49:51.000 But he's not going to talk to somebody like me.

00:49:54.000 That's the point.

00:49:55.000 That would be a real conversation.

00:49:56.000 And the way he did it with the straw men and the way he was talking about affirming their health care and affirming their gender.

00:50:03.000 His whole thing with her was just about the medical consensus.

00:50:08.000 And he kept saying, well, all these doctors say that we should be transitioning kids.

00:50:11.000 So who are you to say otherwise?

00:50:13.000 The mistake that she made was to play that game.

00:50:15.000 And then she said, well, but there are other doctors who say that it's not okay.

00:50:18.000 And so now you're playing this credentialism game.

00:50:20.000 Right.

00:50:21.000 Appeal to authority.

00:50:22.000 Right.

00:50:22.000 And once you do that, first of all, you're going to lose because it is true that the medical industry has largely bought into this.

00:50:30.000 And so you're going to lose that contest.

00:50:32.000 But what you should be pointing out is that, first of all, the people that you're appealing to as authorities are all the people who are making a lot of money off of this.

00:50:42.000 So the only people we should trust about the questions of gender affirmation are the ones who have a financial stake in it.

00:50:49.000 That doesn't make any sense to me.

00:50:51.000 And then also, I don't care what letters they have next to their name.

00:50:55.000 I don't care if they went to medical school.

00:50:57.000 If they're making claims, we can assess those claims on their merits.

00:51:01.000 We don't have to be credentialed to do that.

00:51:03.000 And I can say that what these doctors are saying is...

00:51:07.000 It just doesn't make any sense.

00:51:08.000 But it is bizarre that so many are saying it.

00:51:11.000 It is bizarre that so many in the community that we have always assumed is protecting the best interests of personal health and wellness, that these are the people that are saying it so often.

00:51:27.000 Well, there's the money.

00:51:29.000 The money part scares the shit out of me.

00:51:31.000 Because I don't want to think that that's real.

00:51:33.000 I mean, I want to hold out Hope for the better aspects of human nature, that people wouldn't do that and think of children and being able to diffuse responsibility and say, well, this is bigger than me and I'm just part of this and this is what we're doing now.

00:51:51.000 Yeah, you would hope a person individually wouldn't do that, but people definitely will do that.

00:51:56.000 I mean, acting as a group, you know, and when you've got the twin pressures of, well, you've got twin incentives of the political, ideological incentives and the monetary incentive, that's very powerful, and I think that does explain it.

00:52:09.000 I mean, there are, you know, there are, like, child endocrinology clinics Barely exist anymore because they've all become transgender.

00:52:20.000 This is what they do now.

00:52:21.000 There are a lot of doctors who got into the medical field and they did a certain thing and then the transgender stuff came along and that's what they do.

00:52:31.000 Same for a lot of plastic surgeons.

00:52:33.000 This is basically their whole business now is doing the gender surgeries.

00:52:37.000 And so you see the incentive for them.

00:52:39.000 I mean, they have staked everything on this.

00:52:41.000 They've also staked their professional reputation because that's the other problem.

00:52:45.000 Not only is it the political incentive and the money, but if they admit that they're wrong, then they're also admitting that they have horribly disfigured and abused thousands, maybe millions of kids.

00:52:57.000 How many people have had this done?

00:52:59.000 Depends on what...

00:53:00.000 I don't think we have exact numbers, but if we're talking about the drugs, it's, I mean, millions.

00:53:06.000 You're talking about hormone blockers?

00:53:08.000 Yeah.

00:53:09.000 Millions of kids have been on hormone blockers?

00:53:11.000 Really?

00:53:13.000 I'm sure someone's going to fact check me on that, but my guess is that we're into the millions now at this point.

00:53:18.000 Yeah, that would be my guess.

00:53:19.000 Okay.

00:53:21.000 I can say for double mastectomies, I read a report recently that there were over a thousand done between 2016 and 2019. And when you compare that to how many were done between 2008 and 2015,

00:53:37.000 it's a massive increase.

00:53:40.000 And over a thousand girls had gender-affirming double mastectomies in that time frame.

00:53:46.000 And when you say girls, you're talking about prepubescent?

00:53:48.000 Right.

00:53:48.000 Minors.

00:53:49.000 And that's just up until 2019. And then we know that there's been this exponential increase with all this stuff year over year.

00:53:55.000 So it's a lot.

00:53:58.000 It's too many.

00:53:59.000 Having this happen to one kid is way too many.

00:54:01.000 It's a lot more than one.

00:54:02.000 Yeah.

00:54:02.000 Look, if you're an adult and you want to do that and you understand who you are and what you are and this is how you feel you should progress, you're an adult.

00:54:11.000 This is a free country.

00:54:12.000 You should be able to do whatever you want.

00:54:14.000 But when you're talking about doing that to children, the fact that so many people are on board and so many people are angry, people are going to be angry at us that we're having these conversations.

00:54:25.000 Yeah, they will be.

00:54:26.000 And I also...

00:54:28.000 I actually think that this shouldn't be happening to...

00:54:33.000 That's a very small number, if that's right.

00:54:36.000 It says over the last five years, there were at least 4,780 adolescents who started puberty blockers and had a prior gender dysphoria diagnosis.

00:54:45.000 It says it's kind of undercounted, but that's...

00:54:48.000 That would be a big undercounting.

00:54:49.000 Less than 1,000 people a year.

00:54:51.000 Yeah.

00:54:53.000 Yeah, I mean, I would guess hundreds of thousands at this, but I could be wrong.

00:54:59.000 Million sounds great.

00:55:01.000 Yeah.

00:55:03.000 Media Matters will have fun with that clip.

00:55:05.000 Matt Walsh claims it.

00:55:07.000 But part of the problem, though, is that we don't...

00:55:10.000 It's very hard to get numbers on any of this stuff.

00:55:13.000 And...

00:55:16.000 And who are you going to trust when they're telling you the numbers?

00:55:19.000 So that's one of the issues with all this stuff.

00:55:21.000 Does this have to be reported?

00:55:23.000 Is there a database where they're looking at long-term results of how this works out?

00:55:30.000 I mean, are they studying this now?

00:55:32.000 In terms of following these kids?

00:55:34.000 Because if we don't have long-term data on what happens when you give young children puberty blockers or double mastectomies, are there at least following up on these kids so we can have long-term data in the future?

00:55:47.000 I think each clinic has their own policy.

00:55:49.000 I've asked this question of some of the detransitioners who went through this and then detransed, and what was the follow-up process like?

00:55:59.000 And I've heard different things, but it's not extensive.

00:56:03.000 I haven't heard that they're following up five years later just to see how you're doing kind of thing.

00:56:08.000 I certainly haven't heard that.

00:56:09.000 And the one thing that I always hear is that Is that if they have complications, it's very difficult for them to get those complications addressed.

00:56:20.000 Because the doctors that did this to them aren't interested in dealing with it.

00:56:23.000 And there are other doctors too who don't know how to deal with some of this stuff.

00:56:27.000 What kind of complications are they experiencing?

00:56:30.000 Well, it depends on what we're talking about.

00:56:31.000 I mean, you know, if we're talking about genital surgeries, the complications are endless.

00:56:37.000 I mean, you're trying to create false genitals on someone.

00:56:46.000 In fact, we talked to Marcy Bowers, who's a sex change surgeon in the film.

00:56:52.000 And I think he said it's a Faustian bargain.

00:56:55.000 Like he even admitted that this stuff.

00:56:56.000 He said it's more sophisticated now than it was, but there are a lot of complications.

00:57:01.000 And all this stuff is experimental.

00:57:03.000 It's not like you have centuries of, you know, data to fall back on here.

00:57:08.000 Yeah.

00:57:09.000 And another thing that's interesting as I've been paying attention to this is the experience of the detransitioners when they go public with it.

00:57:17.000 The amount of hate they experience and that they get attacked.

00:57:22.000 It's like you're talking about someone who should be an example, a cautionary tale of like, hey, this doesn't always work out well.

00:57:30.000 Let's look at this and get an accuracy.

00:57:33.000 If you were looking at this in good faith, You would say, let's look at this and get an accurate assessment.

00:57:38.000 What's the worst case scenario?

00:57:39.000 What happens to some people?

00:57:41.000 But that's not what's happening.

00:57:43.000 They're getting attacked.

00:57:45.000 I've paid attention to some of it, particularly some of these girls that transitioned to boys and then tried to go back to being a girl again.

00:57:53.000 It's horrific.

00:57:54.000 Yeah, I mean, we did a rally on this a couple weeks ago in Nashville against child mutilation, and we had a detransitioner named Chloe Cole who came and spoke.

00:58:07.000 She's 18 years old, and she got double mastectomy when she was, I believe, 16. And she spoke at our rally, and she's up at the microphone telling her story.

00:58:19.000 And that's all she was doing.

00:58:20.000 She was there to tell her story.

00:58:21.000 I wanted her there to tell her story.

00:58:22.000 And she's getting screamed at by counter-protesters in the crowd saying, F you fascist.

00:58:27.000 To an 18...

00:58:28.000 Fascist?

00:58:28.000 Yeah, F you fascist.

00:58:29.000 To an 18-year-old girl who is a victim of medical negligence.

00:58:35.000 And worse.

00:58:36.000 But this is the response that they get.

00:58:39.000 Because they also see it's like you're a traitor to the community or whatever.

00:58:44.000 So they get...

00:58:47.000 They'll get what I get, which is just, you're speaking out against us and we hate you, but then it's ramped up even more because there's this element of perceived betrayal.

00:58:56.000 What a bizarre definition of fascism.

00:58:59.000 Call her a fascist, because she's talking about medical malpractice and getting her breasts removed when she was 16 years old before she knew what the fuck was going on, talking about this horrible experience that she's had.

00:59:10.000 And you decide that that makes you a fascist.

00:59:12.000 Yeah, I mean, fascism, the word is way overused, but if it means anything, I would think using intimidation tactics to stop someone from speaking If fascism means anything these days, then that certainly has to qualify, so I would call that fascism.

00:59:27.000 In this case, it was like you're in the crowd trying to drown out her voice by screaming at her.

00:59:35.000 I don't use the fascism label because I think it's silly how offense used, but if we're going to call something fascist, I would call that a fascist response.

00:59:42.000 It's certainly more fascist than her.

00:59:44.000 It's bizarre to me that no one is standing up to try to counter your claims and wanting to go public, wanting to have some sort of a public debate.

00:59:57.000 Because I would imagine that something that's so ideologically rigid in people's minds that someone would at least have the ego to step up and say, I can counter these arguments and I could be the person to publicly shame this person and have a debate with them and trounce them with facts and reality and opinions and describe the shared experiences of these people that have gone through this and it's greatly enhanced their lives,

01:00:23.000 but no one's doing that.

01:00:24.000 Yeah, I mean, there have been...

01:00:26.000 Right.

01:00:27.000 They might post something on Twitter or they'll say something in their own bubble, but to me directly, they're not going to do it.

01:00:32.000 I mean, even just getting media outlets to review the film, I thought...

01:00:40.000 I put this film out.

01:00:41.000 I knew it was going to be panned in corporate media, but I figured...

01:00:44.000 Was it?

01:00:45.000 Well, no, because they just ignored it.

01:00:47.000 They just pretended it exists.

01:00:48.000 I mean, if you go to Rotten Tomatoes right now, I think we have something like, I don't know, five reviews or something.

01:00:52.000 We've got thousands and thousands of audience reviews, but we've got, I think, five reviews.

01:00:57.000 And none of them are from the major media outlets either.

01:01:00.000 So they're just ignoring it, but...

01:01:04.000 They don't want to sit down in an uncontrolled environment and talk to you, because I think, again, that they know at some level that what they're saying doesn't make any sense.

01:01:15.000 And they also know that They know they can't answer the question.

01:01:18.000 You know, I've staked everything on this what is a woman question, and if one of them could come along and coherently answer it, then that would just, that would blow me out of the water.

01:01:25.000 I mean, everything's done then.

01:01:26.000 Yeah.

01:01:27.000 And they've had all this time to come up with an answer, and none of them have gone with it.

01:01:30.000 So they know, they're not going to sit down with me, because they know that it's, that's going to be a big part of the conversation.

01:01:34.000 Like, we've got to start by you defining your terms.

01:01:37.000 And if you can't do that, then...

01:01:39.000 I don't know how to talk to you if we can't define the terms.

01:01:42.000 Well, they always want to dismiss you as some far-right talking point person.

01:01:48.000 That's the first way they do it.

01:01:50.000 And to ignore your film seems to me you're ignoring an opportunity to take something apart that you disagree with.

01:01:59.000 Like, why would they do that?

01:02:00.000 They do that with everything else.

01:02:02.000 One of the more unique things is that they feel like things are moving in the right direction.

01:02:08.000 It's almost like strategically, it would be detrimental to engage with you.

01:02:14.000 Because they must understand that a lot of these belief systems that they've adhered to, they're cult-like.

01:02:22.000 It's ideological.

01:02:22.000 It doesn't make sense.

01:02:24.000 It's not grounded in reality.

01:02:26.000 Also, there are inherent dangers to doing this to children that are very difficult to ignore and that parents are going to resonate with, like instantaneously, when they think about their children and how vulnerable children are and how malleable they are and how susceptible they are to cultural trends.

01:02:44.000 And the fact that they won't engage with you on this, it really speaks volumes.

01:02:49.000 Yeah.

01:02:49.000 I mean it does.

01:02:50.000 I think they also realize that – and we call it ideological and political.

01:02:53.000 I think it's also – it's really a spiritual – it's like a religious claim.

01:02:57.000 I mean this is – gender ideology is a religion I think.

01:03:00.000 It behaves in every way like a religion.

01:03:02.000 And it's actually interesting.

01:03:05.000 It's kind of revealing that one thing you hear from the proponents – There's this claim that actually there are analogs for transgenderism all across the world and other cultures and throughout history.

01:03:16.000 That's what they always say.

01:03:19.000 We tested this in the film.

01:03:20.000 We went outside of the Western culture bubble.

01:03:22.000 We went all the way to Africa to talk to a traditional tribe there about this stuff.

01:03:26.000 And they were just...

01:03:29.000 Their minds were blown in a bad way.

01:03:34.000 They had never encountered ideas like this before because, of course, the gender binary is not a Western construct.

01:03:39.000 The rejection of the gender binary is a Western construct.

01:03:42.000 But going back to when they point to what are supposed to be analogs or other examples of this kind of thing in other cultures, sometimes they're just making it up.

01:03:50.000 But then there are times when there might be a culture that has some notion of like, You know, maybe a man acting out the part of a woman or something like that.

01:04:00.000 That happens in other cultures.

01:04:01.000 Cross-dressing.

01:04:01.000 Yeah, that exists in other cultures.

01:04:02.000 But the difference is, number one, they don't...

01:04:05.000 In those cultures, they don't think that the man actually is a woman.

01:04:08.000 Like, they don't believe in pregnant men in those cultures.

01:04:11.000 They know that he's acting out something.

01:04:12.000 That's the point.

01:04:13.000 And then the other point, too, is that in these other cultures where this exists, very often it is like a religious, spiritual sort of thing.

01:04:20.000 They talk about...

01:04:22.000 In fact, they include it now in the LGBT acronym is Two-Spirit, which is supposed to be the Native American version of transgenderism.

01:04:31.000 And that was invented in 1990 by gay activists.

01:04:34.000 So it's not like this goes all the way back to the Comanches on the Great Plains.

01:04:37.000 But even that, think about the Two-Spirit.

01:04:40.000 It's spiritual.

01:04:42.000 That's a religious thing.

01:04:45.000 Which is really what they're doing here.

01:04:46.000 That's what the 2 is?

01:04:47.000 Yeah, 2S, 2 Spirit.

01:04:49.000 So in the LBGTIA2 plus...

01:04:54.000 2S. That's what 2 is.

01:04:59.000 It's 2 Spirit.

01:04:59.000 2 Spirit, yeah.

01:05:00.000 That's a new one.

01:05:01.000 How long is that going to get?

01:05:04.000 There's no limit.

01:05:05.000 And also because the identities are becoming redundant.

01:05:10.000 Right.

01:05:11.000 Like gay and queer.

01:05:12.000 Yeah.

01:05:15.000 Demisexual is one of the newer ones, I think.

01:05:16.000 Is that in there?

01:05:17.000 I don't know if it's in there.

01:05:18.000 It's a thing, demisexual.

01:05:20.000 What are they, bigots?

01:05:21.000 Put it in there.

01:05:23.000 I looked it up once.

01:05:25.000 Demisexual is...

01:05:28.000 A person who needs to be emotionally attached to someone or needs to emotionally connect to someone in order to be sexually attracted to them.

01:05:37.000 And you hear that and you're like, so that's women.

01:05:40.000 That's like every woman.

01:05:43.000 And then there's also, it's ridiculous.

01:05:47.000 I don't remember the label, but there's the opposite of that too.

01:05:49.000 There are the people that don't need the emotional attachment, but they still have sexual erotic feelings.

