Gaines for Girls with Riley Gaines - Reaction to Gov. Mike DeWine's Veto of Ohio's Safe Act with Rep. Gary Click

00:00:00.540 Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line, but first...

00:00:10.980 There, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes.

00:00:18.040 Welcome back to the Gains for Girls podcast. As we saw yesterday, really as the entire nation saw yesterday, out of Ohio, Governor DeWine vetoed the SAFE Act.

00:00:38.640 What the SAFE Act is, is a piece of legislation that would prevent men from competing in women's sports. What a novel idea. And would prevent chemical and surgical castration of minors in the state of Ohio.

00:00:50.980 But Governor DeWine, a Republican at that, vetoed this bill, saying it's not up to the states, it's not up to any state officers, elected official, to make medical decisions for children. That's their parents' job.

00:01:05.100 And while I agree, it's not up to the government to make decisions for children, there are some decisions that must be made that prevent child abuse.

00:01:14.480 And that's what this bill, and that's what the governor signing this bill, would have done for the state of Ohio, and really set the precedent for every other state in this nation.

00:01:22.040 The other 28 that have not passed some sort of bill preventing child mutilation, and the other 26 that have not passed a piece of legislation that would prevent men from competing in women's sports.

00:01:35.100 He's received an incredible amount of pushback, which I believe is a good thing to keep the pressure on him, keep the momentum rolling.

00:01:42.640 So ultimately, the state legislature, they have the opportunity to do the right thing, so hopefully that will happen.

00:01:49.120 But super excited for today's guest, as he is the sponsor of this bill, the SAFE Act, in the House side in Ohio.

00:01:56.120 So check out the interview with Representative and Pastor Gary Click.

00:01:58.840 Well, thank you, Representative Click, for coming on today.

00:02:03.380 I was very fortunate a few months ago when initially this hearing became a thing in Ohio to be reached out to to come and testify on behalf of keeping women's sports for women.

00:02:14.200 And, of course, the other part of this bill, which would be preventing children from continuing or pursuing any sort of life-altering care or surgeries or hormonal experiments, shall we say.

00:02:27.740 But I'm so thrilled to have you on because you're the sponsor of the SAFE Act.

00:02:32.720 And so I want to give you a second to just explain what the SAFE Act is, probably in better words than I just explained it, and why this is important in Ohio.

00:02:39.820 Well, thank you, Riley. First of all, thank you so much for being a champion for young girls across the nation.

00:02:45.480 I've got some granddaughters, and I look forward to them living in a world where they don't have to compete with boys.

00:02:51.740 And you've been a champion in that, far, far greater than I have.

00:02:55.960 And so I want to thank you for that.

00:02:57.880 And yesterday was kind of tied up. I hadn't done any interviews yet, so you're my first interview.

00:03:03.280 And that's because I couldn't say no to you after you traveled all the way to Ohio to help us with our bill.

00:03:09.140 So the SAFE Act portion of this, it's called Saving Adolescents from Experimentation.

00:03:15.140 And what we're preventing is sex change procedures for children.

00:03:19.900 And as soon as you say that, everyone thinks immediately, surgery, surgery, surgery.

00:03:23.580 And yes, that's a part of it.

00:03:25.120 But it goes, even before the surgeries, it goes to the hormone blockers, the pubertal suppression,

00:03:31.260 and then from there on to the cross-sex, or I call them the opposite-sex hormones that are in kids.

00:03:36.800 Those are dangerous.

00:03:37.840 They have side effects that are out of this world.

00:03:41.720 And kids are not able to provide the informed consent, the understanding.

00:03:46.020 How do you take a 9-, 10-, 12-year-old and say, hey, you're going to be infertile for the rest of your life.

00:03:51.040 We're going to sterilize you, but you're going to be happy. 0.94

00:03:53.920 They can't comprehend that as well as the osteopenia, the osteoporosis, the increased heart disease, the strokes, all those things.

00:04:03.200 They can't calculate that.

00:04:04.700 And these are being pushed on children, pushed on minors.

00:04:07.480 And the SAFE Act says no.

00:04:10.680 Absolutely.

00:04:11.080 So it passed.

00:04:13.200 This bill, of course, was introduced in the House and then the Senate, and it passed with a pretty overwhelming majority vote in support of this bill.