01:05:55.000 Trevor Burrus I was under the impression that in Native American populations that that two-spirit thing was – that was a historical thing.

01:06:04.000 That they had always had members of their tribe and that they valued that seemed to have the perspective of both a female and a male and that they could make sense of things.

01:06:14.000 Trevor Burrus The term two-spirit was coined, I believe, in 1990. What they'll claim is that, yeah, the term might have been coined in 1990, but it speaks to something that existed before.

01:06:26.000 But even if that's true, my point is that, number one, you are talking about something spiritual, which is not what the gender ideologues are claiming here.

01:06:37.000 They're not saying it's spiritual.

01:06:39.000 They're saying it's physical.

01:06:40.000 Like a trans woman is a woman.

01:06:42.000 A man who says it's a woman actually really is one.

01:06:45.000 Not just spiritually is one, but is one.

01:06:47.000 That's the difference in the way it's being approached today.

01:06:50.000 And it's a really significant difference.

01:06:52.000 Now, if they want to just admit that they're making a spiritual claim, and what they're claiming is that, I don't know, a man can end up with the soul of a woman or something like that, that would be progress, at least, because now we are framing this conversation correctly.

01:07:06.000 I still think it's an incoherent claim, but how can a man have the soul of a woman?

01:07:12.000 By definition, a man's If a man has a soul, then it's a man's soul by definition.

01:07:19.000 That's how you define the soul of a man.

01:07:22.000 Yeah, I guess.

01:07:24.000 That's a tricky one, because what's, you know, prove a soul.

01:07:27.000 Right.

01:07:28.000 But that's my point.

01:07:29.000 At least if they would just admit that this is a, what we're trying to point to is something, some kind of spiritual essence, then we can have that conversation.

01:07:40.000 And I still disagree, but, you know, at least you're admitting that there's nothing physical here.

01:07:46.000 What is the longest conversation you had when you were filming this documentary?

01:07:51.000 Like, what is the longest sit-down you had with some of these people?

01:07:55.000 Somebody on the...

01:07:56.000 Yeah.

01:08:00.000 Probably Marcy Bowers, the sex change surgeon.

01:08:04.000 Talked to him, who identifies as a her.

01:08:07.000 Yeah.

01:08:07.000 For, I don't remember the exact amount, I think it was over an hour.

01:08:10.000 She seemed very confident when she was talking about these things.

01:08:15.000 Yeah.

01:08:18.000 Most of the people we talked to on that side were really closed off and didn't want to open up and say anything.

01:08:22.000 That was not the case with Marcy Bowers.

01:08:25.000 Although there's an interesting thing that made it into the film there where I brought up trans-abled people, which is a real phenomenon.

01:08:34.000 Someone who has two arms feels like you should have one arm.

01:08:39.000 Should we take that self-identity seriously?

01:08:42.000 And what I was told by Marcy Bowers is, no, that's kooky, exact words.

01:08:46.000 But then the WPATH, which is supposed to be the preeminent transgender health organization in the world, they had their conference, I think it was in Canada, a few weeks ago.

01:08:58.000 And they had a guy presenting something in the conference saying that actually this kind of body dysmorphia is now a valid gender identity.

01:09:07.000 A eunuch, you know, someone who's a eunuch who wants to amputate their male genitals and yet does not identify as female, just wants to amputate them.

01:09:15.000 They identify as that way.

01:09:17.000 That now that's a valid gender identity.

01:09:21.000 So I was told a few months before that, that that's kooky.

01:09:24.000 And then fast forward a few months, WPATH is saying, well, that's a valid gender identity.

01:09:29.000 Trevor Burrus That's what's interesting about the social contagion aspect of it is that it does seem to spread and change and morph depending on what people accept and what people are willing to agree to.

01:09:41.000 And then once people do agree to that, that a eunuch is a valid sexual identity, well, that'll become doctrinal.

01:09:48.000 Yeah.

01:09:49.000 Yeah.

01:09:49.000 And because it makes sense, too.

01:09:51.000 Because if what we're being told is that you cannot disagree with someone's self-identity, then there's no floor there.

01:10:02.000 I mean, then whatever someone claims about themselves, we have to affirm it.

01:10:06.000 And that includes trans-species, trans-racial, all that kind of stuff.

01:10:10.000 And that's not even...

01:10:12.000 I don't even think of that as slippery slope.

01:10:13.000 Something like trans-racialism...

01:10:16.000 We're good to go.

01:10:21.000 Yeah, because all human beings evolved from Africa.

01:10:25.000 It is less crazy.

01:10:26.000 I mean, the reason why there's differences in the way human beings look and the way we evolved is because we spread to different climates in the world and the human body adapted to those climates.

01:10:39.000 It's the reason why people are so pale in the place where there's no fucking sun.

01:10:42.000 I mean, this is all biology.

01:10:45.000 They understand this.

01:10:46.000 It's more logical to be transracial.

01:10:50.000 And race actually is fluid.

01:10:51.000 Like, you can do multiple races.

01:10:54.000 But we kind of skipped that, and we just went right to the transgender thing.

01:11:00.000 And most people that support transgenderism will say that Rachel Dolezal, they'll say, oh, she doesn't count as black.

01:11:06.000 So they kind of skipped over it.

01:11:08.000 Yeah.

01:11:09.000 I think eventually we'll sort of circle back and hit all those bases we skipped.

01:11:12.000 You think so?

01:11:14.000 I think transracialism will be accepted?

01:11:16.000 It has to be.

01:11:17.000 Did you see that TikToker who identifies as Korean?

01:11:21.000 So they got their eyes done.

01:11:23.000 Yeah, Ali something, I think.

01:11:25.000 Yeah.

01:11:27.000 But even, yeah, again, I mean, that's...

01:11:31.000 It makes more sense to me to be translated.

01:11:35.000 It doesn't make sense, but it makes more sense.

01:11:36.000 Yeah.

01:11:37.000 Do you ever sit back?

01:11:40.000 I mean, you're probably as deeply invested into this after doing that film as anybody in terms of the amount of time and effort that you've put into this subject.

01:11:50.000 Do you ever sit back and wonder where this goes?

01:11:53.000 Like, if this continues to accelerate, because it seems like something that's accelerating, is it just...

01:11:59.000 A pendulum swing where it's going to go so far one way that people are going to reject and it's going to swing back the other way.

01:12:05.000 Where does this go?

01:12:08.000 Yeah, I do think about that a lot and I really don't know.

01:12:13.000 I think I think the stuff with the kids, I think what's happening to kids, I do think there's a building backlash to that, and I see the dam breaking there.

01:12:22.000 I think people are just rejecting it.

01:12:24.000 And so that's an area, that's a part of the fight that I think we can actually win, and relatively soon.

01:12:30.000 I think we are winning it.

01:12:32.000 Because people intuitively, they see that and...

01:12:36.000 Most people, you don't have to explain to them why it's wrong to transition kids.

01:12:39.000 All you have to do is tell them that it's happening.

01:12:41.000 Because most people don't know that it's happening.

01:12:42.000 And then once they're aware that it's happening, they're like, oh yeah, that's crazy.

01:12:45.000 We can't do that.

01:12:46.000 No matter where they fall on the political spectrum.

01:12:47.000 Have you thought about putting together like a comprehensive group of interviews of detransitioners and making a documentary on that?

01:12:55.000 I don't know about a documentary, but we actually are working on something like that right now, talking to detransitioners.

01:13:01.000 That's the fallout from all this.

01:13:03.000 That's the horrible loss, is these people that made these decisions when they were kids, whether they were urged to or influenced to or whatever.

01:13:14.000 And now they're stuck.

01:13:16.000 And all of their stories, and I've talked to a bunch of them, and there are other interviews that are out there telling their stories.

01:13:22.000 The stories are just so infuriating and tragic, what's happened to these kids.

01:13:30.000 And now they're stuck.

01:13:31.000 It's like the adult version of themselves is stuck in this prison that was...

01:13:38.000 Stuck with choices that the child version made, but really the child version didn't make those choices because children can't make choices like that.

01:13:44.000 The choices that were imposed on them.

01:13:46.000 And that's the kind of thing that, yeah, when people hear those stories, I think most Americans, no matter where they fall on the spectrum, they hear that and they immediately viscerally react a certain way.

01:13:57.000 So I think that we could see a backlash.

01:13:59.000 When it comes to gender ideology in general, I think it's a much longer fight.

01:14:05.000 That's a generational battle.

01:14:08.000 How much coverage has this gotten, or how many views?

01:14:11.000 Do we know how many people have seen that documentary?

01:14:18.000 Not exactly, because what I can say, so the Daily Wire, when the film came out, we got 300,000 subscribers from the film, people who wanted to watch the film, 300,000 subscribers in a couple of weeks.

01:14:32.000 Prior to that, the Daily Wire over five years had gotten 600,000 subscribers, so we increased it by 50% in just a couple of weeks.

01:14:40.000 In terms of, like, how many total people have been exposed to the film, it's hard to tabulate because we've got all the people on Daily Wire platform, and there are all the clips that are circulating all over, especially on TikTok.

01:14:50.000 Apparently it's a big thing on TikTok.

01:14:51.000 I'm not on there, but...

01:14:55.000 And I wasn't supposed to mention it on air, but then also there's like these bootleg copies people have, you know, which you shouldn't watch, but they're, you know.

01:15:02.000 Uploaded to other platforms.

01:15:04.000 So the point is, it's just like, it's just a presence.

01:15:06.000 It's out there.

01:15:08.000 Millions?

01:15:09.000 I would say millions.

01:15:09.000 I mean, I predicted millions before and I was wrong, so I... In this case, definitely millions.

01:15:17.000 And...

01:15:19.000 For you, when you had a sense of what this problem was before you made the documentary, is it worse than you thought it was?

01:15:27.000 What is it like for you as a person, as a parent, going over this material and investing so much time into it and then having a newfound sense of what this problem really is?

01:15:40.000 Yeah, it was...

01:15:41.000 Filming it was, you know, we would go...

01:15:45.000 I can remember we went to California.

01:15:47.000 We went to San Francisco.

01:15:49.000 We're walking around San Francisco.

01:15:50.000 That's where we talked to the sex change surgeon, Mark Takano, and talking to people on the street.

01:15:57.000 And, yeah, it was very emotionally.

01:15:59.000 It's just...

01:16:00.000 Sitting across the room with people like this and they're saying all this stuff, it's very...

01:16:04.000 It's emotionally draining.

01:16:07.000 But then coming home and seeing my own kids...

01:16:10.000 And knowing that all this is waiting for them out in the world, and they're younger, they haven't been exposed to it yet, thank God.

01:16:17.000 But it's there.

01:16:19.000 There are these forces out there that want to Take their innocence, take their, again, their knowledge of themselves away from them.

01:16:30.000 And it's, yeah, it does fill you with a lot of trepidation.

01:16:33.000 I mean, parents, especially parents of younger kids, are just terrified.

01:16:36.000 I talk to parents all the time that are terrified of this.

01:16:39.000 They're terrified of the day when their daughter comes home and says, I'm a boy, you know, like has happened to so many other parents.

01:16:48.000 They live in fear of it.

01:16:52.000 Do you take any hope in the response to this film?

01:16:56.000 Because the response has been, from the people that I've talked to, and obviously it's a bias group, has been overwhelmingly concerned.

01:17:05.000 That at least you've sort of sounded the alarm.

01:17:08.000 And let a lot of people know that aren't on TikTok, that aren't paying attention to social media, but then some parent at a volleyball game pulls them aside and says, there's something you should watch.

01:17:20.000 Yeah, I... I do feel encouraged by that.

01:17:23.000 I find some hope in it.

01:17:25.000 And even, like I said, going to college campuses, and yeah, there's the protests, but also we've got these huge rooms of kids that are coming.

01:17:31.000 They want to watch the movie.

01:17:34.000 So those of us who understand the reality and are proponents of objective biological reality, we're not as alone and outnumbered as we think we are.

01:17:44.000 I don't think we're outnumbered at all, in fact.

01:17:46.000 The problem that we face is that the institutions are against us.

01:17:49.000 So we might have the numbers, but we don't have the institutions.

01:17:52.000 The medical field, the academia, the school system, government, they're all...

01:18:01.000 They've all been captured, so that's the big challenge that we face, I think.

01:18:06.000 I do agree that you're not outnumbered, and I think the numbers overwhelmingly are concerned.

01:18:12.000 The numbers of parents, the number of people that are rational are overwhelmingly concerned.

01:18:16.000 It's just so strange to me that the media, especially left-wing media, seems overwhelmingly to be in support of this minority position.

01:18:29.000 Yeah, because they exist in their bubble.

01:18:32.000 They're all far left.

01:18:35.000 And these bubbles are very real and powerful.

01:18:38.000 That's the other thing that really jumped out at me making the film, is that you go into these areas.

01:18:44.000 I think it's one of the reasons why some of these people were willing to sit down with us to begin with, is that they live in this bubble where nobody would ever challenge these ideas.

01:18:52.000 Everyone is bought in.

01:18:52.000 And they can't even imagine that anybody would disagree.

01:18:55.000 Yeah.

01:18:55.000 And that's our media.

01:18:58.000 You know, they're all Los Angeles, California, whatever.

01:19:00.000 That's Hollywood media.

01:19:02.000 New York, right?

01:19:04.000 DC. So they live in these bubbles and they just can't...

01:19:08.000 They've insulated themselves from criticism.

01:19:11.000 Have you talked to anybody that had one opinion of it and then saw your film and it changed their mind?

01:19:18.000 Yeah, I've heard that a lot.

01:19:20.000 I haven't specifically heard from someone who is far left, purple hair, and they had a waking moment from the film.

01:19:27.000 I hope that that happens, and it has happened.

01:19:29.000 I haven't heard that.

01:19:31.000 It's more I've heard from a lot of people who...

01:19:36.000 Didn't believe or weren't willing to accept that this was a big problem and now understand otherwise.

01:19:42.000 And then, yeah, some people who identify more on the left and were sort of okay with it and weren't very comfortable with it, but they were okay with it and they thought that, well, let's just be polite and go along with it.

01:19:50.000 Then they see the film and they hear us talking about it and they see that this is not something that they can countenance.

01:19:57.000 Where does this go, Matt?

01:20:00.000 Where does this go?

01:20:07.000 Who would have ever thought we'd be here?

01:20:09.000 So where does this go?

01:20:14.000 It's hard because, like I said, it seems as though we've already seen the craziest manifestation of this.

01:20:21.000 So I do think that we move on to...

01:20:25.000 This destruction of reality will continue, and it will get into other forms of identity, and so transracialism, even transspecies, and all that kind of stuff.

01:20:35.000 So I think that that will happen.

01:20:40.000 And what I'm worried about is for my kids' generation, Gen Z, fast forward 20 or 30 years, what does it look like for them?

01:20:49.000 What does that generation look like?

01:20:53.000 What's the suicide?

01:20:55.000 Right.

01:20:56.000 Among Gen Z and the youngest generation in 20 or 30 years after they've all, you know, so many of them have bought into this and maybe they've gotten the drugs, the surgeries, and then 20 or 30 years hence.

01:21:08.000 What's that?

01:21:09.000 I think we're looking at just the suicide rate already is sky high.

01:21:13.000 I think we're looking at a historic, unfathomable epidemic in the future.

01:21:19.000 Do you think that litigation, do you think that people suing people for having done this to them when they were younger, do you think that in any way would try to right this ship?

01:21:30.000 I don't think it writes it, but I do think that needs...

01:21:32.000 And there needs to be legislation that opens up that possibility, because as it stands right now, people that are the victims of this, they don't really have any legal recourse.

01:21:39.000 They don't?

01:21:40.000 I don't think so.

01:21:41.000 This is what I've heard.

01:21:43.000 It's...

01:21:44.000 Essentially, they don't.

01:21:45.000 One of the reasons is that, yeah, the doctors perform these procedures, but the procedures are illegal to do, and it is...

01:21:55.000 Ethically and morally, it's medical malpractice, but it's not legally medical malpractice because they're allowed to do this to kids.

01:22:00.000 But they're not allowed to do it to minors, right?

01:22:03.000 Are they allowed to do it to minors?

01:22:05.000 Well, it depends on what we're talking about.

01:22:06.000 The drugs, they're certainly allowed to.

01:22:07.000 Double mastectomies, they're allowed to.

01:22:10.000 Genital surgeries?

01:22:10.000 Genital surgeries.

01:22:11.000 It depends on the state and where you are, but there are definitely states where these genital surgeries are happening to minors, absolutely.

01:22:17.000 They're not as common as the drugs and the double mastectomies, but they are certainly happening.

01:22:22.000 So if it shouldn't be legal, but it is, doctor does this to you, then what's your legal recourse down the line?

01:22:32.000 That's the problem.

01:22:33.000 That's why the laws need to change, to give people that recourse.

01:22:37.000 To protect kids right now, but then also to give them legal recourse down the line.

01:22:44.000 When you make a film like this, how much does this affect your daily life?

01:22:50.000 I mean, obviously you got engrossed in the subject.

01:22:53.000 How much does this affect your daily life?

01:22:56.000 How much does this affect the way you view the world?

01:22:58.000 And as a parent, looking at the future and hope for the future.

01:23:03.000 Because it seems like this is just one aspect of a deterioration of our society that's prevalent.

01:23:09.000 Yeah.

01:23:15.000 Yeah, I don't want to say despairing.

01:23:17.000 You don't want to be despairing, because despairing is you've given up hope, and then what's the point of even talking about it at that point?

01:23:23.000 So I'm not despairing, but sometimes I feel close to the edge of that, I suppose.

01:23:36.000 And it has been...

01:23:40.000 On one hand, I feel like there's not a lot of hope for the future.

01:23:43.000 But then at the same time, we put the film out and it gets the kind of response that it does.

01:23:47.000 And I do see this building backlash against at least what's happening to kids.

01:23:51.000 So I think what I mentioned before is kind of it.

01:23:54.000 That's the tension is that we do have the numbers.

01:23:57.000 And so there's the hope in that.

01:23:58.000 But the institutions that run the country are so completely captured that to claim those institutions back, that's the generational project.

01:24:08.000 Yeah, like when you saw Biden get interviewed by that trans TikTok star.

01:24:13.000 Like, imagine, of all the people he chose to be interviewed by.

01:24:18.000 Yeah.

01:24:19.000 Like, what bizarre narrative are they trying to push where they promoted the president getting interviewed by this super bizarre TikTok star that talks about being a woman for 260 days.

01:24:34.000 I've been a woman for 260 days.

01:24:37.000 I'm like, God bless you.

01:24:38.000 Yeah.

01:24:39.000 And meanwhile, Biden doesn't believe any of this stuff.

01:24:41.000 I mean, you know, he's 80 years old.

01:24:43.000 He lived the first 70 years of his life and nobody was questioning whether men are men or women or women.

01:24:48.000 Like for the first 70 years of his life, men used the men's restroom and men were men and women are women.

01:24:55.000 And then I'm supposed to believe that at the age of 70, he had this awakening moment and realized that everything he thought he knew about biological sex is wrong.

01:25:03.000 I just I don't I don't believe it.

01:25:06.000 I would love if somebody would ask him that.

01:25:07.000 It just highlights the mercenary nature of politicians.

01:25:10.000 I would love for someone to ask him, Mr. President, you decided relatively recently in your life that women have penises.

01:25:20.000 What made you decide that?

01:25:22.000 How did you have this conversion experience?

01:25:24.000 What was your road to Damascus moment when you realized that women have penises?

01:25:27.000 That would be a hilarious clip.

01:25:29.000 I would watch him stammer through that.

01:25:31.000 I would love for someone to ask that question, but they're not going to ask it.

01:25:34.000 Dylan Mulvaney is in the White House, and this is how infuriating it must be to be a woman, is that Dylan Mulvaney is a dude.

01:25:44.000 And then decides one day I'm going to become a man.

01:25:46.000 And 45 seconds later, he's got corporate sponsorships.

01:25:50.000 You know, he's got brands lining up to do commercials with him.

01:25:53.000 He's speaking at women's summits.

01:25:55.000 And he's speaking to the President of the United States in the White House.

01:25:57.000 And meanwhile, there are all these women who are actual women.

01:26:00.000 They've been women forever.

01:26:01.000 And they're sitting there like, well, if you want a woman to talk to you, like, I'm here.

01:26:05.000 Dave Chappelle has a great joke about Caitlyn Jenner becoming Woman of the Year.

01:26:09.000 Yeah.

01:26:10.000 You know, have you seen that bit?

01:26:11.000 Yeah, yeah, right.

01:26:12.000 The M&M. And 15 Seconds Late, right.

01:26:15.000 Yeah.

01:26:16.000 Well, look at this Rachel Levine thing.

01:26:20.000 This is the first four-star admiral that's a woman.

01:26:23.000 And they even said female.

01:26:25.000 Female four-star admiral.

01:26:28.000 You're not even saying woman anymore.

01:26:30.000 Now you're using biological terms.

01:26:32.000 Yeah, that's the sleight of hand trick that they pulled that not enough people have noticed.

01:26:38.000 Because for so long they said, well, sex and gender are two different things.

01:26:41.000 You know, sex is your biological nature and then gender is your whatever, your perception of yourself.

01:26:48.000 But now, recently they've started using the terms interchangeably.

01:26:51.000 And yeah, Rachel Levine is a female.

01:26:53.000 So they have, after spending decades saying, don't conflate sex and gender, that's exactly what they're doing now.

01:26:59.000 They've made the terms interchangeable, which is why we should just get rid of the term gender entirely.

01:27:03.000 We don't need it.

01:27:04.000 All you need is sex, male and female.

01:27:07.000 That comes from language.

01:27:10.000 Words have gender.

01:27:12.000 We don't need that because we already have sex to describe ourselves.

01:27:17.000 I think it's fascinating, too, the wholesale rejection of this in the Latino community.

01:27:22.000 Especially that term Latinx.

01:27:24.000 They're like, no.

01:27:26.000 The entire language is formulated on female and male.

01:27:32.000 Like A's and O's.

01:27:35.000 It's been there forever.

01:27:37.000 Yeah, this is white liberals who are trying to colonize They accuse the other...

01:27:42.000 They're always using the word colonization, calling us colonizers, but this is actual colonization of language that they're attempting.

01:27:49.000 By going to Spanish-speaking people and saying, you have to completely, fundamentally alter your entire language because I don't like it.

01:27:55.000 I don't even speak Spanish.

01:27:57.000 I don't like it.

01:27:57.000 You have to change it.

01:27:58.000 Of course they're going to reject it.

01:27:59.000 But again, when you get outside of the white, liberal, Western bubble, you don't have to go that far outside of it, but once you do, you find that these are people who just don't...

01:28:11.000 They don't have these fundamental presuppositions that we have here.

01:28:16.000 So for them, it just doesn't make any sense.

01:28:18.000 For us, we've grown up with a lot of these ideas, like the idea that sex and gender are two different things.

01:28:25.000 Maybe we weren't very aware of it, but it was just kind of floating out there, these ideas, and we've absorbed them, whether we know it or not.

01:28:31.000 And so there are claims that the gender ideologues make that don't make any sense, but...

01:28:38.000 At first, to a lot of people, it seems like they do.

01:28:40.000 It just seems like intuitively it makes sense.

01:28:42.000 Because they've grown up in this culture where these ideas are out there.

01:28:45.000 But you go to cultures where these ideas don't exist at all, and you start talking about this, it just reveals the total absurdity of it.

01:28:50.000 It's just absolute nonsense.

01:28:51.000 How did you get involved in being a social commentator?

01:28:55.000 Like, what was your path?

01:28:57.000 You started off in radio?

01:28:59.000 Yeah, I was just small market radio for, I don't know, eight years or so.

01:29:07.000 And then I just started blogging.

01:29:09.000 I started a website, a blog.

01:29:11.000 And I was just writing my random thoughts on anything.

01:29:15.000 And I managed to gather...

01:29:17.000 A following relatively quickly.

01:29:21.000 And this was back when, you know, on social media, it was like the Wild West days, and you could actually access, you build a following, you could actually access your whole following, and you could basically say whatever you want, you weren't going to get kicked off.

01:29:35.000 So I was able to build, take advantage of that.

01:29:38.000 But then once I saw them closing all of that off, and you build your Facebook following, and you post something, and they'll only show it to like 0.1% of your followers or whatever, At that point, it became clear that I need to do this independently is not feasible.

01:29:53.000 So I went over and worked for The Blaze, which is Glenn Beck's outfit, for a few years and then ended up with The Daily Wire.

01:30:00.000 Did you have any inkling of where this was?

01:30:03.000 Initially, when you were first on social media, everybody sort of assumed that you're going to have these competing ideologies.

01:30:09.000 You're going to have people on the right and people on the left, and they're going to have disputes, and they're going to mock each other and memes.

01:30:15.000 And it was seemingly how it was for a while until it seemed like Donald Trump was When Donald Trump came along, then people realized, like, hey, this is a real problem.

01:30:27.000 You know, these ideologies can actually promote a president, and this guy can get into office.

01:30:32.000 We're opposed to him.

01:30:33.000 We have to do everything we can to stop this from happening.

01:30:35.000 And one of the ways to stop it from happening is to sort of marginalize or silence right-wing voices online.

01:30:43.000 But what that does is hardens people to this notion that there is a conspiracy against them, and that there is censorship, and that there is an ideology that's overwhelmingly supported by the media that a large percentage of the population is opposed to.

01:31:01.000 And that rational, reasonable discourse amongst people with differing ideas is discouraged.

01:31:09.000 Which is fucking dangerous.

01:31:10.000 It's not good for understanding what ideas are good and what ideas are invalid and seeing them all argued and fleshed out and having debates has always been the way we can discern and discern what's right and what's not.

01:31:25.000 What's correct?

01:31:26.000 What resonates with me?

01:31:27.000 What makes sense?

01:31:28.000 Who makes a more valid, logical argument?

01:31:32.000 That's one of the more disturbing aspects of controlled tech, of tech being censored.

01:31:38.000 And one of the reasons why I have great hope in Elon Musk taking over Twitter.

01:31:43.000 Because I think, you know, Elon has famously stated that he's a free speech absolutist.

01:31:48.000 And he believes that people should be able to have differing opinions, speak civilly about these differing opinions, and do it in an open forum.

01:31:58.000 Yeah, I think you're right that Donald Trump was a turning point, because that was something that, from the perspective of the powerful elites, that's not supposed to happen.

01:32:08.000 He's not supposed to become president.

01:32:09.000 And that was allowed to happen, and he used social media largely to do it, bypassing traditional media and just going right to the people, essentially.

01:32:20.000 And they said, well, we can't allow this to happen anymore.

01:32:22.000 So then they decided to shut it down.

01:32:24.000 I also think that they realized that You can try to control people by telling them what they can and can't do, punishing them if they do what they're not supposed to do, what you told them they can't do.

01:32:35.000 You can control people that way, of course they do that.

01:32:38.000 But then...

01:32:40.000 What's a more effective strategy is to control what people believe.

01:32:44.000 Like if you can get inside their heads and control what they think, then you don't need all the laws that tell them what not to do because you already own them.

01:32:54.000 So you can control their behavior that way.

01:32:57.000 And that's what a lot of this stuff is with Let's police misinformation or disinformation.

01:33:05.000 We live in the information age.

01:33:07.000 We're all exposed every day to more information than probably the average person in 1800 was in a lifetime.

01:33:12.000 And this is the world we live in.

01:33:14.000 So if you can control that, control the information, control people who are exposed to, manipulate what they think and what their beliefs are, then that's much more powerful than simply passing laws and telling you what you can and can't do.

01:33:28.000 Yeah, and that's why I think it's so important to have a neutral platform like Twitter, as opposed to all these other platforms that have emerged in response to the censorship of right-wing voices.

01:33:42.000 Because the problem is those become ideological bubbles for the right.

01:33:45.000 And even in those places, like I've heard on Truth Media, if you Say disparaging things about January 6th, or say disparaging things about whether or not the vote was stolen, that you'll be censored.

01:33:58.000 Which is like, Jesus Christ, this is absolutely the wrong approach to this.

01:34:03.000 Now you're going to encourage even more right-wing ideological thought bubble stereotype behavior, and you're not going to get the real logical debate, which is what's important.

01:34:16.000 Because there's a lot of people that You know, this idea that there's people on the right and people on the left, and that's it.

01:34:22.000 That's nonsense.

01:34:23.000 Many of these people share very similar ideas and very similar hopes for society and culture, and I think far more people are probably in the middle.

01:34:32.000 They see something that's abhorrent on the left, and they go, I can't support Antifa.

01:34:37.000 Or they see something that's horrible on the right, well, I can't support these people.

01:34:42.000 And they have to find a team that they join.

01:34:46.000 And you feel like this team is the good team and they're going to lead the country in the right direction.

01:34:51.000 And that team is fascist or racist or whatever it is.

01:34:55.000 And if you're connected to that team, you have to buy wholesale all the other shit that's a part of that team.

01:35:01.000 The only thing that's going to solve that is open debate and communication where people get to really evolve their own ideas and see these ideas discussed.

01:35:11.000 Yeah, I think most people are not very ideological in general.

01:35:16.000 And that's one of the mistakes that Democrats have made going into the midterms is they don't understand that about people.

01:35:23.000 And so they've made protecting, quote-unquote, abortion rights one of their fundamental issues.

01:35:30.000 One of their central pieces of their campaign platform.

01:35:34.000 But most people just don't care that much about abortion.

01:35:39.000 From most people's perspective, it's an ideological issue.

01:35:41.000 They don't care that much about it.

01:35:42.000 And the assumption was Roe v.

01:35:44.000 Wade's overturned.

01:35:45.000 It's going to mobilize voters to come out for Democrats.

01:35:47.000 And it just hasn't because most people see that and they kind of shrug their shoulders.

01:35:50.000 And I say that as someone who...

01:35:52.000 I do care about abortion.

01:35:53.000 I think people should care about it.

01:35:54.000 I care about it as a pro-lifer.

01:35:55.000 But I also recognize as a pro-lifer, especially during the Roe v.

01:35:59.000 Wade days, this was one of the obstacles that we encountered, was just getting people to even care about this to begin with.

01:36:08.000 And now the left is experiencing the same problem.

01:36:10.000 And it's just because most people, what are the issues that they wake up in the morning thinking about?

01:36:16.000 They think about, do they have enough money to put gas in the car?

01:36:20.000 Do they think about their kids?

01:36:21.000 Do they think about their families?

01:36:22.000 These are the things they think about.

01:36:23.000 They don't wake up thinking about abortion rights or January 6th or anything like that.

01:36:28.000 Or climate change.

01:36:30.000 I think most of the people that are concerned about the future, they're concerned about the economy and they're concerned about the environment.

01:36:37.000 And that's one of the reasons why, you know, environmental fear-mongering has taken this front and center stage with the left because they want it to be the thing that people think about the most.

01:36:50.000 And that this is – you're thinking about the future of the world and if you vote right, you're damning our country to destruction beyond our imagination.

01:37:00.000 The oceans are going to boil and we're all fucked.

01:37:03.000 Yeah.

01:37:04.000 Yeah.

01:37:04.000 I mean they think about those things.

01:37:06.000 They also think about – They think about their kids.

01:37:12.000 And maybe this doesn't come through in some of the polls that people take.

01:37:15.000 When you poll voters and say, what are the issues that you care most about?

01:37:18.000 Economy is always number one, and that probably is true.

01:37:22.000 But people don't think of their kids as a political issue, even though the left has turned it into that.

01:37:27.000 But that's why this push to indoctrinate kids into gender ideology, take away parental rights, the grooming of kids that goes on in the school system, the drag queen story, all that kind of stuff...

01:37:39.000 That does mobilize voters, even if they don't say it on a poll.

01:37:42.000 It mobilizes voters because you're going after their kids.

01:37:45.000 This is what they care about most in the world.

01:37:48.000 Yeah, I think that mobilizes people too.

01:37:51.000 Now, from you starting out initially writing this blog and developing a social media following, how have your thoughts and your view of the world, how has it evolved and changed?

01:38:10.000 I've probably become more right-wing as time has gone on.

01:38:14.000 How did you start out?

01:38:16.000 I always have been.

01:38:18.000 I can't say that I was a liberal who had an awakening moment or something like that.

01:38:28.000 Every year I see the kind of cultural decay get worse and worse and reach into other areas of life.

01:38:36.000 I had kids myself.

01:38:38.000 And when I see people going after kids, trying to take innocence away from kids, I guess the phrase is radicalized.

01:38:46.000 I've become more and more radicalized as the years have gone on.

01:38:50.000 And the left, they complain about people being radicalized.

01:38:54.000 Well, you're doing it.

01:38:55.000 That's your fault.

01:38:56.000 It's just like with the Paul Pelosi thing.

01:38:59.000 And the media was hand-wringing about all the conspiracy theories.

01:39:04.000 Well, the so-called conspiracy theories, that's your fault, because people don't trust what you're saying.

01:39:08.000 You know, they don't trust you.

01:39:10.000 Right.

01:39:10.000 Well, they blamed it immediately on MAGA supporters.

01:39:13.000 Right.

01:39:14.000 That was the first thing.

01:39:14.000 When it turns out this guy lives in this, like, weird sort of, like, household filled with free thinkers and BLM flags and pride flags.

01:39:24.000 But he lived in a bus outside of a hippie commune with the BLM flags, and he was previously a nudist activist guy.

01:39:32.000 Yeah.

01:39:33.000 But then they say he got into QAnon and all this kind of stuff.

01:39:35.000 I don't even know if that's true or not, but what I do know is this is just a crazy homeless guy.

01:39:40.000 This is a crazy homeless guy, and he's in San Francisco.