00:04:22.740 It got to the governor's desk late in December, mid-December, and it sat there for 10 days,

00:04:28.560 which is the maximum amount that a bill can sit on a governor's desk before he has to decide whether he signs it or doesn't sign it or vetoes it.

00:04:37.840 And yesterday, which happened to be your birthday of all days, so happy late birthday to you.

00:04:44.020 Thank you.

00:04:44.680 Governor DeWine, he, in a press conference, of course, the nation saw, we saw Governor DeWine veto this bill,

00:04:53.540 which I can imagine I've seen over the past 24 hours, the amount of pressure that has been put on him,

00:05:02.720 the amount of people who have, I would say, seen, I don't know if there is true colors.

00:05:06.880 Look, I don't know Governor DeWine outside of his voting record and how he handled different incidences like COVID, for example.

00:05:15.180 But people calling him a coward, which I was certainly one of those, calling him morally bankrupt, which, again, I'll be honest,

00:05:25.060 I was one of those because I don't know how someone, especially with an R by their name,

00:05:29.320 not that this issue even should be, fall on party lines.

00:05:34.140 I don't understand how someone with an R by their name especially could veto this bill.

00:05:39.140 So I kind of wanted to ask your perspective on the veto and if you think there was kind of some ulterior motives

00:05:49.140 as to why Governor DeWine would veto this or if you have any insight into, you know, the inner workings of what he was thinking.

00:05:58.800 Because outside looking in, this doesn't represent Ohioans and it doesn't represent the majority, of course, of America.

00:06:06.840 Well, you're right, it doesn't represent Ohioans.

00:06:09.800 In a bipartisan fashion, Ohio supports bills like this by 66%.

00:06:14.660 Even among Democrats, 46% of Democrats are with us compared to 38%.

00:06:19.500 So you're right, this is not a partisan issue.

00:06:22.220 And I've had Democrats come to me, you know, left and right.

00:06:25.400 Many of the sponsors that we have had come will say, hey, listen, I'm to the left of Bernie Sanders, but I'm for this bill.

00:06:32.760 Well, we've had that frequently and we've had members of the LGBTQ community even come and testify in favor of the bill.

00:06:41.000 We had one transsexual come and say, listen, I transitioned at 19.

00:06:45.260 This is not for children.

00:06:46.640 This is just for adults.

00:06:47.920 And I don't even think I was ready for this.

00:06:50.740 But what, you know, I don't know the governor's heart.

00:06:53.500 I don't.

00:06:54.480 I do know that we reached out to him from the very beginning, even before we dropped the bill, to be frank, and said, hey, we're doing this.

00:07:03.480 We want you to have input along the way.

00:07:05.840 We want to make sure that we're on the same page.

00:07:07.680 I was trying to create a smooth glide path so that we could avoid this moment.

00:07:12.060 And I just wasn't getting feedback from the governor, from his office.

00:07:16.480 It was very, well, the governor wants to protect children.

00:07:21.120 And that's all I got until really an hour before the vote for concurrence.

00:07:26.580 The Senate was getting ready to vote on it.

00:07:28.460 And they were asking for some amendments.

00:07:30.760 And I gave a couple amendments that I felt like I could.

00:07:33.640 But the one that they wanted that I just could not give was they wanted to make an exception for severe cases of gender dysphoria.

00:07:41.480 And I said no.

00:07:42.620 And that wasn't the first time I've said no.

00:07:44.120 I've had to say no on that multiple times because that is the loophole the hospitals were looking for.

00:07:50.580 Because, as you know, if you've studied this whatsoever, every case is severe.

00:07:56.100 And every child, it's a matter of life and death.

00:07:58.940 You know, you talk to Chloe Cole.

00:08:00.520 You talk to Prisha.

00:08:02.360 You talk to Morgan.

00:08:03.880 You talk to so many others.

00:08:05.260 All their parents were told, if you don't affirm your child's gender, which is a misnomer, you're affirming the dysphoria.

00:08:11.220 If you don't affirm your child's gender, they're going to kill themselves. 1.00

00:08:14.180 They're going to take their lives. 0.98

00:08:15.980 And it just so happens that that's the line that I think the governor fell for.

00:08:23.340 I don't want to be extremely harsh.

00:08:25.300 You know, I know others are.

00:08:26.260 And that's great.

00:08:26.780 And I kind of get beat up for showing a little bit of grace in here.