01:39:44.000 So this is a crazy, violent homeless guy in San Francisco.

01:39:49.000 You cannot blame Republicans for crime committed in San Francisco.

01:39:55.000 It just doesn't make any sense.

01:39:56.000 It's the chickens come home to roost.

01:39:59.000 Attacking a politician, or at least the home of a politician, has supported the very ideas that have enforced that shit.

01:40:05.000 Yeah.

01:40:06.000 A politician who has supported, to my view, the destruction of law and order has now been forced to confront some of the consequences of that.

01:40:16.000 That's really the story there.

01:40:18.000 Do you smoke cigars, Matt?

01:40:20.000 I do, yeah.

01:40:21.000 Want one?

01:40:22.000 Sure.

01:40:22.000 Let me grab one.

01:40:33.000 Seems like we need one.

01:40:37.000 So the beginning of your career, when you first started doing this, were you more moderate?

01:40:43.000 You seem like you're in your 40s.

01:40:46.000 How old are you?

01:40:46.000 Wow.

01:40:47.000 I'm 36. Are you?

01:40:48.000 Well, you seem mature.

01:40:50.000 36 is young.

01:40:51.000 So you grew up conservative?

01:40:56.000 Was your family conservative?

01:40:57.000 Yeah, I grew up, I have five brothers and sisters.

01:41:02.000 I grew up in a Catholic house, still Catholic.

01:41:06.000 And I went to public school, so I don't send my kids to public school largely because I went there myself.

01:41:12.000 But I went in a kind of a liberal area.

01:41:16.000 We were always encouraged as kids to...

01:41:18.000 And the situation wasn't nearly as bad then as it is now in public schools, but it was still...

01:41:24.000 The public school system was very hostile to people with conservative values.

01:41:28.000 And so we were encouraged by my parents to stand up for our values.

01:41:31.000 We were always told that if you get in trouble in school because you're standing up for yourself, you're not going to be in trouble at home.

01:41:37.000 If you're just causing trouble to cause trouble, you will be in trouble.

01:41:39.000 But if you hear the teacher say something that isn't correct or that is...

01:41:47.000 It's like propaganda and you raise your hand and disagree with it, then we were encouraged to do that from a young age.

01:41:54.000 So was it unusual for you to go into political commentary?

01:42:01.000 Was that something that was a natural course of progression for you?

01:42:10.000 Yeah, it felt like the right thing to do.

01:42:13.000 I also don't have any other skills, so I don't know what else I'm supposed to do.

01:42:17.000 I think that's a lot of pundits.

01:42:19.000 It's like we end up there partly because what else are we going to do with our lives?

01:42:26.000 But...

01:42:26.000 Would you have any idea, though, at any point in time, like the amount of reach that you would eventually have?

01:42:31.000 Like, is this beyond your imagination?

01:42:33.000 I mean, you're a very popular online right-wing commentator.

01:42:40.000 I suppose it was.

01:42:41.000 I mean, I think the film, that's one of the effects of the film.

01:42:46.000 I've noticed a change just in my own life just since the film came out.

01:42:49.000 How so?

01:42:50.000 Well, even things like how often I get stopped in public.

01:42:53.000 Not to Joe Rogan level, but all the time I stop people in public who recognize me from the film.

01:43:00.000 And I think some of that is like when you're in the conservative media space, It's important, I think, because that's where I am.

01:43:07.000 And you have access to a lot of people, but if you kind of stay in there, that's its own bubble.

01:43:15.000 So as a woman was something that was able to kind of reach outside of that.

01:43:21.000 And so I've certainly noticed that.

01:43:23.000 And so when you first started doing social commentary, what were the issues that were concerning you?

01:43:31.000 I've always been a life, marriage, and family guy.

01:43:36.000 That's always what I've cared about.

01:43:37.000 The pro-life thing.

01:43:39.000 Pro-life, marriage, and the gender thing.

01:43:45.000 For at least seven or eight years now, I've been on that for almost as long as I've been doing this on any kind of national level.

01:43:53.000 And what was your initial pull to that?

01:43:55.000 Like, what drew you into that?

01:43:58.000 To the gender stuff?

01:43:58.000 Yeah.

01:43:59.000 It was the Bruce Jenner moment.

01:44:02.000 And again, it wasn't just that it happened and that the media celebrated and all that and Woman of the Year.

01:44:09.000 It wasn't just that.

01:44:09.000 It was that I... I noticed it seemed like people on the right, conservatives, were going along with it, were willing to accept it.

01:44:18.000 And that's what scared me.

01:44:20.000 And so I've always seen it as the left's overall project as they wage this assault on life, marriage, and gender now.

01:44:29.000 It's kind of a three-pronged approach.

01:44:31.000 I wrote a book Back in, I don't know, it was like 2016, called The Unholy Trinity, about their three-pronged assault on life, marriage, and gender, redefining all three of these things, which are fundamental pillars of human society.

01:44:44.000 And so if you can redefine those and tear those down, then you've won.

01:44:52.000 You've captured the culture.

01:44:53.000 Have you taken a lot of time to think about what causes people to have these fundamental beliefs?

01:45:01.000 I'm of the opinion that most people sort of subscribe to a predetermined pattern of thinking and behavior that either they see around them that's reinforced or that resonates with them because of their family and their upbringing.

01:45:18.000 What causes people To be so rigid in their ideologies that they're willing to Subscribe wholesale to this idea that children can determine their gender at five years old and That a life isn't a life until it's out of the vagina including at nine months old like have you thought about that a lot?

01:45:39.000 Yeah, I think, well, a lot of it is the environment you grew up in, and you grew up around these ideas.

01:45:45.000 And if you went to public school, I mean, you know, kids today especially, you go to public school, and you're there for six hours a day, five days a week, nine months a year for 12 or 13 years.

01:45:57.000 And that's the culture there.

01:46:00.000 And then the kid leaves, but they don't actually escape that culture because now they're on their phone.

01:46:04.000 And they're just in that cloud all the time.

01:46:07.000 And they're in a world where all these ideas are just assumed.

01:46:12.000 You don't even question them.

01:46:14.000 And especially if you can introduce kids at a very young age, they don't even have the mental capacity To distinguish between fantasy and reality.

01:46:23.000 They don't really have the capacity to be truly skeptical about something.

01:46:26.000 Skepticism is a skill that you learn as you get older.

01:46:29.000 They don't have that, so they'll just accept whatever you tell them.

01:46:32.000 There's a reason why, if you tell a four-year-old that there's a fat man flying through the sky and comes down the chimney, they just believe it.

01:46:39.000 They might have a few questions, but the questions are all about the details about this fat guy.

01:46:43.000 The questions aren't questioning The basic premise that you presented to them.

01:46:49.000 So if you can get to kids that young, I think?

01:47:19.000 When they're the most vulnerable.

01:47:21.000 And you can just tell them anything and they'll believe it.

01:47:23.000 And for a lot of people, they just keep believing it.

01:47:26.000 Most people never stop to analyze the beliefs that they've always held in their heads.

01:47:33.000 Wherever you are on the spectrum, that's most people.

01:47:35.000 You never stop and really scrutinize your own beliefs that you've always had.

01:47:41.000 It seems to me that the only thing that stops that is they're confronted by the realities of achieving things in the modern world.

01:47:49.000 And that, you know, just getting responsibility, working, making your way through life, those are the things that sort of turn people into having a more conservative mindset.

01:48:04.000 I would hope so, and that's the assumption that I've always had, and I think a lot of us have, is you hear about the college snowflakes, and once they get out into the real world...

01:48:12.000 Right.

01:48:12.000 But now the real world is kind of snowflake-ified.

01:48:16.000 Exactly, because we forgot that...

01:48:18.000 Well, they're...

01:48:19.000 They're the ones who are going to determine what the real world says.

01:48:23.000 I mean, they don't get to determine reality, but we're going to be in a country that they are running, that they are reshaping.

01:48:30.000 And so, in many cases, it hasn't worked out that way.

01:48:35.000 They get out into the real world, but the real world is still set up to affirm what they believe and to insulate them from these harsh realities.

01:48:46.000 Which is one of the more bizarre aspects of all this shit to me, is that I don't necessarily see...

01:48:52.000 This is why I'm asking you, where's this go?

01:48:53.000 I don't see a clear path to logic and maturity.

01:48:58.000 It doesn't seem like people are going to abandon some of these ideas that are...

01:49:04.000 Not just ridiculous, but dangerous.

01:49:07.000 And probably ultimately detrimental for who knows what number of young people they're going to go down this road.

01:49:14.000 I don't see this clear, like, there's going to come a point in time in their life where they're going to recognize.

01:49:20.000 Like, what's that old expression?

01:49:22.000 Show me a young man who is not a liberal and I'll show you a man with no heart.

01:49:25.000 Show me an old man who's not conservative and I'll show you a man with no brain.

01:49:30.000 Something like that.

01:49:31.000 Doesn't it go like that?

01:49:32.000 Yeah, something like that.

01:49:33.000 I mean, and that's...

01:49:34.000 But they've also been told that opposing ideas are physically dangerous and that if you're around opposing ideas, it could actually do you harm.

01:49:46.000 And I think that they really believe that.

01:49:48.000 I mean, think about if someone really believes that, takes that to heart, you're setting something up.

01:49:53.000 I mean, Ben Shapiro shows up at this podcast conference and they call his very presence harmful.

01:49:59.000 We've gone beyond ideas.

01:50:00.000 It's like, A person who has those ideas and isn't even speaking them, his presence, his essence is harmful to you.

01:50:09.000 Yeah, we read the apology on air.

01:50:11.000 Yeah.

01:50:12.000 It was ridiculous.

01:50:13.000 He's literally one of the biggest podcasters in the world, and you have a podcast conference.

01:50:18.000 You'd think that you'd want him there.

01:50:20.000 It's like line up to learn from this guy.

01:50:22.000 He's one of the most successful podcasters in the world.

01:50:24.000 But I know we don't want him there because he's – and it's like he didn't show up.

01:50:28.000 Ranting a bunch of right-wing things.

01:50:30.000 He just was taking pictures with people, but his presence is.

01:50:32.000 It's quite terrifying, too.

01:50:35.000 It's almost a pre-genocidal language that you're using.

01:50:39.000 When you start saying that a certain category of people, their presence is harmful, that sets us up for some dark potential, I think.

01:50:50.000 It does.

01:50:51.000 It does set us up for dark potential.

01:50:53.000 Now, when you first started getting into political commentary and social commentary, the world was a much different place, and it wasn't so contentious.

01:51:06.000 I think a lot of these things have gotten worse, but it was...

01:51:09.000 I mean, you saw the seeds of it even back...

01:51:10.000 I mean, it wasn't all that long ago, 10 years ago.

01:51:14.000 I think it was still there, you know.

01:51:20.000 One of the differences, though, was that social media existed and it had already taken over society, but you at least were allowed to.

01:51:28.000 For a while, social media was a forum for actual discussion.

01:51:32.000 It might not have been the most intelligent discussion all the time, but you could be exposed to both sides of any debate on social media for a period of time.

01:51:40.000 In the very least, you could develop a following.

01:51:42.000 Right.

01:51:42.000 So if your ideas resonated with other people, you could attract a group of people to come and pay attention to you or listen to you.

01:51:49.000 Yeah.

01:51:49.000 That was the case for a while, but they shut that down.

01:51:54.000 Maybe it'll change now with Elon Musk.

01:51:55.000 I don't know.

01:51:56.000 Yeah, I don't think it's going to change with those other platforms.

01:51:59.000 Not anytime soon, unless someone like Peter Thiel buys YouTube.

01:52:03.000 I just don't think it's going to change.

01:52:06.000 Even with Elon Musk, I think it's great that he took over Twitter, but it remains to be seen what effect that's going to have.

01:52:14.000 It's not just one guy.

01:52:15.000 This is an institution with thousands of people.

01:52:18.000 If the whole institution is still against you, even at the top, we saw it with Donald Trump.

01:52:23.000 He was president, but the whole federal government apparatus was against him.

01:52:27.000 And so there's not a lot that can be accomplished.

01:52:29.000 And what little you can accomplish can get erased immediately, which is what happened to Trump.

01:52:34.000 The only thing they couldn't take away was the Supreme Court justice.

01:52:36.000 I mean, they'd like to, but they couldn't do that yet.

01:52:39.000 And at a smaller scale, I think it's the same thing kind of with Twitter.

01:52:42.000 So you've got a guy who's rational at the top of the food chain there, but he's sitting atop this pyramid of, you know, Well, one of the more interesting things about a film like yours coming out onto the Daily Wire is that people would subscribe to the Daily Wire and at least potentially be exposed to other ideas that way.

01:53:06.000 You've got to assume that the sheer numbers of people that watch your documentary, some of them have to be liberal.

01:53:14.000 And that might at least expose them to other ideas they're getting suppressed from in other places.

01:53:22.000 Yeah, I mean, we hope so.

01:53:24.000 And there certainly have been plenty of people who are not dyed-in-the-wool right-wing Republicans who've seen the movie and appreciated it.

01:53:35.000 Which, by the way, I'm supposed to mention, if you go to whatiswoman.com, we just decided we're going to make the first 15 minutes of it free.

01:53:42.000 So you can kind of get...

01:53:44.000 You can go check it out.

01:53:45.000 You can see 15 minutes of the film and decide if it's...

01:53:47.000 It'll wet your outrage.

01:53:48.000 Yeah.

01:53:49.000 Decide if it's something you want to subscribe to watch.

01:53:52.000 Hopefully you will, though.

01:53:54.000 So, Daily Wire as an enterprise started because of the suppression of conservative ideas online?

01:54:03.000 Is that why they decided to have this network?

01:54:08.000 I don't think it was just that.

01:54:10.000 I mean, originally it started as basically a conservative kind of news site, which is a political site, which there's still a lot of that.

01:54:19.000 But one thing that we talk about at the Daily Wire is Wanting to build an actual cultural institution on the right, which doesn't exist right now.

01:54:30.000 You find that all over on the left, right?

01:54:32.000 They've got a bunch of them, but there really isn't that on the right.

01:54:35.000 The only thing that could make a case for itself will be Fox News.

01:54:42.000 I think even for Fox News, they reach a lot of people, but it's Fox News, and it's seen a certain way.

01:54:49.000 And so its ability to impact the culture, I think, is somewhat limited because of that.

01:54:54.000 But with The Daily Wire, the desire is to build an actual culture institution that can reach into all these different areas of culture and make an impact that way.

01:55:03.000 With fictional films as well.

01:55:05.000 With fictional films.

01:55:07.000 What is a Woman is...

01:55:10.000 It's a documentary.

01:55:11.000 It obviously has a point of view.

01:55:14.000 I'm not out there in the film preaching that point of view, but I, as the person behind the film, I had a point of view that I wanted to get across.

01:55:22.000 A lot of the other films that The Daily Wire has made, though, especially the fictional films, there isn't a political point of view.

01:55:27.000 It's supposed to simply be entertainment without the political stuff, which I think a lot of people miss that back when you could find those kinds of movies, which are increasingly hard to find.

01:55:39.000 Do you have friends that are liberals?

01:55:44.000 Not as many as I used to have.

01:55:47.000 They kind of drop off as time goes on.

01:55:50.000 Have you had disputes with any of your people that used to be liberal friends?

01:55:55.000 They generally, they won't come back around and say anything to me.

01:55:58.000 They'll just, like, I realize, oh yeah, I haven't talked to that guy in a year.

01:56:03.000 You know, growing up especially, like I said, I grew up in a liberal area, so I had plenty of friends that were liberal.

01:56:07.000 We'd get into, you know.

01:56:08.000 Where'd you grow up?

01:56:10.000 Baltimore.

01:56:11.000 Not the city, but outside of Baltimore.

01:56:14.000 And there was, you know, we would have knock down, drag out type arguments and that sort of thing, which was allowed back then.

01:56:22.000 Not as much now, though, I guess.

01:56:25.000 And so when you did grow up with these kind of people, did you ever imagine that there'd be this kind of a divide in this country?

01:56:34.000 Because when I was a kid, I had, you know, there was plenty of people that were conservative and liberal.

01:56:39.000 Even my parents had friends that were conservative.

01:56:41.000 My parents were liberal.

01:56:43.000 Now, you don't see a lot of reasonable discussion.

01:56:48.000 Like, people seem to have, like, shored off into their own camps.

01:56:51.000 Yeah, I actually think people say that, oh, we're headed for a civil war and all that.

01:56:55.000 And I don't think that we are headed for a civil war because the situation in our country is very different now than it was in 1860 in a lot of ways.

01:57:03.000 And one way is that the divide is not as explicitly geographical.

01:57:08.000 I mean, there is a geographical component to it, but you can't just split it down the middle, right?

01:57:13.000 Everything's mingled together.

01:57:13.000 So I don't know if we really have the...

01:57:18.000 The atmosphere for a real civil war, but I do think that our country is probably more divided now than it was in the civil war, because there's just this vast chasm that separates one side from the other.

01:57:30.000 There are no shared beliefs, there are no shared values at all, at least from the two ends of the political spectrum.

01:57:41.000 It's not even a spectrum anymore, because there is this severing down the middle of it.

01:57:44.000 Do you think that's by design?

01:57:49.000 Yeah, I mean, I think it's by design.

01:57:50.000 It makes it impossible to have a conversation.

01:57:52.000 That's one of the reasons why political debates are so fruitless often is because in order to have a constructive conversation with someone or even a constructive debate, you have to have some shared frame of reference that you're both referring back to.

01:58:05.000 And if you don't have that, then what are you talking about?

01:58:08.000 That's one of the reasons why, you know, I can sit around in a room with other conservatives And have really passionate debates that feel productive because we agree on the fundamental stuff, but now we're just arguing about some of the details, some of the things that you build on top of the foundation.

01:58:26.000 But when you don't even share the foundation, then there's nowhere to go.

01:58:32.000 You reach this impasse.

01:58:34.000 Like I did in What is a Woman?

01:58:35.000 You eventually come back to, well, what is truth?

01:58:37.000 How do we know if there's a truth?

01:58:38.000 Well, once the conversation devolves into that, there's nowhere to go from there.

01:58:42.000 Well, when you get away from gender, what are the other gigantic divides that you see that are impassable?

01:58:52.000 The big pillar issues, the life issue, gender, marriage...

01:58:58.000 What about specifically about the marriage one?

01:59:02.000 Well, do you believe that marriage...

01:59:06.000 Is marriage fundamentally a procreative male and female union or not?

01:59:13.000 There's not really much of a compromise position there.

01:59:17.000 There's not a compromise in gay men?

01:59:20.000 That want to be married.

01:59:21.000 They're in love and they want to formalize their bond so they could see their partner if there's a medical emergency or if there's a death where you, you know, assign assets to your loved ones.

01:59:35.000 Well, that's not a compromise on the fundamental definition of marriage, because that's the question that lies underneath all this.

01:59:42.000 Well, marriage is a legal union between people who love each other, right?

01:59:46.000 Isn't that what it is?

01:59:49.000 For what purpose?

01:59:51.000 Like, why do we need a union?

01:59:52.000 Because they want it to be solidified.

01:59:55.000 They want it to be carved in stone.

01:59:57.000 They want to say, this is not just a person that I love.

02:00:00.000 This is my life partner.

02:00:02.000 Right, but why...

02:00:05.000 As a society, why do we need to solidify or make official a union between people who love each other?

02:00:12.000 If you're with someone and you love them, then why isn't that?

02:00:17.000 What purpose does marriage actually serve in society?

02:00:22.000 What is it doing for society?

02:00:24.000 But it's not necessarily for society.

02:00:27.000 It's for the individual's comfort.

02:00:30.000 If two people decide to stay together and have children and don't ever get married, that's okay, too.

02:00:35.000 I mean, we don't have a law against that.

02:00:37.000 So if two people decide that they want to be joined in union and they want it to be legal, they want to really commit, I'm committing so hard, I'm going to bring lawyers involved and we're going to sign papers and we're going to go over the terms of this.

02:00:53.000 But I don't think it is just personal.

02:00:55.000 It is also a public institution.

02:01:00.000 That's what we're talking about.

02:01:01.000 You want the public to recognize this.

02:01:04.000 If it was just personal, then we wouldn't even be having the conversation because people are loving whoever they're loving and that's it.

02:01:12.000 There's no way to control that and it is what it is.

02:01:14.000 But what if any negative aspects would there be to people doing that if they're gay?

02:01:19.000 Well, the issue is that From my perspective and from the perspective of most human societies that have existed in history, is that marriage is the context in which the procreative union occurs.

02:01:38.000 Marriage is the foundation for the family.

02:01:41.000 It's something that is reserved for that because the male-female union has this capacity to create life Whereas no other union has that capacity.

02:01:55.000 And so it is a different kind of thing.

02:01:57.000 And it makes sense to call it something different.

02:01:59.000 It's like if, you know, if human society were to collapse overnight, and we all woke up with an amnesia and didn't remember anything about what happened before, and we're rebuilding society from scratch, and we look around, and we see that, oh, there are some couplings over here that have this weird habit of creating people,

02:02:17.000 and there are other couplings where there are no people being created.

02:02:20.000 We probably call that something different.

02:02:22.000 It's a different kind of thing.

02:02:24.000 It's also more important to society.

02:02:26.000 Like, society needs that.

02:02:28.000 You're gonna keep society going because you're creating people.

02:02:32.000 And that's what marriage was.

02:02:33.000 It was the context for that procreative union.

02:02:38.000 But what about gay couples who get surrogate parents to carry their children or who adopt children?

02:02:44.000 That's very common.

02:02:46.000 Yeah, it's common, but the union itself is not creating the child.

02:02:52.000 But it's a man-made institution.

02:02:54.000 We've decided that we should involve the law and to join a male and a female who create a family.

02:03:01.000 Like, why would that be mutually exclusive?

02:03:03.000 Why would that not apply to a gay couple?

02:03:08.000 Well, again, part of it is it's a matter of definitions.

02:03:12.000 So it's a little bit like the what is a woman question.

02:03:14.000 It's like what is marriage?

02:03:18.000 But doesn't that seem like an easier one?

02:03:20.000 Like two people who love each other.

02:03:22.000 This is my life partner.

02:03:24.000 This is the person I want to be with to the day I die.

02:03:26.000 Let's get married.

02:03:27.000 Everybody is happy.

02:03:29.000 Everybody celebrates.

02:03:30.000 Why?

02:03:30.000 Just two people?

02:03:31.000 Why just two people?

02:03:32.000 Well, I don't know.

02:03:33.000 Why only two people with heterosexuals?

02:03:36.000 Because that's not always the case.

02:03:37.000 Well, because only two people can create another person, you know?

02:03:41.000 No, you can have another person involved, and they can have your kid, too.

02:03:45.000 Isn't that what the Mormons did?

02:03:47.000 Yeah, but only two people can actually create...

02:03:50.000 Two people at a time.

02:03:51.000 Right.

02:03:51.000 Exactly.

02:03:52.000 Okay.

02:03:54.000 And, yeah, that's one of the reasons why I would also, you know, if we want to call it heterosexual polygamy, I'm not a proponent of that, because...

02:04:01.000 You know, when two people create another person, the person, the child that they've created, now needs and deserves and has a right to be raised in a stable environment with a mom and a dad who are living together in the house.

02:04:16.000 That's what we should endeavor as a society to provide every child.

02:04:20.000 And children need...

02:04:23.000 They need both.

02:04:23.000 A child needs a mom and a dad.

02:04:25.000 That's the way nature has set it up, right?

02:04:28.000 So even the idea of, well, two men will raise a baby.

02:04:34.000 So are we saying that the mom is not...

02:04:37.000 Mom is disposable here, expendable.

02:04:39.000 We don't need the mom.

02:04:40.000 That's not what we're saying.

02:04:41.000 We're saying, is it okay if two men raise a baby?

02:04:44.000 Like, if a single dad can raise a baby.

02:04:46.000 A single dad's not required if the wife dies.

02:04:49.000 He's not required to get married and provide his son with a stepmother.

02:04:54.000 Yeah, he's not required.

02:04:56.000 Of course, we wouldn't require that.

02:04:57.000 So what if that single dad decides after the mother's gone, you know what?

02:05:01.000 All this time, I've actually been gay.

02:05:03.000 And really, I want to marry a man.

02:05:05.000 Now marries a man, still continues to raise the son that's his son.

02:05:09.000 Well, I think...

02:05:12.000 You can have single-parent households, right?

02:05:15.000 But in a single-parent household, and the child can be raised by a single parent, and the child can turn out okay and have a great and fulfilling life.

02:05:24.000 But it's going to be not because there's only one parent.

02:05:27.000 It's in spite of that.

02:05:28.000 That's a hurdle you have to get over.

02:05:29.000 The child is still being deprived of something that is important.

02:05:38.000 So to consign a child to that to begin with and say, well, we're going to give you two dads rather than a mom and a dad.

02:05:44.000 Because there was a mom involved in creating the child, but she's not going to be anywhere in the picture.

02:05:51.000 I'm of the view that the mom is not expendable.

02:05:57.000 She plays a necessary role that cannot be replaced.

02:06:02.000 You know, I cannot be my child's mother.

02:06:06.000 My children have a mother.

02:06:07.000 They need her.

02:06:08.000 She does something special and unique in our family.

02:06:11.000 And if they didn't have her, it doesn't mean that they're not gonna be able to function anymore as human beings, but they're going to be deprived of something, something important.

02:06:23.000 But even if that is beneficial to have a mother involved and a father involved, surely having one parent only, even though it's not ideal, is certainly better than being in foster care.

02:06:36.000 It's certainly better than being in a home somewhere where there's no parental figure at all.

02:06:44.000 I would think there's a lot of people that are out there that are living a life like that, unfortunately.

02:06:49.000 There's a lot of kids that are not adopted.

02:06:50.000 There's a lot of kids that are in foster care.

02:06:53.000 Wouldn't it be better for those kids to be raised by a gay couple who's married?

02:06:58.000 I think every child deserves the best possible situation, the best chance that we can give them.

02:07:07.000 So I would say that every child, we should be looking for a man-woman couple.

02:07:11.000 And also keep in mind, too, that especially when it comes to babies, you know, this changes as the kids get a little bit older, but with babies who are up for adoption, there's actually a I think?

02:07:42.000 Willing to adopt kids.

02:07:44.000 I just don't think that that's even true to begin with.

02:07:47.000 I think it's a little bit of a kind of a misnomer.

02:07:49.000 It's foster kids that have the issue, right?

02:07:51.000 Kids that are 10, 11, 12. Yeah, that's where it becomes more of a challenge as kids get older.

02:08:00.000 Most people who are adopting are looking for, you know, they want a baby so they can raise the child from as close to birth as possible.

02:08:08.000 Do you think of gay marriage as a personal freedom issue, that you should be able to do that?

02:08:14.000 If you were born gay and that's who you are and you meet another person that's gay and you fall in love and decide that you want to be bonded in a union, isn't that a personal freedom issue?

02:08:24.000 And shouldn't we encourage personal freedom?

02:08:27.000 I think of it as a definitional issue.

02:08:30.000 So what do you think it should be?

02:08:32.000 I think of it as a definitional issue.

02:08:33.000 I think of marriage as a certain thing, which is the context for procreation, for the building of the nuclear family.

02:08:44.000 What about people that get married that don't have kids?

02:08:46.000 Are you opposed to that?

02:08:48.000 What if they get married and they decide, you know what, we don't need kids, I'm going to get fixed, you get your tubes tied, let's travel the world.

02:08:54.000 Well, what do you mean am I opposed to it?

02:08:56.000 I mean, I think that every married couple should be open to life.

02:08:59.000 But what if they don't want to?

02:09:01.000 Are you opposed to them being married?

02:09:03.000 If marriage is only for procreation and to bond a family together, what about people that are deeply in love that never want to have children?

02:09:10.000 I don't think it's—it's not only procreation, but that is one of the fundamental definitional aspects of it.

02:09:19.000 Of course, there's more to marriage just than that.

02:09:21.000 And what about people that are infertile?

02:09:23.000 They fall in love and they realize that they can have babies and they don't really necessarily want to adopt.

02:09:28.000 Is that okay for them to be married?

02:09:30.000 Because then by definition, marriage falls into a completely different thing because then it's a bond of love.

02:09:36.000 It's a union of love.

02:09:38.000 Sure.

02:09:39.000 I mean, that doesn't change the nature of marriage, though.

02:09:43.000 It's a little bit like, I say that, what's the definition of a woman?

02:09:48.000 Well, a woman is someone who by her nature can conceive children in her womb and bear children.

02:09:52.000 And then the response is always, what about women who are infertile?

02:09:55.000 Does that destroy your definition of woman?

02:09:58.000 And it doesn't, because...

02:10:01.000 You know, it's still a woman's nature to bear children.

02:10:04.000 Not every woman will, and there will be disease and infertility and old age and all these things that will preclude that, but it's still of her nature to do so.

02:10:14.000 And I would say the same thing for marriage.

02:10:16.000 I mean, it is natural in a marriage for procreation to occur.

02:10:20.000 It's not always going to happen in reality, though, but that's still one of the natural functions of marriage.

02:10:27.000 And married couples who can't conceive children.

02:10:29.000 There are other ways to be parents, like adoption, for example.

02:10:34.000 If they want to.

02:10:35.000 Right.

02:10:35.000 But if people want to be married and don't want to ever have children, are you opposed to them being married?

02:10:41.000 I wouldn't advocate a law that would prevent it.

02:10:44.000 But would it change the definition of what their marriage is to you because they don't want to have a family?

02:10:48.000 They just want to have a loving bond?

02:10:51.000 I think this would be a couple that is rejecting one of the fundamental aspects of marriage.

02:10:58.000 They should be open to life.

02:11:02.000 I would hope that in the future they would be.

02:11:04.000 But isn't that just a personal choice?

02:11:06.000 I mean, you can have a very fulfilling life if you just...

02:11:10.000 Follow your pursuits and your dreams and your interests and you find someone that shares those interests with you and you share time together.

02:11:18.000 It's very fulfilling and loving.

02:11:19.000 Yeah, it's a personal choice in that I'm not advocating for like a law that says if you're married, you have to have X number of kids.

02:11:28.000 But then why are you opposed to two gay people doing that?

02:11:32.000 Well, because, again, it's not about choice.

02:11:36.000 It's about what this institution, marriage as an institution, and what is it, and what purpose does it serve?

02:11:43.000 And I do not agree with tearing down or changing this definition, especially because the people who have changed the definition haven't come up With a new one.

02:11:56.000 So they say, well, that's not what marriage is.

02:11:59.000 So for thousands of years, we said marriage is the procreative union.

02:12:03.000 And then we had the other side who came along and said, well, it's not that.

02:12:07.000 Okay, well, then, like, what is it exactly?

02:12:09.000 And I know you said, well, it's people who love each other, two people love each other.

02:12:12.000 But then...

02:12:13.000 Why two people?

02:12:14.000 Why do they have to love each other?

02:12:15.000 You know, all these kinds of questions.

02:12:18.000 What if they're in the same family?

02:12:20.000 What if brothers and sisters want to marry?

02:12:22.000 And I know every time that comes up, you know, the advocates for gay marriage will say, well, that's a slippery slope argument.

02:12:27.000 That's a fallacious.

02:12:27.000 But it's actually not.

02:12:29.000 It's like we're trying to get to what do you even think this institution is now?

02:12:32.000 Since you've rejected out what we were saying it was, and I've never found a compelling definition.

02:12:41.000 And any definition offered, it's like, well, what's even the point then?

02:12:45.000 Why do we even need this now?

02:12:47.000 I just don't see how a gay marriage in any way damages a straight marriage.

02:12:55.000 I don't see it at all.

02:12:57.000 It doesn't make any sense to me.

02:12:58.000 It just seems to me that people want to be...

02:13:00.000 Look, if you wanted to look at logic, Especially in our modern society, which is pretty fucked when it comes to relationships.

02:13:10.000 It's somewhere in the neighborhood of 50% of all marriages end in divorce anyway.

02:13:14.000 They don't make it.

02:13:15.000 You know, I don't know if anything would damage marriage and damage the institution of marriage.

02:13:22.000 It's the option of divorce.

02:13:24.000 I don't think gay people and gay people getting married in any way shape or form changes a bond that you have with your wife.

02:13:31.000 It's just called marriage.

02:13:33.000 It's a human invented thing.

02:13:35.000 If we decide that gay people can get married too, I just don't see how it damages anything.

02:13:40.000 I don't think it tears down the definition of marriage in any way.

02:13:43.000 It just opens up the possibility that people who are gay won't be discriminated against.

02:13:48.000 Yeah, I don't think that a gay couple existing directly impacts...

02:13:55.000 You know, there's a gay couple and, you know, wherever, and I'm with my wife in our house.

02:14:00.000 Like, obviously, there's not...

02:14:01.000 But I'm talking about...

02:14:03.000 I'm not talking about it on the individual level.

02:14:04.000 I'm talking about it on the societal level.

02:14:06.000 Right.

02:14:07.000 I would agree that...

02:14:09.000 Divorce, especially, you know, there's no-fault divorce, rampant divorce.

02:14:14.000 I don't think it's as high as 50%.

02:14:16.000 I know that that's often quoted.

02:14:17.000 I'm not sure where that comes from, but it is high.

02:14:20.000 It's too high.

02:14:21.000 Chris Rock has a great joke about that.

02:14:22.000 He said those are just the people with the courage to get out.

02:14:25.000 It's like, how many cowards stay?

02:14:27.000 But it's also true that the advocates for what we call now traditional marriage, which I just call marriage, but the advocates for traditional marriage put themselves at a disadvantage by allowing, especially in the churches, allowing this rampant divorce to occur.