00:08:29.740 But I was talking to one of the – his holdup was, you know, he's worried that some kids are going to lose their lives.

00:08:36.780 He's looked at kids with tears in their eyes and their parents who said, if not for this, we would have killed ourselves.

00:08:42.160 We would have died.

00:08:43.520 And this detransitioner – this member of a detransitioner family said, that's exactly what my parents fell for. 1.00

00:08:50.100 They believed it.

00:08:50.920 And they believed the professionals when they said that.

00:08:53.460 And it turns out not to be true.

00:08:55.520 It's a myth.

00:08:56.880 And so I think that's what got to the governor.

00:08:59.840 That was the key thing right there.

00:09:02.060 And it's, you know, I don't want to beat him up too much, but it's a lie.

00:09:06.840 It's not true.

00:09:07.980 And we're going to have to overcome that.

00:09:10.420 Absolutely.

00:09:11.180 And that's a tactic we see across the board, even in the position that I was in, competing against a male athlete, which, of course, is different to a degree.

00:09:20.500 Same tactics they use, though.

00:09:21.980 They told us if we didn't accept this, if we didn't abide by the preferred pronoun usage, if we didn't allow this man into our locker rooms, then we would be responsible if he were to take his own life.

00:09:34.880 It would be our fault.

00:09:35.720 The blood would be on our hands, which, what a terrible – what a terrible thing to say, equating us to murderers.

00:09:42.520 And it seems that it's true.

00:09:44.520 Of course, equating you and the governor to murderers.

00:09:46.080 That's extremely manipulative.

00:09:48.160 And that's what it is.

00:09:49.780 Right.

00:09:50.100 It's a manipulative thing.

00:09:52.160 Yeah.

00:09:52.840 And everyone keeps telling me I'm going to have blood on my hands and on all that.

00:09:56.900 And I just know the truth.

00:09:58.280 And so I let that roll off.

00:10:00.040 Every suicide is serious.

00:10:01.300 Every person's life is valuable.

00:10:03.220 I don't care how you identify.

00:10:05.160 I love you no matter how you identify yourself.

00:10:08.140 But the reality is that we have studies that demonstrate – and I did provide these to the governor – that you are 19 times more likely to take your life after transition than before transition.

00:10:19.460 All these convenience samples, convenience studies.

00:10:23.480 And how do you feel?

00:10:26.440 Do you feel less suicidal?

00:10:27.700 It's like three months after you give a girl testosterone, do you feel better? 0.99

00:10:31.300 And yes, they do.

00:10:32.400 Surprisingly, you give a girl testosterone in three months, she feels more powerful. 1.00

00:10:35.440 But those are short-term samples of just saying how do you feel and ideations.

00:10:43.320 They're not actually fulfilled or committed or attempted suicides.

00:10:47.380 What happens after you transition, and it's usually within a 10-year window, it's usually when you get about the age of 24 or 25 when your prefrontal cortex is fully developed.

00:10:59.820 And you begin looking around and you say, okay, what happened to me?

00:11:04.620 What did the adults allow to happen to me?

00:11:08.220 If you look at people like Chloe, people like Parisha, people like Morgan, it's like, I've lost my breasts.

00:11:14.200 I can't get those back.

00:11:15.860 I'll never be able to breastfeed my child.

00:11:18.520 I don't even know if I'll be able to have children because of the effects of the hormones on my body and all these health risks that I have.

00:11:26.300 And they begin to look at themselves.

00:11:28.180 And let me just say for any person out there who's gone down that far, you're valuable no matter who you are or what you've done to your life or to your body.

00:11:35.000 There are still people who will love you and who will care for you, and I would be one of them.

00:11:40.440 But sometimes they look inside at themselves, and they feel less than because of the mistakes that they made.

00:11:46.940 They feel like no one loves them.

00:11:48.920 They feel like no one cares about them.

00:11:51.580 And that's when the true suicidal ideations manifest themselves to a point where it is very sad that many of them actually attempt to take their lives or take their lives.

00:12:02.080 And we want to get ahead of that.

00:12:03.600 What these children need is good psychotherapy.

00:12:07.580 They need good counseling because gender dysphoria is not a diagnosis by itself.

00:12:13.820 There's always something ahead of that.

00:12:15.420 There's always anxiety.

00:12:16.380 There's always depression, adverse childhood experiences, things that precipitate this.