02:14:43.000 And then you've already sort of given up on some...

02:14:47.000 Marriage is supposed to be monogamous and permanent, as well as procreative.

02:14:53.000 Well, you've given up monogamy and permanence, and so now that's two of the three legs gone.

02:14:58.000 And so now this assault was waged on the procreative part of it, and it was difficult to withstand it because the institution had already been weakened.

02:15:05.000 So I agree with you there.

02:15:09.000 But my answer to that is to try to reinforce what marriage is, not to just give up on it entirely.

02:15:15.000 And I still think...

02:15:18.000 You're left with this question of, like, if marriage is not what I'm saying it is, then why do we even need it?

02:15:25.000 I mean, you're saying it's a man-made institution.

02:15:28.000 Yes.

02:15:28.000 But you're also...

02:15:30.000 Like, the way that you're presenting it, it's also a totally meaningless institution.

02:15:35.000 No.

02:15:35.000 You don't need it at all.

02:15:36.000 No, it's not meaningless, because it means something to the people that get married.

02:15:40.000 So it's just a subjective, symbolic...

02:15:45.000 Yeah.

02:15:45.000 It's kind of what it is.

02:15:47.000 Look, there's a massive responsibility when you're married and when you have children to keep your family together and keep everybody happy and healthy.

02:15:55.000 And there's great reward to that.

02:15:58.000 But it doesn't always work out.

02:16:04.000 People change.

02:16:05.000 People are fucked up.

02:16:06.000 It doesn't always work.

02:16:08.000 And so I don't think it should be outlawed because 50% of the people fall apart.

02:16:13.000 Just like I don't think it has any effect whatsoever on a straight couple if a gay couple decides that they want to make it official.

02:16:22.000 And that's what it is to them.

02:16:23.000 It gives them a feeling that they're accepted and appreciated and that they're not discriminated against because they happen to be homosexual.

02:16:33.000 So what you're articulating to me is the damage that's done by gay marriage to the institution of marriage.

02:16:41.000 But how is it done?

02:16:42.000 How is that in any way damaged straight people?

02:16:45.000 Because we are making the institution meaningless.

02:16:48.000 But it's not meaningless.

02:16:49.000 It's very meaningful to the people that have it.

02:16:52.000 Subjective, symbolic, and it's about your own personal feelings.

02:16:55.000 Isn't it though?

02:16:56.000 Well, no, I would say that it's not.

02:16:58.000 Well, if it's not subjective and it's not symbolic...

02:17:01.000 It codifies and protects and gives a name to a thing that actually exists, which are man, woman, couples creating people, creating babies.

02:17:14.000 But not always.

02:17:17.000 Right, but that's still the nature of the union.

02:17:20.000 But what are the percentage of people today that are married that don't have children?

02:17:24.000 I bet it's pretty high amongst heterosexuals.

02:17:26.000 Probably.

02:17:28.000 Is there something wrong with that?

02:17:30.000 I think there is something wrong with that.

02:17:32.000 I think there is something wrong with getting married and saying, we're not going to have any kids at all.

02:17:39.000 But why is there something wrong with that, of someone's personal choice?

02:17:43.000 Why is it wrong that two people are like, you know, I am deeply committed to work and I don't want to sacrifice any of my career and I don't want to ruin a kid because I'm constantly at the office, but that's where I get deep satisfaction and that's what I'm focused on.

02:18:01.000 And the woman says, that's great because I don't want children either.

02:18:05.000 I really am attached to my interests and my career and what I like to do.

02:18:10.000 That's not damaging your relationship with your wife and your family.

02:18:14.000 I certainly don't think of it as a threat to my marriage or my family.

02:18:19.000 Yeah, it is a personal choice.

02:18:22.000 Right, but shouldn't people be allowed to make those personal choices?

02:18:25.000 Like, isn't that a fundamental aspect of what it means to be American, to have that freedom?

02:18:31.000 Yeah, but right now we're not talking about what people are allowed to do.

02:18:33.000 Well, we're talking about marriage, gay marriage.

02:18:36.000 Okay, we were just discussing straight couples who choose not to have kids.

02:18:40.000 That's also a personal freedom issue, isn't it?

02:18:42.000 Yeah, and I'm not saying that straight couples should be legally required to have kids, but if you're asking me, do I think it's the right choice to just get married and choose not to have kids ever, I do not think that that's the right choice.

02:18:54.000 It's their choice, but people can make choices that are wrong.

02:18:58.000 But how is it wrong if they have a fulfilling and wonderful life together with that choice?

02:19:04.000 Their thing is that they just want to have a bond between the two of them to just take it to the next level, let everybody know, we are married.

02:19:13.000 If I die, my money is going to go to Helen.

02:19:16.000 And if Helen dies, I'm going to mourn her because she was my wife and now I'll be a widower.

02:19:22.000 To some people, that distinction gives them peace and security and makes them feel better about the relationship, that they're both so committed that they've legally signed documents that say that they're bound by law and under the eyes of God or whatever you believe in.

02:19:39.000 Yeah.

02:19:41.000 They're able to make that choice, but I think they're still rejecting one of the purposes of marriage.

02:19:49.000 And in the scenario that you just outlined, you're also...

02:19:54.000 Deciding to live a really self-centered life, you're saying?

02:19:59.000 What if you're not?

02:19:59.000 What if your work is very charitable?

02:20:01.000 What if it benefits humanity in a deep way?

02:20:04.000 What if you spend a lot of time doing healthcare work and social work and you're deeply committed to your community?

02:20:13.000 It's not selfish at all.

02:20:15.000 You're just dedicating your time to something other than raising new human beings.

02:20:19.000 You're dedicating your life to enhancing other human beings that are around you.

02:20:23.000 That's a hypothetical.

02:20:24.000 It is a hypothetical, but so is yours, right?

02:20:26.000 Yeah.

02:20:27.000 But I think most of the people that choose, like, we're not going to have kids.

02:20:30.000 And those rates are declining.

02:20:35.000 And the age when people first have kids is also going up and all that.

02:20:40.000 Most of the people that are making these choices, I don't think it's because they're involved in charity work.

02:20:45.000 I do think that it is more...

02:20:47.000 The scenario you outlined the first time around, which is just like, well, this is what I'm doing.

02:20:52.000 I have my job.

02:20:53.000 I don't want to give it up.

02:20:55.000 But don't you think that people should have the freedom to live their life in that way?

02:20:59.000 I think human beings vary widely in a huge way.

02:21:03.000 And I think there's some human beings that find a very fulfilling life just reading books and traveling and experiencing different things and seeing art and doing whatever the fuck they want to do.

02:21:14.000 And they don't necessarily have to have kids to live a fulfilling life that way.

02:21:19.000 And if they choose to do that with someone who they have a loving bond with and who they get married to, I don't think it's a bad thing that they don't want to have kids.

02:21:28.000 Well, I think, I guess we have to, maybe we're running into a question of, you know, Now you get to the real fundamental question.

02:21:37.000 I think it's a fundamental freedom thing.

02:21:40.000 We're not disagreeing, I guess, on the freedom aspect of it because, again, I'm not saying that you should be required to have kids.

02:21:46.000 You're imposing your sensibilities on what you think is important in life to other people.

02:21:52.000 But everybody has a different idea of what's important in life without hurting anyone.

02:21:56.000 The thing is, like, what I'm saying is these people that are married, that don't have children, they're not harming anyone.

02:22:02.000 They're not harming these unborn children that they never have.

02:22:05.000 They're not harming anyone.

02:22:06.000 And it doesn't affect your relationship with your family and your marriage at all.

02:22:12.000 Yeah, but I'm not imposing myself on them or harming them by answering a question about About how I feel about their choices.

02:22:20.000 Right, but nor are gay people doing that to you.

02:22:23.000 I think the harm comes from, on a societal level, when we start breaking down these basic, central institutions, like the institution of the family and of marriage, that's where the harm comes from.

02:22:39.000 And the more that people believe, the more that we build a society where it's believed that marriage is It's objectively meaningless, right?

02:22:47.000 It's entirely subjective.

02:22:48.000 It's just about making you feel better.

02:22:51.000 The more that we build a society like that, I think that's where the harm comes in, the worse it is.

02:22:56.000 People are going to reject marriage, and that means fewer kids are being born.

02:23:02.000 Also, more kids are being born in a context where they don't have that stable family structure.

02:23:06.000 So the harm definitely comes.

02:23:08.000 It may not be this immediate connect-the-dots thing, but...

02:23:13.000 And we can already see that.

02:23:14.000 So you think by adding gay couples to the definition of what a marriage is, by defining it in that way, it's two people that bond to each other, somehow or another that harms people that have successful marriages that are nuclear family marriages like you enjoy?

02:23:30.000 I think it harms when you say add them to the definition.

02:23:34.000 You can't really add them to the definition.

02:23:36.000 You can only just get rid of what the definition was.

02:23:39.000 Trevor Burrus Well, that's your definition though.

02:23:41.000 The definition of marriage is just a legal bond.

02:23:44.000 What is the definition?

02:23:46.000 If we Google it today, I'm sure it's been politicized.

02:23:51.000 Google marriage.

02:23:52.000 What is the definition of marriage today?

02:23:55.000 That's an interesting question.

02:23:57.000 How is that defined?

02:23:58.000 Because you know that Most of these places, they do change them with culture.

02:24:04.000 Legally or formally recognized union of two people as partners in a personal relationship, historically, in some jurisdictions, specifically a union between a man and a woman, and in quotes, a happy marriage, a combination or a mixture of two or more elements.

02:24:19.000 Okay, that's a different marriage.

02:24:22.000 Yeah, recognized union of two people.

02:24:26.000 So what's the damage that gets done to a straight relationship if we change the definition of marriage and allow it to include gay couples?

02:24:36.000 By making marriage meaningless.

02:24:41.000 That's the damage.

02:24:42.000 But how does it make it meaningless?

02:24:43.000 Does it make it meaningless?

02:24:44.000 It doesn't change your marriage at all.

02:24:47.000 It's just now gay people can get married too.

02:24:49.000 I don't see that that even deteriorates the idea.

02:24:54.000 We're already seeing this on a societal level.

02:24:57.000 We're seeing that people are rejecting marriage.

02:24:59.000 They're saying that people live together and they say, well, there's no point in getting married.

02:25:04.000 All it is, that definition, it's just utterly...

02:25:10.000 It's arbitrary, meaningless paperwork that says, yep, you're in a union and you love each other.

02:25:15.000 Why would you need paperwork to codify the fact that you love each other?

02:25:20.000 It's a good question.

02:25:22.000 Right, that's my point.

02:25:24.000 That's why marriage can't be just that, because if it's just that, then it's not anything.

02:25:29.000 Well, maybe it is just that, and yet it's still rewarding for the people that participate in it.

02:25:34.000 Because it is sort of silly that you bring in other people to codify your relationship and to, like, legally bind each other together.

02:25:43.000 It is kind of crazy.

02:25:44.000 Right.

02:25:45.000 So...

02:25:47.000 I feel like in a weird way, we're agreeing because I'm saying that if we expand marriage to include gay couples, we have made marriage into something effectively meaningless and silly and you're essentially saying that that's what it is.

02:26:01.000 But that is the harm that I'm worried about.

02:26:04.000 But I don't think gay people getting married changes that.

02:26:08.000 I think if gay people didn't get married, you'd still have a bunch of people that think that marriage is silly, and that marriage is just a legal bond, and it's not necessary, and you can have a family without marriage, and there's a lot of people that do it.

02:26:20.000 Maybe.

02:26:20.000 You'd have fewer, but the bigger point is that, as a culture, we would not have affirmed and validated that view, that marriage is silly and pointless.

02:26:28.000 But now we have, as a country, the Supreme Court validated it.

02:26:33.000 And that's a problem because I think that marriage is so important to a functioning human civilization, which is why there's never been a civilization without it.

02:26:46.000 And so this is another one of those experiments that we're trying out.

02:26:50.000 I don't think it's going to work out too well.

02:26:52.000 But it's dependent upon people agreeing to stay married.

02:26:55.000 That's what it's dependent upon.

02:26:57.000 And there's always that escape clause and people pull that chute all the time.

02:27:01.000 I don't think gay people being married has any effect on whether or not straight people stay together or whether or not straight people get married or whether or not straight people appreciate marriage.

02:27:12.000 They're staying married because there's a benefit to it.

02:27:15.000 It doesn't have anything to do with whether or not gay people are also married.

02:27:19.000 I don't think that affects them in the slightest.

02:27:22.000 I don't think my marriage is affected at all by my friend getting divorced.

02:27:27.000 I don't think it has any effect on me.

02:27:29.000 If I decide to stay married and my wife decides to stay married to me, that's our own decision.

02:27:35.000 And we do it based on our own commitment to being together, to having a family, to raising a family.

02:27:41.000 Two other people getting married or not getting married or Elizabeth Taylor getting married ten times means nothing.

02:27:47.000 It has no effect on me.

02:27:48.000 And it shouldn't.

02:27:50.000 Yeah, when you're looking at it on the smallest, most individual level, You could say that, and at least if there is an effect, it's really hard to see.

02:28:01.000 But that's why you have to expand the view a little bit.

02:28:03.000 Have you talked to happy gay couples about what it means to them to be married?

02:28:07.000 Because it's significant.

02:28:09.000 Do you think people, if they feel like...

02:28:15.000 Is this a religious thing?

02:28:16.000 Do you think the people who are gay should practice homosexuality?

02:28:21.000 Or do you think that they should try to avoid it because biblically it's frowned upon?

02:28:27.000 I am a Christian.

02:28:29.000 I'm Catholic.

02:28:31.000 So if you want to talk about the biblical aspects of it, I can do that.

02:28:36.000 But what are your own personal feelings about gay people?

02:28:39.000 Should they avoid being gay?

02:28:44.000 I believe in sexual immorality, is that the sexual act, properly ordered, belongs within the marital bond.

02:29:02.000 Sure.

02:29:18.000 But then there's also just the definitional side of it, which is what we've been talking about up till now.

02:29:25.000 And I can explain or attempt to why the definition of marriage is important.

02:29:33.000 And I can do that without saying, well, here's the Bible verse and quoting the Bible.

02:29:39.000 But obviously there has to be some religious reason why you think it's immoral for people to have gay sex, for people to have sex with each other, even if they're married.

02:29:50.000 Because if you think that extramarital relationships are immoral, sexual relations are immoral, what about gay people that preserve their virginity until they're married?

02:30:01.000 There's people that are just gay.

02:30:03.000 They know they're gay.

02:30:04.000 They've been gay forever.

02:30:05.000 I have friends that are gay, and they've always been gay.

02:30:08.000 I have friends that are gay that are really damaged because they have to hide it.

02:30:12.000 And they're closeted.

02:30:13.000 Some of them in the entertainment industry.

02:30:15.000 Some of them that are like alcoholics because of it.

02:30:17.000 And they're all fucked up because they have this secret.

02:30:20.000 And they are gay.

02:30:21.000 And it's not something that was forced upon them.

02:30:24.000 It's not something that was asked of them or something they were...

02:30:28.000 Manipulated into being, they're just gay.

02:30:31.000 And if those gay people find other gay people and they fall in love and they decide to get married, I don't see how that affects anyone other than someone that's not gay who has this idea that they shouldn't be that way.

02:30:46.000 But they're just gay.

02:30:48.000 You're not gonna fix that.

02:30:49.000 And by telling them to ignore that aspect of who they are as a human being and to deny that that's always been a part of human history.

02:30:57.000 If you go back through, like, ancient stories, there's been men who've been in love with men.

02:31:03.000 It's always been the case.

02:31:07.000 I mean, you said before, you're saying two gay couples get married doesn't affect your marriage.

02:31:14.000 Right.

02:31:14.000 Just like you said that if your friend gets divorced, it doesn't affect your marriage.

02:31:17.000 Yeah.

02:31:18.000 Which is probably basically true.

02:31:22.000 But the question is, when you have this happening on a massive societal scale, and you have a society that has embraced this and has officially sort of embraced the idea that marriage is not permanent, so anyone just get divorced for whatever reason.

02:31:39.000 Marriage is not procreative, so it doesn't matter, man, woman, just get married.

02:31:44.000 That's where the effect comes in.

02:31:46.000 And yeah, as someone who's already been married as an adult, you might not feel it as much, but it certainly will.

02:31:54.000 You said earlier that it's not going to stop other people from getting married.

02:31:57.000 I think it does.

02:31:57.000 I think it will stop it.

02:31:59.000 I think it is right now.

02:32:00.000 Marriage rates are declining at a historic rate right now.

02:32:04.000 I don't think it's a coincidence that that's happened.

02:32:08.000 And that this process has been sped up after, you know, the gay marriage Supreme Court decision, and also alongside divorce being rampant.

02:32:15.000 I think people are, they might not articulate it exactly like this.

02:32:18.000 I mean, some of them probably would, but people are looking at marriage, and they're seeing the way that it's treated now in society.

02:32:26.000 And they're saying, it's just, I don't need it.

02:32:28.000 If all it is is a piece of paperwork, Saying, I love this person.

02:32:34.000 What the hell do I need that for?

02:32:35.000 Like, why do I need...

02:32:36.000 Yeah, but isn't that their own personal decision to make?

02:32:40.000 Like, if we believe and value personal freedom, the freedom to choose your ideology, the freedom to live your life how you like to, the freedom to choose your occupation, the freedom to choose what education or discipline you pursue, shouldn't we encourage the freedom to leave a relationship that's toxic?

02:33:01.000 Like if someone is married and they're married to someone and they don't grow together and they grow apart from each other and they resent each other and hate each other, why should they stay together?

02:33:11.000 Just because they said it?

02:33:13.000 I mean, isn't that ridiculous to assume that people are not going to change?

02:33:17.000 You're talking about people that get married for 10, 15, 20 years.

02:33:20.000 You're not the same person you were 20 years ago.

02:33:22.000 I'm not the same person I was 20 years ago.

02:33:24.000 If you're lucky, you marry someone and you grow together and your bond strengthens over time.

02:33:30.000 But that doesn't always work.

02:33:31.000 That's just part of being a human.

02:33:33.000 Just because we have this institution We're good to go.

02:33:59.000 More difficult than it is in certain circumstances.

02:34:01.000 Like this no-fault divorce, just anyone, you know, for any reason.

02:34:05.000 And I think that that has contributed to the divorce epidemic.

02:34:11.000 But isn't it an epidemic of people growing and changing?

02:34:15.000 And people, they evolve over time.

02:34:19.000 They devolve over time.

02:34:21.000 They fall apart.

02:34:21.000 People develop gambling habits and drug addictions.

02:34:25.000 The idea that marriage should be encouraged to be for life no matter what seems crazy.

02:34:33.000 I think it's an epidemic, you could phrase it that way, but I think it's an epidemic of people, first of all, no, I wouldn't phrase it that way, that it's an epidemic of people growing, you know?

02:34:42.000 I don't think that divorce is a...

02:34:43.000 Growing apart?

02:34:45.000 Yeah, but I don't think that divorce is a product of personal growth.

02:34:48.000 I think very often it's sort of the opposite of that, but...

02:34:50.000 Sometimes it is, though.

02:34:51.000 Sometimes one person personally grows and the other person falls apart, and you don't want to be bonded to them anymore.

02:34:58.000 Yeah, but it's an epidemic of people not taking the marriage vows seriously, of the marriage vows not really meaning anything, because most people still, when they get married, even if they're not religious, you know, most people still stand on an altar and the death do you part and they say all that.

02:35:17.000 And now we're saying, well, those are just words.

02:35:20.000 It doesn't actually mean anything.

02:35:21.000 Does that mean something or not?

02:35:23.000 Well, it does mean something, but it means something at the time.

02:35:26.000 And people do change.

02:35:27.000 And I think you're coming at it from a perspective of a healthy user bias.

02:35:31.000 You're in a good relationship.

02:35:32.000 You're in a good marriage.

02:35:33.000 You're happy.

02:35:33.000 Some people are not.

02:35:35.000 Some people are in a marriage with someone who's abusive or someone is stealing from them.

02:35:39.000 There's a lot of reasons to get divorced.

02:35:41.000 Yeah.

02:35:44.000 But it's also not like a happy marriage is not something that you just fall into like a puddle.

02:35:50.000 True, but a happy relationship kind of develops in that way, where the relationship is healthy and it's happy, and you say, you know what?

02:35:57.000 I can do this for the rest of my life.

02:36:00.000 And the other person says, I can too.

02:36:01.000 It takes two to tango.

02:36:03.000 Yeah.

02:36:05.000 Marriage is something that you work on every day.

02:36:07.000 Loving your spouse is not an emotional...

02:36:10.000 It's not just emotions.

02:36:13.000 It's not a feeling that you have about them.

02:36:14.000 It's a choice that you make.

02:36:16.000 Love is a choice to sacrifice and live in service to this other person.

02:36:22.000 If both members of the couple do that, then the marriage will stay intact.

02:36:27.000 My position is that that can be the case with gay people.

02:36:30.000 But if one member of the couple is just unwilling to and is just gone, then there's only so much you can do to fight for it.

02:36:39.000 So that's all the case.

02:36:42.000 But what you're articulating is like, Well, the marriage vows don't actually mean anything at all.

02:36:49.000 No, they mean something, clearly, because you have to get out of them.

02:36:52.000 Like, if you want to get out of them, you have to go to court.

02:36:55.000 They clearly mean something in our society and our culture.

02:36:58.000 They mean something financially.

02:36:59.000 They mean something legally.

02:37:01.000 They mean something emotionally.

02:37:02.000 They mean something in terms of the definition of, are you single or are you married?

02:37:06.000 Are you a mister or are you a miz?

02:37:09.000 They mean something.

02:37:11.000 Yeah, but you said at the time.

02:37:13.000 But it's something that we've created.

02:37:15.000 We've invented this thing, and we've ascribed meaning to it.

02:37:19.000 But the reality is, I mean, as much as we'd like to idealize about it, the divorce rate is extremely high.

02:37:26.000 Even if it was 30%, that's pretty crazy.

02:37:29.000 Yeah.

02:37:30.000 I mean, I would say we've invented marriage in the same way that we've invented the family, which is that...

02:37:36.000 No, there's always been a family.

02:37:37.000 There's always been people raising children.

02:37:39.000 And in fact, in tribal situations in the past, it was like a whole village would raise your kids.

02:37:45.000 We'd all raise children together.

02:37:46.000 They would grow together.

02:37:47.000 That's my point.

02:37:48.000 I don't think of marriage, traditional marriage, quote-unquote, as something that was invented, per se.

02:37:55.000 I think of it as something that exists, you know, men, women, man and woman creating a baby, living together.

02:38:00.000 Like, this exists, it exists, and we gave a name to it.

02:38:05.000 Well, couples exist, but the idea of a legal bond and marriage most certainly is invented.

02:38:14.000 Yeah, the paperwork and all that.

02:38:16.000 And if that's not important, then marriage could be just something you say to each other.

02:38:26.000 Like the whole idea is that you're bringing it to court and there's legal reasons for that.

02:38:30.000 You get better insurance.

02:38:32.000 You get to see your spouse when they're in the hospital.

02:38:36.000 There's all sorts of benefits to people being legally bound together.

02:38:40.000 There's tax benefits.

02:38:41.000 There's a lot of benefits to that.

02:38:43.000 And why should we give those benefits to someone, to a couple, just because they love each other?

02:38:49.000 Well, why should we give them to a couple that doesn't want to have children that are married?

02:38:54.000 Well, we can give it to a couple that by its nature can create children.

02:39:00.000 What if they can't?

02:39:01.000 Should we exclude it from people that are infertile?

02:39:04.000 Well, but again, they still are partaking in the nature of marriage.

02:39:10.000 And gay people aren't?

02:39:12.000 If two gay people decide that they want to adopt children and they get bound together legally, isn't that the same thing?

02:39:20.000 Let me just ask you this.

02:39:23.000 Would you say that there is an important difference between a couple that can create a child, a couple who's, in the marital act, it can create a person, versus a couple that fundamentally could never create a person?

02:39:41.000 Well, that's the same thing as infertile people.

02:39:44.000 As I said, fundamentally.

02:39:45.000 Well, fundamentally, once you have that operation, you are infertile.

02:39:50.000 If once a woman has a hysterectomy, once a man, you know, gets fixed, you're infertile.

02:39:56.000 So I'm not talking about an individual.

02:39:57.000 I mean, the type of relationship or the type of coupling that by its nature can create people versus the type of coupling that by its nature never can.

02:40:07.000 I mean, is there a difference between...

02:40:10.000 These two.

02:40:10.000 Well, I think we even describe that difference differently.

02:40:13.000 We call one of them gay marriage.

02:40:15.000 I mean, we literally have a name for it.

02:40:21.000 That's your position.

02:40:22.000 What I'm saying is it— But isn't that society's position in a lot of ways?

02:40:26.000 Like, what percentage of our culture— We don't call it gay marriage.

02:40:29.000 Now we just call it marriage.

02:40:30.000 Yeah, but that's how it's referred to.

02:40:32.000 It's like, we have to protect the rights for gay people to get married.

02:40:35.000 We have to protect the rights for gay marriage.

02:40:38.000 Right.

02:40:39.000 But would you say—so you are saying that there is a difference between these two types of couples?

02:40:46.000 Well, there's a difference between the human beings, clearly.

02:40:48.000 There's a difference between gay people and straight people.

02:40:50.000 Straight people can procreate through the act of sexual intercourse, and gay people can't.

02:40:56.000 Yeah.

02:40:56.000 But I don't think that's everything that a marriage is.

02:40:59.000 I think a marriage is a bond between people that love each other with all the aforementioned benefits.

02:41:04.000 Tax benefits, insurance benefits, the benefit to see each other when the loved one's sick.

02:41:09.000 It's not everything that marriage is, but you are agreeing that it's a difference.

02:41:14.000 Yes.

02:41:15.000 And it's an important difference because the ability to create people is a significant distinction.

02:41:21.000 But my position is that that shouldn't be the only reason why people are allowed to get married.

02:41:26.000 And my position also is that it seems that people are inherently gay.

02:41:31.000 There are people out there that are just gay.

02:41:34.000 Do you think that those people that are just gay should not engage in gay activities?

02:41:39.000 They should engage in gay sex and gay love?

02:41:43.000 I'm a Christian, so I believe in Christian sexual morality, which is that the sex belongs within the bonds of a marriage.

02:41:51.000 And marriage is between a man and a woman, so that's what I believe.

02:41:54.000 So you're opposed to all sex outside of marriage?

02:41:59.000 Morally, yes.

02:42:01.000 But yes, morally.

02:42:02.000 Do you think that should be legal?

02:42:06.000 Should it be illegal to have sex outside of marriage?

02:42:08.000 Should that be a legal distinction?

02:42:10.000 That sex is only legal while married?

02:42:11.000 No, I would not support a law that bans sex outside of marriage.

02:42:15.000 I mean, for one thing, it would be impossible to enforce.

02:42:18.000 I don't know.

02:42:20.000 If I was like a dictator of the universe, and I could control everything, we could talk about it.

02:42:25.000 But no, obviously you couldn't have a law like that.

02:42:28.000 But even then, it goes against human nature, doesn't it?

02:42:30.000 But with the marriage discussion, we're not really talking about...

02:42:35.000 A law.

02:42:37.000 It's not that before it was illegal for men to get married.

02:42:41.000 It was that marriage just precluded two men partaking in it by definition.

02:42:47.000 But wasn't it illegal?

02:42:48.000 It wasn't legal for men to marry each other for a long time.

02:42:53.000 Or women to marry each other.

02:42:54.000 That's the whole reason why they wanted equal marriage rights.

02:42:59.000 Yeah, but it wasn't like you have a law in the books that says men can't do this.

02:43:03.000 It's the law says, this is what this thing is, and that's it.

02:43:09.000 This is what it is.

02:43:10.000 And if you are able to partake in it, then you can.

02:43:14.000 Well, there were legal restrictions that prevented them from doing it because one of them wasn't a woman, right?

02:43:19.000 Right.

02:43:19.000 So it's kind of a law preventing it.

02:43:23.000 Yeah, but I would say it's the same distinction as, you know, a man wants to use the women's restroom.

02:43:29.000 Is it, you know, is he being prevented by law from doing it?

02:43:35.000 Well, it's just like, we shouldn't, you're not a woman, you're just not that.

02:43:40.000 And so that's why, it's not like there's a law targeting you individually.

02:43:45.000 If the law prevents you from going into the women's restroom, it's not like this law is specifically targeting you.

02:43:51.000 It's just that you're not that, and the law is protecting the privacy of the women in the restroom.

02:43:57.000 If you had a conversation with a gay man, and you were gonna tell them what you thought morally was correct to do, would you tell them not be gay?

02:44:08.000 It certainly wouldn't be as simple as that.

02:44:10.000 I don't think you just walk up to someone and tell them...

02:44:12.000 What would you give them as options?

02:44:16.000 I mean, if you have that proclivity, it's not as simple as just someone to say, don't be that anymore.

02:44:29.000 Right.

02:44:30.000 So what would you tell them to do?

02:44:31.000 Just like if you want to stop...

02:44:34.000 Premarital sex.

02:44:35.000 It's not as simple to just say, don't do it, you know.

02:44:39.000 And to actually live according to the sexual morality doctrines of the Christian faith, for example, is really difficult.

02:44:48.000 But at least with premarital sex, they have the hope and the option to one day get married and engage in natural sex that they're attracted to.

02:45:00.000 What would you have gay people do?

02:45:03.000 It's a difficult road, that's for sure.

02:45:07.000 So they should do nothing?

02:45:09.000 They should have no sex, ever?

02:45:10.000 What if you have gay people that are also, they meet other gay people, they love each other, they want to have sex, they should avoid that because of what?

02:45:21.000 Because it's written somewhere?

02:45:22.000 Because at one point in time someone believes that God told them that they shouldn't have sex with other men?

02:45:30.000 Now we're in the realm of a moral conversation, and that's my moral view, that sex also has, you know, we should be open to life.

02:45:43.000 Sex has a procreative element.

02:45:45.000 Again, it doesn't mean every time you have sex you're going to create a baby.

02:45:49.000 But that's an element of it that we should be open to and that's sex when it is properly ordered.

02:45:56.000 What do you think is the cause of homosexuality then?

02:46:01.000 Because it's always existed.

02:46:04.000 It's always existed even with healthy people.

02:46:06.000 With healthy, balanced, happy people that are in love with other healthy, balanced, happy people that happen to be gay.

02:46:15.000 Yeah.

02:46:17.000 I think it's a multifaceted question.

02:46:20.000 I don't know if we could point to one quote-unquote cause.

02:46:25.000 So I'm not exactly sure.

02:46:26.000 I think that there is a societal element to it, especially in the formative years of a child.

02:46:37.000 We are seeing the LGBT identification.

02:46:40.000 We talk about trans, but not just there.

02:46:41.000 I mean, LGBT identification across the board is increasing exponentially.

02:46:47.000 So that indicates to me that there's some sort of environmental, societal sort of element to it.

02:46:53.000 But there's always been a certain percentage of the population that's gay.

02:46:58.000 So what would those people do?

02:47:00.000 What would you have them do?

02:47:02.000 This is where, like, the rubber meets the road when it comes to, like, Christian ideology and enforcing or encouraging those belief systems on other people that don't agree with them.

02:47:12.000 Well, we're not talking about enforcing.

02:47:14.000 Well, okay.

02:47:15.000 Encouraging.

02:47:16.000 Or even discussing in a way that you disagree with it.

02:47:18.000 Like, why would you care?

02:47:19.000 That's what I don't understand.

02:47:20.000 If you want to live the Christian lifestyle and you want to be...

02:47:27.000 An obedient Christian, then, you know, sex happens within the confines of the marriage, and marriage between a man and a woman.

02:47:39.000 But do you think that that comes from God, or do you think that comes from men?

02:47:43.000 Do you think that that's human beings that have developed these...

02:47:47.000 Ideologies that they would like people to follow, these behavior patterns that they'd like people to follow, or do you think it really comes from God?

02:47:53.000 And if it really does come from God, why would God make people gay in the first place?

02:48:00.000 Well, of course I would say it comes from God.

02:48:01.000 If I didn't believe that, then I wouldn't be Christian.

02:48:03.000 Why would God make people gay if he didn't want them to engage in gay sex?

02:48:07.000 All people have proclivities towards different sins, different things that we would call sins.

02:48:18.000 Yeah, but if that's like their fundamental attractiveness, they're attracted fundamentally to other men or other women, it seems like something that God gave them.

02:48:33.000 Like, why would God give you an attractiveness, or why would you be attracted to the same sex if that was morally reprehensible, if that was against God's will?

02:48:45.000 Why would he instill that lust and that desire and that feeling of being attracted and feeling of being in love with someone of the same sex?

02:48:56.000 I don't think instilled is not the word that I would use.

02:48:58.000 I don't think God instills it.

02:49:00.000 I think that, you know, one of the, again, you want to get into Christian doctrine.

02:49:04.000 I mean, one of the basic elements of Christian doctrine is that we're a fallen species.

02:49:12.000 And so there are many things that come out of our kind of...

02:49:18.000 Fallen human nature.

02:49:20.000 And we all have, like I said, we all have proclivities towards sin.

02:49:25.000 And no one's going to live a perfect life.

02:49:30.000 To live a moral Christian life is really difficult.

02:49:34.000 It requires a lot of sacrifice no matter who you are.

02:49:40.000 And that's it.

02:49:41.000 I mean, it's— Have you wrestled with these thoughts before?

02:49:45.000 Have you had these kind of conversations and really like— Sure, absolutely.

02:49:49.000 —tried to figure out why?

02:49:50.000 Why would God create gay people?