00:12:22.400 And then the gender dysphoria is an escape, Riley. 0.76

00:12:25.340 They're like, I got to get away from myself.

00:12:27.220 That's why they use the term deadnaming.

00:12:29.500 It's like, I don't even want that person anymore in my life.

00:12:33.020 And it's almost like a sense of suicide, and they become someone new.

00:12:37.000 They don't call it former naming or old naming.

00:12:39.460 It's called deadnaming, and it's called that for a reason. 0.99

00:12:42.100 And these people just need to learn that they are valuable as themselves authentically.

00:12:46.460 Authentically, you don't have to take hormones or puberty blockers or surgeries to be valuable.

00:12:52.240 Every child needs to know that they are valuable just as they are.

00:12:56.120 And that's what's going to prevent suicide, not puberty, not changing sexes, not cutting off body parts and taking drugs that make you emulate the opposite sex. 0.89

00:13:06.300 And that's why I have a problem with even the verbiage of gender-affirming care.

00:13:11.060 Because if you think about it, when we use that verbiage of gender-affirming care, we're basically telling these people that they're correct to believe that they were born in the wrong body, which is a terrible message to tell any impressionable, vulnerable, whether that's an adult or a child.

00:13:27.400 To tell them that they're right to believe they're born in the wrong body is an awful message to send to anyone.

00:13:32.800 And it's interesting you bring up kind of gender dysphoria is a subset typically of another sort of diagnosis.

00:13:41.220 Chloe Cole has mentioned having autism, as have many transitioners and now detransitioners. 1.00

00:13:47.140 You see a lot of sexual trauma or some sort of childhood trauma that has affected how they view themselves internally.

00:13:54.720 So that's a very interesting point.

00:13:56.260 But this bill was vetoed, but not all hope is lost.

00:14:02.260 There are some things that can be done, which is really great news.

00:14:05.760 And actually, if you think about it, Ohio joins a long list of states that have typically, you know, red states that have passed some sort of, speaking from the Fairness and Women's Sports Bill side of things, that have gone to the governor's desk and the governor has vetoed.

00:14:19.160 Kentucky, Kansas, North Carolina, all of which have been overturned in these states.

00:14:24.120 And I'm hopeful and I'm confident that Ohio will join on to this growing list of states.

00:14:29.900 But as someone who has some kind of behind the scenes look at things and who's in the mix of this as a representative and, again, the sponsor of the bill, what does this look like internally?

00:14:41.720 You know, is this something that can be overridden, the veto?

00:14:45.840 Absolutely.

00:14:46.280 I think the governor underestimated the blowback from this.

00:14:51.340 And I will tell you that my phone has never blown up like it has yesterday.

00:14:56.780 People want the override.

00:14:59.180 My legislative friends, my colleagues, they were ready to drive down there yesterday if they could have to override the veto.

00:15:08.720 It is very palpable momentum on this to override the governor's veto.

00:15:14.940 I anticipate that it's going to happen.

00:15:17.460 I've told the governor I would come and have a conversation with him, you know, about the administrative details, and I will.

00:15:22.960 But the reality of it is, is I think that we are headed to a veto override.

00:15:28.980 I think, you know, every statewide lawmaker has already said that they want this to be overridden, whether it's the Secretary of State, Frank LaRose, whether it is the Attorney Sprague, who's told me the same thing, who's our treasurer.

00:15:44.220 And J.D. Vance has come out in favor of an override.

00:15:47.880 People are livid about this.

00:15:50.360 They want us to do this because it's the right thing to do.

00:15:55.260 And, you know, just quite frankly, the governor's on an island alone on this, I think.

00:16:00.840 And I don't want to beat him up.

00:16:03.020 And honestly, I hope that in the next few days or even whether before or after we override this, I hope I can sit down and have a conversation with him and add to his understanding so he knows why this is important.

00:16:15.580 It's not, to me, it's not just about pushing him around.

00:16:18.120 It's not about, you know, saying in your face or anything like that.

00:16:21.440 I don't want to be that kind of a person.

00:16:23.300 It's more about policy than personality for me.

00:16:25.940 And I hope that maybe I can shed some light so he understands as we do this that this is the right thing to do and this is the thing that we must do.

00:16:33.700 Of course. And I love that policy, not politics or personality.

00:16:39.620 It's very true.