02:49:54.000 Do you think that God has created gay people or do you think they have a choice?

02:49:57.000 God has created all people, so every person that's gay was created by God, of course.

02:50:04.000 Where exactly does that proclivity come from?

02:50:08.000 Like I said, I don't know exactly.

02:50:09.000 To say that someone's born gay I have issues with that that go beyond theology.

02:50:18.000 Because now you're talking about...

02:50:20.000 If you're born with any sexual proclivity, then that means that we're talking about gay infants and so on.

02:50:27.000 Right.

02:50:27.000 But don't you think people are born straight?

02:50:29.000 That some people are born straight?

02:50:31.000 Were you born straight?

02:50:33.000 It's an odd way of talking about it.

02:50:35.000 Is it?

02:50:35.000 To say that a baby is heterosexual.

02:50:38.000 I think babies don't...

02:50:40.000 Don't have a sexuality in that sense.

02:50:43.000 Right.

02:50:43.000 But eventually they will develop a sexuality and a small percentage of them will be homosexual.

02:50:50.000 And that's always been documented.

02:50:53.000 It's natural.

02:50:54.000 It's even natural in some animals.

02:50:58.000 Yeah.

02:51:00.000 We started by talking about laws and what laws are put in place.

02:51:05.000 Now we're talking about Christian teaching.

02:51:10.000 But don't you think that...

02:51:12.000 I don't deny that Christianity has a challenging sexual moral code.

02:51:19.000 But we're also...

02:51:21.000 I'm not suggesting that the Christian sexual morality should be Codified into law.

02:51:31.000 But isn't that what's happening if that's how we define marriage?

02:51:35.000 Because marriage is law.

02:51:37.000 And if marriage shouldn't involve gay people, then you are saying that it's because of Christian fundamentalist ideology.

02:51:46.000 No, because I think you can talk about the marriage issue without even getting into biblical morality, which is what I was doing.

02:51:54.000 I mean, you brought up the Bible.

02:51:56.000 Right.

02:51:57.000 We talked about Christianity in particular.

02:52:00.000 Right, but that's my point.

02:52:02.000 You introduced that to the conversation.

02:52:04.000 Yes.

02:52:06.000 Because I wanted to find the reason why you opposed gay people being married.

02:52:12.000 And I think I gave the reason, which is that marriage serves a certain purpose for society.

02:52:18.000 It is a certain thing definitionally.

02:52:20.000 And it is, as you even agreed, the union between a man and a woman in principle is different from the union between a man and a man and a woman and a woman.

02:52:31.000 And that difference comes down to its capacity, its procreative capacity or lack thereof.

02:52:38.000 So we're in agreement that there's a difference there.

02:52:40.000 I would say that it's an important distinction.

02:52:44.000 And so it makes sense for society to have a certain name for this procreative union.

02:52:53.000 But should we have a different name for people that have zero desire to procreate but are also heterosexual?

02:52:59.000 They want to be married?

02:53:04.000 No.

02:53:05.000 I mean, no.

02:53:06.000 Then why should we have a different name for gay people that are in love that want to be married?

02:53:12.000 Because the union between a man and a woman, even if they choose not to have kids, it is still a fundamentally procreative union, apart from choices they make or if someone has a condition where they're not able to conceive.

02:53:28.000 Even in those cases, I think we're still called...

02:53:32.000 You're still called to a kind of parental service, but maybe in a different form.

02:53:38.000 You mentioned before charity work or something like that.

02:53:41.000 People that can't have kids, that could be a form of paternal or maternal service.

02:53:50.000 I think that most people are called to have kids.

02:53:55.000 And raise families that way, but not everybody.

02:53:58.000 But I think everyone is called to a life of paternal and maternal service.

02:54:05.000 Maybe.

02:54:06.000 Because the other option is a life that centers around the individual, around yourself.

02:54:11.000 And I don't think that's a path to happiness or fulfillment for anybody in the long run.

02:54:17.000 And I think someone is on their deathbed and they're dying and you ask them what their regrets are.

02:54:28.000 There's not very many people that on their deathbed are going to tell you they regret that they had kids or that they gave their life.

02:54:32.000 To their kids, a lot of people as they get older say they regret not having them.

02:54:37.000 Sure, but you don't believe it should be a requirement, right?

02:54:41.000 No, not a legal requirement.

02:54:43.000 Of course not.

02:54:43.000 Even a moral requirement.

02:54:46.000 You think it should be a moral requirement for people?

02:54:49.000 Well, what do you mean should be a moral crime?

02:54:51.000 Well, you should think of it that way, like you have a moral obligation to procreate.

02:54:58.000 I think you have a moral obligation in your marriage to keep your marriage open to its capacity for life.

02:55:09.000 But I don't think that the...

02:55:11.000 I wouldn't put the state in charge of Enforcing that.

02:55:15.000 Clearly.

02:55:16.000 But we do involve the state in our relationships, which is very strange.

02:55:20.000 That's what I think when people make this sort of logical assessment of what a marriage really is, that's when they start thinking it's silly.

02:55:27.000 Because you're involving people that really don't give a shit about you and you become a part of a machine.

02:55:33.000 It's a financial machine.

02:55:34.000 There's a lot of money involved in marriages and divorce.

02:55:38.000 Yeah, there are even conservatives now who will say, well, just get government out of marriage completely, just the whole thing, just get it out.

02:55:48.000 I can understand that view, especially at this point, just saying it's caused more problems than it's worth and all that kind of stuff.

02:55:54.000 But I don't agree with it because I think that there was a reason why the government recognized marriage in the past because it has this really significant consequential capacity.

02:56:11.000 And society has a vested interest in your marriage, if it has the potential to be procreative.

02:56:20.000 Because you're creating people, you know, and the rest of us are going to have to deal with those people that you create.

02:56:25.000 So, you know, I think ideally, that's what I would still like to see.

02:56:29.000 I still think that society and the government should recognize that.

02:56:33.000 So what do you think they should do about gay marriage?

02:56:41.000 I think we should—it's not going to happen, but if it were up to me, I would go back to what it was six, seven years ago, you know, where marriage is definitionally this one thing,

02:56:57.000 and that's it.

02:56:58.000 And as you say— Gay people, what should they be allowed to do?

02:57:02.000 Civil unions?

02:57:04.000 Well, it's not about a lot.

02:57:06.000 But that is kind of what it's about if we're talking about laws, if we're talking about definitions, we're talking about how society accepts and whether or not you get the insurance benefits and the tax benefits of a heterosexual couple, whether you can visit your spouse when they're in the hospital.

02:57:21.000 Those are significant things for gay couples.

02:57:25.000 Yeah.

02:57:30.000 But again, I wouldn't say that we're not allowing gay people to get married.

02:57:35.000 It's that marriage is this.

02:57:38.000 This is what it is.

02:57:40.000 This is what it's for.

02:57:41.000 And that's it.

02:57:43.000 That's the definition of it.

02:57:45.000 And there should be no similar option for gay people?

02:57:49.000 Well, if you are with someone and you love them, like you've been saying this whole time, It seems almost silly that you need to have paperwork to affirm that.

02:58:03.000 No one was ever suggesting a law that would say, you're only allowed to love people in marriage.

02:58:10.000 If you're not married, you're not allowed to love people.

02:58:13.000 No one's suggesting that.

02:58:16.000 I just don't...

02:58:18.000 This current idea of marriage...

02:58:24.000 I don't even see the point of it, if that's all it is.

02:58:27.000 I still go back to why would you even...

02:58:30.000 I know the purpose of marriage and why society had an interest in it if it's fundamentally procreative.

02:58:36.000 But if it's not, and we're just getting rid of that, then all it is is paperwork to say, I love someone...

02:58:43.000 And not even permanently, because I might not love them tomorrow.

02:58:46.000 It's like you turn into sort of a charade, which is what many people think marriage is, essentially.

02:58:53.000 And that's kind of what I'm worried about.

02:58:58.000 Because one way or another, we...

02:59:02.000 I don't know, you fast forward 20 or 30 years, and marriage rates have continued their decline.

02:59:06.000 And maybe 30 years from now, there's almost no marriage at all.

02:59:10.000 What does society look like?

02:59:11.000 I don't know exactly, but I don't think it looks better.

02:59:13.000 I don't see that as an improvement.

02:59:15.000 And you think somehow or another that allowing gay people to get married contributes to that decline?

02:59:23.000 I think it contributes to the idea that marriage is essentially meaningless.

02:59:32.000 But it's meaningful to those people.

02:59:34.000 Right, but it has no objective or real significant meaning outside of like...

02:59:38.000 Other than the ones we discussed about insurance, taxes, and being able to visit your spouse, and affirming your love together in what you feel like is a permanent way.

02:59:48.000 You're making a bond.

02:59:49.000 You're making a pact with this other person that you love.

02:59:53.000 Yeah, it affirms how someone feels in the moment.

02:59:58.000 It makes them feel good.

02:59:58.000 But as you said, it might not tomorrow.

03:00:00.000 Right, but what bothers people is that religious ideology will be imposed upon them in that sense, and that the only reason why people would oppose it in a different way than they were opposing heterosexual people that have no intention of having children is because they have an opposition to homosexuality based on religious beliefs,

03:00:23.000 which they feel like should be excluded, and I feel like should be excluded from law.

03:00:29.000 Yeah, but I don't think that the question of the definition of marriage is a question of religious ideology.

03:00:35.000 The question of Christian sexual morality and that sort of thing, that is a religious question.

03:00:43.000 Definition of marriage...

03:00:46.000 Isn't, I don't think.

03:00:47.000 It's not merely that, or not only that, anyway.

03:00:49.000 And one of the ways that I know that is that marriage has existed as an institution in societies all across the country and throughout history, regardless of what religion was predominant in those societies.

03:01:05.000 I don't think Christians just invented this idea that marriage is between a man and a woman.

03:01:12.000 Because if they did, then you wouldn't find it anywhere else.

03:01:15.000 Have other cultures embraced gay marriage in the past?

03:01:20.000 Certainly today, it's gaining wide improvement.

03:01:23.000 Is that something in the past that people embraced while they embraced heterosexual marriages?

03:01:28.000 Is it a cultural thing?

03:01:29.000 I don't think so.

03:01:30.000 I'm not aware of any historical precedent going back in history to a culture that would affirm two men as being married in the same sense that a man and woman are married.

03:01:43.000 I'm not aware of that existing in history.

03:01:46.000 I don't think that it did.

03:01:47.000 Certainly was not common if it did.

03:01:50.000 When Roe v.

03:01:51.000 Wade was overturned, that was the next thing that people were worried about.

03:01:55.000 They were worried about gay marriage being overturned.

03:01:59.000 Yeah, I don't think that's going to happen.

03:02:03.000 There's no political will for it.

03:02:08.000 Everything that I'm saying here, you don't see Republican politicians out on the campaign trail saying it.

03:02:15.000 It's not going to happen.

03:02:17.000 Then again, I didn't think Roe v.

03:02:19.000 Wade was going to be overturned, and it was, but this is a different sort of thing, and I don't see that on the horizon.

03:02:29.000 I think this conversation that we're having, one of the more important things of being able to have conversations like this is that people that do have differing perspectives can have a civil conversation on why they believe what they believe.

03:02:44.000 Is so sadly uncommon in our culture.

03:02:48.000 And there's going to be people out there that agree with you that are listening to this that are like, I am on Matt Walsh's side.

03:02:54.000 And there's going to be people that see my point.

03:02:57.000 But that's part of being a person.

03:02:59.000 Part of being a human being that exists in 2022. There's a lot of different ways to live your life and a lot of different ways to see the world and Whether or not you got you and I ever come to an agreement about this.

03:03:12.000 It's not really that important.

03:03:13.000 Well, what's important is you get a chance to discuss it and That is what scares the shit out of me about our culture today that these kind of conversations are not encouraged They're discouraged and that some would say oh you're platforming a bigot to have this conversation You're putting those ideas out there I think that's one of the things that's led us into this fucking mess we're in right now.

03:03:38.000 One of the reasons that we can have a civil conversation is that we still, even though we differ Widely on really important issues.

03:03:47.000 There's a commonality.

03:03:49.000 We started the conversation talking about gender.

03:03:51.000 So we can agree there's basic biological reality.

03:03:55.000 Well, we have a lot in common.

03:03:56.000 We're both married.

03:03:57.000 We both have children.

03:03:59.000 So there's the commonality there, too, that I think makes the conversation possible.

03:04:04.000 We both agree in civil discourse and be able to express yourself articulately and express your thoughts, allowing that person to express their thoughts.

03:04:15.000 But then one of the problems is if I'm sitting across the table from someone who doesn't even believe any of those things, then...

03:04:25.000 We might be able to refrain from shouting at each other, but to have any kind of productive conversation at all is really impossible because there's just no shared framework at all.

03:04:39.000 Maybe, but at least people, like in the movie, in What is a Woman, you at least let those people explain themselves and you made it clear where you stand.

03:04:53.000 And people get a chance to assess these ideas for their merits by themselves.

03:05:02.000 That's what I think is important about a documentary like yours, not just exposing these horrific practices of doing these things to children before they can even have any idea what the fuck the consequences are, but also that you let people know that the ideological bubble that you're living in is not the only way to see the world.

03:05:24.000 And there's a lot of people out there that disagree.

03:05:27.000 And they have opinions, and a lot of them are very intelligent as well.

03:05:31.000 And we should hear them.

03:05:33.000 Yeah, and if you're confident in your own viewpoints, then you shouldn't be threatened by allowing people to speak, you know?

03:05:40.000 I think there's a lot of people, they're just not really all that confident in what they believe.

03:05:45.000 And so they're afraid to let other people speak.

03:05:49.000 Maybe because at some level, too, they're afraid that they'll be, if not exposed intellectually, maybe they're even afraid that they'll be convinced they don't want to be convinced.

03:05:57.000 Maybe.

03:05:58.000 I think they just don't want to lose.

03:06:00.000 I think people, a lot of times, they equate their ideas and their positions on things to them as a human, to them as an entity.

03:06:10.000 And anything that opposes things that they've agreed to or believe in or ascribed, they think of that as being an assault on their very being.

03:06:22.000 Yeah, they do.

03:06:23.000 It's a stupid way to think.

03:06:24.000 Assault to their being and somehow a danger to them, even physically.

03:06:31.000 Even violence.

03:06:32.000 Those ideas are violence.

03:06:34.000 And they cause harm to people.

03:06:36.000 Yeah.

03:06:36.000 And if you're defining yourself, too, by your own...

03:06:39.000 We put people's self-perception above everything.

03:06:44.000 We have to affirm someone's self-perception.

03:06:46.000 And no matter what.

03:06:48.000 Well, then if someone said something...

03:06:51.000 That makes a person question their own self-perception.

03:06:54.000 It's almost like it's an act of murder.

03:06:56.000 You're killing their self-perception.

03:06:59.000 And they can respond to it that way.

03:07:01.000 It's an actual act of violence.

03:07:03.000 That's why they say misgendering is a violent act.

03:07:06.000 How could that possibly be justified?

03:07:08.000 Well, it's a violent act because it's an assault on not them physically, but on what they consider more important, which is their idea of themselves.

03:07:16.000 Right.

03:07:17.000 Which is why silencing people is like yelling at that person who's a detransitioner, calling them a fascist.

03:07:26.000 You can just minimize everything that they stand for instantaneously with one word or with one phrase.

03:07:33.000 Yeah.

03:07:34.000 Yeah.

03:07:35.000 Well, listen, Matt, I enjoyed talking to you.

03:07:38.000 We disagree about a lot, but I get your perspective, and I think your movie is very important.

03:07:43.000 It is eye-opening.

03:07:46.000 I think a lot of parents should watch it.

03:07:49.000 A lot of people that are in that liberal ideological bubble, I would encourage them to watch it and see what they're up against.

03:07:56.000 Because I don't think it's everything they think that it is.

03:07:59.000 I don't think it's what you're getting described to you by Jon Stewart and Jon Oliver and any of these left-wing talking heads that are on these media platforms that seem universally to be accepting these ideas wholesale.

03:08:14.000 And I'm glad you made it.

03:08:16.000 Yeah, I appreciate it.

03:08:17.000 Again, thanks for talking about the film.

03:08:19.000 And I hope people just give it a chance.

03:08:23.000 Don't make an assumption about what you think the movie is.

03:08:26.000 Just watch it and see if it speaks to you.

03:08:30.000 Go bootleg it.

03:08:30.000 It's available everywhere.

03:08:31.000 It's on YouTube.

03:08:33.000 Go to dailywire.com.

03:08:35.000 Is there a website specifically for the documentary?

03:08:38.000 Yeah, whatiswoman.com.

03:08:40.000 All right.

03:08:41.000 Thanks, Matt.

03:08:42.000 Thanks.

03:08:42.000 Thank you.

03:08:42.000 All right.

03:08:43.000 Bye, everybody.

The Joe Rogan Experience - November 07, 2022

Joe Rogan Experience #1895 - Matt Walsh

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