00:16:40.440 And I wish more representatives at all levels, local, state, federal, would kind of take that approach.

00:16:47.520 I think it would certainly curb some of the divide that we see in this nation.

00:16:51.860 And so we appreciate your balance between grace and truth because it's it's missing a lot of the times.

00:16:57.500 And that's certainly how Jesus, how he moved and how he responded to things is through grace and truth.

00:17:03.440 And speaking of which, you're a pastor yourself.

00:17:06.920 Yes, from a spiritual perspective, I, again, broader than just this issue.

00:17:14.700 Do you see a lot of kind of the cultural issues that we're seeing as a spiritual battle?

00:17:20.120 Well, absolutely.

00:17:22.100 And this is this is infiltrating the church.

00:17:25.880 And so I've I spoke at a men's conference recently and I have kept the religious aspects and arguments out of this legislatively because we don't legislate our religion.

00:17:35.140 But yet we can be informed by our faith.

00:17:38.000 And as we do these things.

00:17:40.060 And what I when I spoke to this group of men, I just asked a question.

00:17:46.820 I said, how many of you know someone who identifies as trans?

00:17:49.500 And nearly every hand in the room went up.

00:17:52.800 And then two men actually said, my daughter, my daughter.

00:17:57.740 And so I've maintained some contact with them afterwards.

00:18:00.780 You know, they're saying, how do we handle this?

00:18:02.500 And how do we deal with this?

00:18:04.000 And I think it's very important.

00:18:05.640 You know, some of these things speed up past the church and past the faith community. 0.95

00:18:08.940 It's like, you know, we're sitting there saying, well, that's ridiculous. 0.84

00:18:11.460 No one would ever do that. 0.71

00:18:12.480 And then the next thing we know, it's all of our culture.

00:18:15.600 It's all of our society.

00:18:16.860 Our schools are teaching the gender unicorns and boys are playing in girls sports and they're showing up in the girls locker rooms.

00:18:23.440 And we're like, whoa, what do you and I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday.

00:18:29.160 I said, you know, the hardest thing to argue is for the obvious.

00:18:33.300 You know, it's like trying to argue that the sky is blue.

00:18:36.300 Well, how do you know it's blue?

00:18:37.800 And how do you know that the grass is green?

00:18:40.460 And it's like, where do you start to argue against the obvious or for the obvious when somebody doesn't believe the obvious?

00:18:48.020 And so the church needs some help, you know, and I'm, you know, considering and praying about and thinking about what we can do and how we can offer some resources to the church community, to the faith community, say, here's how we should appropriately respond to this.

00:19:01.620 And so, you know, that may be something in the future we'll see.

00:19:04.360 But the church has got to, first of all, and most of all, love kids.

00:19:10.380 Listen, you get somebody in this situation, don't make fun of them.

00:19:14.580 Don't mock them.

00:19:15.500 Don't ridicule them.

00:19:16.780 That never helps us to achieve God's goals.

00:19:20.540 Walt Heyer, I don't know if you know that name, but Walt was one of the first people to transition.

00:19:26.920 And the first time Walt went to a church, a pastor came to his house and told him, he says, you're not welcome here.

00:19:33.080 And so he left and he didn't go back to a church for a long time.

00:19:36.280 The next time he went to a church, he was living as a woman at the time.

00:19:41.140 Before he went to church, he went to the pastor.

00:19:42.820 He said, am I allowed to come here?

00:19:44.300 And the pastor said, you're allowed to come here.

00:19:46.740 He said, are you going to try to change me?

00:19:48.280 And the pastor said, my job is to love you.

00:19:49.960 It's God's job to change you.

00:19:51.640 And so he went.

00:19:52.520 And just by the love of God and the grace of God through that, God reached into Walt's heart and to his life.

00:20:00.380 And he detransitioned.

00:20:02.220 And now he runs a very popular Six Change Regret webpage.

00:20:06.820 And he has a testimony that is just known throughout all the nation.

00:20:11.840 And it's faith that makes the difference.

00:20:14.620 You know, Laura Perry is a Christian.

00:20:16.140 Laura Perry is small.

00:20:16.980 Now she's gotten married. 1.00

00:20:18.260 But she went through that transition and lived as a boy for a number of years.

00:20:21.960 And her mother was very frustrated. 0.99

00:20:25.220 And her mother kept trying to fix the situation. 1.00

00:20:27.720 And if you Google and look this up, there's some testimonies there where her mother says, you know, God finally told me you can fix her or I can fix her.

00:20:35.160 So if you want to do it, God said, I'll stand back and let you do it.

00:20:38.400 But if you want me to do it, I need you to step back and let me do it.

00:20:41.740 And long story short, that's what happened.

00:20:43.840 And Laura made it through that.

00:20:46.860 And she's a wonderful, vibrant person today with a great testimony of what God has done in her life.

00:20:54.320 And, you know, for me, when I was asked by Reuters, because, again, I don't want to go citing all the scriptures for this, but they said, you know, what scripture do you use?

00:21:02.200 And I said, well, you know, Jesus taught us to love our neighbors as ourselves.

00:21:05.060 And I just say, if I was a gender dysphoric kid growing up, confused, would I want people to give me a false authenticity or the real authenticity?

00:21:16.680 Would I want someone to put me down a path of hormones that are going to change my thinking and change my mind? 1.00

00:21:23.980 85 to 95 percent of kids who go through puberty will desist.

00:21:28.080 Their bodies will figure it out.

00:21:30.140 They sort it out as they get older.

00:21:31.600 But 98 percent of them who go on puberty blockers will persist and then continue to opposite sex hormones and then very likely on to surgery, you know, whether it's in their early, their late teens or into adulthood.

00:21:43.900 So if I'm if I'm going to love my neighbors myself, I'm going to protect them from those harms.

00:21:49.360 So I'm sorry, that's probably pretty long winded.

00:21:51.020 That's the pastor in me, Riley.

00:21:53.580 I know that.

00:21:55.040 But it's good to hear.

00:21:56.140 And I think it's something that everyone on all sides of the aisle certainly needs to hear, myself included sometimes.

00:22:01.600 It's easy to lose sight of why we fight these fights and it's to spread his word and his gospel as a Christian myself.

00:22:10.120 That's why I do what I do.

00:22:11.080 But it's it's easy to kind of lose sight of that getting wrapped up in a lot of this.

00:22:15.320 So I appreciate your insight for sure.

00:22:18.860 Last question.

00:22:19.480 What I hear all the time in every state that I go to to testify or or just all the time I hear it is this isn't really happening here.

00:22:30.480 You know, this is Nebraska.

00:22:32.380 We only have two trans athletes or two trans individuals in the entire state.

00:22:36.260 I know that this issue is incredibly underreported.

00:22:40.460 And I'm sure you do as well, given the messages that you receive from parents or from athletes or from coaches or from doctors or physicians.

00:22:48.060 I know this issue is incredibly underreported.

00:22:50.280 And I got a lot of flack for coming to Ohio because people will say you're not from here.

00:22:54.900 Your voice doesn't matter. 0.97

00:22:55.900 Well, first of all, I believe every young girl, young boy in the country across the world deserves to be protected.

00:23:03.760 And if I can help in any way, I'm going to be there.

00:23:05.980 So I think that's a silly argument.

00:23:07.340 But anyways, what's your message to Ohioans to, you know, your other your colleagues across the aisle or your colleagues on on the Republican side with you?

00:23:20.840 What's your message to them in regards to them saying that them potentially saying, you know, this doesn't happen here?

00:23:25.900 Well, I would say two things.

00:23:30.040 Number one, and I heard you express this and I love it because it's true.

00:23:34.780 It's not about necessarily how the people affected are not just the trans athletes.

00:23:39.740 They say, how many trans athletes are there?

00:23:41.460 But how many trans how many young ladies were affected in your locker room by just one trans athlete? 1.00

00:23:46.960 Those are the people that are affected are these girls who have to stand in a locker room or change in a locker room or to compete unfairly or get a hockey put put through. 0.57

00:23:55.900 Soothe their teeth or are experienced damage, physical damage by competing against a male involuntarily.

00:24:03.280 But the other thing is, is it's highly, highly, highly underreported.

00:24:07.600 I spoke to a father who was telling me coming out of a junior high school on a whole different topic.

00:24:13.880 He said, yeah, I told my son, I said, he's going into junior high.

00:24:17.300 He said, I just told him, I said, you know, you're going to see things you've never seen before.

00:24:20.220 I hear things you never heard before.

00:24:21.560 So don't worry about it.

00:24:23.020 You're not going to see or hear anything that I didn't see or hear when I was in middle school.

00:24:27.080 And just, you know, just tell me.

00:24:28.620 We'll talk about it.

00:24:29.480 Don't worry.

00:24:30.000 Don't be embarrassed.

00:24:30.980 He said he blew me out of the water the first day because a girl identified as a boy and came changing in his locker room.

00:24:38.380 And he said, no, I've never experienced that before.

00:24:40.800 And I said, well, you know, I can help you with this.

00:24:43.720 We can get your story out.

00:24:45.420 He said, I just don't want to put my son through that embarrassment.

00:24:47.900 I don't want to put my child through this.

00:24:49.380 And that is what happens time and time and time again, because as soon as you put your child out there, whether it's about any of this transgender stuff, whether it's in the sports or in the detransition or the transitioning, there are so many parents who come and talk to me offline.

00:25:06.280 They won't come out in person because their family is at stake.

00:25:09.780 They get bullied.

00:25:10.600 They get in.

00:25:11.340 They're embarrassed.

00:25:13.180 And it is high.

00:25:14.600 People come to me all the time as they do to you.

00:25:16.880 And they talk about these things, but they won't go on the record.

00:25:19.940 It needs to be taken care of.

00:25:21.800 They shouldn't have to put their family name and their family safety or their their just their their reputation at stake to be protected.

00:25:30.660 And so that's why there's people like Riley Gaines who are doing it.

00:25:34.000 And that's why there's people like Gary Click who are doing it.

00:25:36.360 And we are not alone.

00:25:37.900 There's an army of folks behind us who are protecting young boys and young girls.

00:25:42.780 And I am not a quitter.

00:25:45.160 I might not shout real loud.

00:25:46.880 I might not scream real loud.

00:25:48.100 I might not get red face, but I persist and I plot on and I don't quit.

00:25:53.660 And that's how we got here today.

00:25:55.300 This bill has been reported dead so many times you wouldn't believe it.

00:25:59.120 But here we are and we are going to get it across the finish line.

00:26:02.420 Riley, thank you so much for being a champion.

00:26:04.820 Thank you for coming to Ohio.

00:26:06.300 Thank you for going everywhere you go.

00:26:08.220 And thank you for this podcast.

00:26:09.960 Well, thank you.

00:26:11.500 We are so appreciative of you and your effort.

00:26:15.300 It's needed now more than ever.

00:26:16.940 And you give me hope.

00:26:19.100 I think you give a lot of people hope.

00:26:20.960 Again, Ohioans, but really a lot broader than that.

00:26:23.120 I wholeheartedly believe Ohio will get through, will pass the SAFE Act and become the 24th state

00:26:28.860 to implement some sort of Fairness and Women's Sports Bill in the 22nd state to implement

00:26:33.740 some sort of protection of minors against experimentation as implemented in the SAFE Act.

00:26:42.540 So we're very, very appreciative of you, Representative Click, and thank you for coming on.

00:26:46.420 I think we all certainly have a lot to learn from Representative Click in terms of how we

00:26:52.300 communicate this issue, what we can do to combat this issue, to get this over the finish

00:26:56.880 line in Ohio.

00:26:58.580 Make sure you are reaching out.

00:27:00.120 If you're from the state of Ohio, of course, make sure you're reaching out to your state

00:27:03.440 and local representatives and senators.

00:27:05.640 And if you're not from the state of Ohio, I believe it's still important to be reaching

00:27:10.100 out to the governor's office to make sure he knows the majority of, again, not just Ohio,

00:27:17.360 the majority of this nation is not in support of this veto, as shown by the lieutenant governor,

00:27:23.240 as shown by the attorney general, as shown by the Senate president and the Speaker of the

00:27:27.640 House in Ohio.

00:27:29.700 Keep the pressure on them.

00:27:30.840 Keep the momentum rolling.

00:27:31.800 That's what we need.

00:27:32.540 That's how we get things done.

00:27:35.040 Thank you guys for tuning in.

00:27:36.500 Make sure you like, subscribe, comment.

00:27:39.380 You can check this out at outkick.com or anywhere where you get your podcasts.

00:27:43.400 And we will see you again next week.

Gaines for Girls with Riley Gaines - December 30, 2023

Reaction to Gov. Mike DeWine's Veto of Ohio's Safe Act with Rep. Gary Click

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript