The SAFE Act is a piece of legislation that would prevent chemical and surgical castration of minors in the state of Ohio. Governor DeWine, a Republican, has vetoed this bill, saying it's not up to the states to make medical decisions for minors. Representative Gary Click, D-Ohio, is the sponsor of the bill and has been a long time advocate for keeping women's sports for women in Ohio.
00:00:00.540Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line, but first...
00:00:10.980There, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes.
00:00:18.040Welcome 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.
00:00:38.640What 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.
00:00:50.980But 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.
00:01:05.100And 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.
00:01:14.480And 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.
00:01:22.040The 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.
00:01:35.100He's received an incredible amount of pushback, which I believe is a good thing to keep the pressure on him, keep the momentum rolling.
00:01:42.640So ultimately, the state legislature, they have the opportunity to do the right thing, so hopefully that will happen.
00:01:49.120But super excited for today's guest, as he is the sponsor of this bill, the SAFE Act, in the House side in Ohio.
00:01:56.120So check out the interview with Representative and Pastor Gary Click.
00:01:58.840Well, thank you, Representative Click, for coming on today.
00:02:03.380I 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.
00:02:14.200And, 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.
00:02:27.740But I'm so thrilled to have you on because you're the sponsor of the SAFE Act.
00:02:32.720And 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.
00:02:39.820Well, thank you, Riley. First of all, thank you so much for being a champion for young girls across the nation.
00:02:45.480I've got some granddaughters, and I look forward to them living in a world where they don't have to compete with boys.
00:02:51.740And you've been a champion in that, far, far greater than I have.
00:04:13.200This 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.
00:04:22.740It got to the governor's desk late in December, mid-December, and it sat there for 10 days,
00:04:28.560which 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.
00:04:37.840And yesterday, which happened to be your birthday of all days, so happy late birthday to you.
00:06:54.480I 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.
00:07:03.480We want you to have input along the way.
00:07:05.840We want to make sure that we're on the same page.
00:07:07.680I was trying to create a smooth glide path so that we could avoid this moment.
00:07:12.060And I just wasn't getting feedback from the governor, from his office.
00:07:16.480It was very, well, the governor wants to protect children.
00:07:21.120And that's all I got until really an hour before the vote for concurrence.
00:07:26.580The Senate was getting ready to vote on it.
00:07:28.460And they were asking for some amendments.
00:07:30.760And I gave a couple amendments that I felt like I could.
00:07:33.640But the one that they wanted that I just could not give was they wanted to make an exception for severe cases of gender dysphoria.
00:09:11.180And 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.
00:09:21.980They 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.
00:10:05.160I love you no matter how you identify yourself.
00:10:08.140But 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.
00:10:19.460All these convenience samples, convenience studies.
00:10:32.400Surprisingly, you give a girl testosterone in three months, she feels more powerful.
00:10:35.440But those are short-term samples of just saying how do you feel and ideations.
00:10:43.320They're not actually fulfilled or committed or attempted suicides.
00:10:47.380What 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.
00:10:59.820And you begin looking around and you say, okay, what happened to me?
00:11:04.620What did the adults allow to happen to me?
00:11:08.220If you look at people like Chloe, people like Parisha, people like Morgan, it's like, I've lost my breasts.
00:11:15.860I'll never be able to breastfeed my child.
00:11:18.520I 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.
00:11:28.180And 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.
00:11:35.000There are still people who will love you and who will care for you, and I would be one of them.
00:11:40.440But sometimes they look inside at themselves, and they feel less than because of the mistakes that they made.
00:11:48.920They feel like no one cares about them.
00:11:51.580And 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.
00:12:16.380There's always depression, adverse childhood experiences, things that precipitate this.
00:12:22.400And then the gender dysphoria is an escape, Riley.
00:12:25.340They're like, I got to get away from myself.
00:12:27.220That's why they use the term deadnaming.
00:12:29.500It's like, I don't even want that person anymore in my life.
00:12:33.020And it's almost like a sense of suicide, and they become someone new.
00:12:37.000They don't call it former naming or old naming.
00:12:39.460It's called deadnaming, and it's called that for a reason.
00:12:42.100And these people just need to learn that they are valuable as themselves authentically.
00:12:46.460Authentically, you don't have to take hormones or puberty blockers or surgeries to be valuable.
00:12:52.240Every child needs to know that they are valuable just as they are.
00:12:56.120And 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.
00:13:06.300And that's why I have a problem with even the verbiage of gender-affirming care.
00:13:11.060Because 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.
00:13:27.400To tell them that they're right to believe they're born in the wrong body is an awful message to send to anyone.
00:13:32.800And it's interesting you bring up kind of gender dysphoria is a subset typically of another sort of diagnosis.
00:13:41.220Chloe Cole has mentioned having autism, as have many transitioners and now detransitioners.
00:13:47.140You see a lot of sexual trauma or some sort of childhood trauma that has affected how they view themselves internally.
00:13:56.260But this bill was vetoed, but not all hope is lost.
00:14:02.260There are some things that can be done, which is really great news.
00:14:05.760And 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.
00:14:19.160Kentucky, Kansas, North Carolina, all of which have been overturned in these states.
00:14:24.120And I'm hopeful and I'm confident that Ohio will join on to this growing list of states.
00:14:29.900But 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?
00:14:41.720You know, is this something that can be overridden, the veto?
00:14:59.180My legislative friends, my colleagues, they were ready to drive down there yesterday if they could have to override the veto.
00:15:08.720It is very palpable momentum on this to override the governor's veto.
00:15:14.940I anticipate that it's going to happen.
00:15:17.460I've told the governor I would come and have a conversation with him, you know, about the administrative details, and I will.
00:15:22.960But the reality of it is, is I think that we are headed to a veto override.
00:15:28.980I 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.
00:15:44.220And J.D. Vance has come out in favor of an override.
00:16:03.020And 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.
00:16:15.580It's not, to me, it's not just about pushing him around.
00:16:18.120It's not about, you know, saying in your face or anything like that.
00:16:21.440I don't want to be that kind of a person.
00:16:23.300It's more about policy than personality for me.
00:16:25.940And 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.
00:16:33.700Of course. And I love that policy, not politics or personality.
00:17:22.100And this is this is infiltrating the church.
00:17:25.880And 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.
00:17:35.140But yet we can be informed by our faith.
00:18:37.800And how do you know that the grass is green?
00:18:40.460And it's like, where do you start to argue against the obvious or for the obvious when somebody doesn't believe the obvious?
00:18:48.020And 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.
00:19:01.620And so, you know, that may be something in the future we'll see.
00:19:04.360But the church has got to, first of all, and most of all, love kids.
00:19:10.380Listen, you get somebody in this situation, don't make fun of them.
00:20:25.220And her mother kept trying to fix the situation.
00:20:27.720And 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.
00:20:35.160So if you want to do it, God said, I'll stand back and let you do it.
00:20:38.400But if you want me to do it, I need you to step back and let me do it.
00:20:41.740And long story short, that's what happened.
00:20:46.860And she's a wonderful, vibrant person today with a great testimony of what God has done in her life.
00:20:54.320And, 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?
00:21:02.200And I said, well, you know, Jesus taught us to love our neighbors as ourselves.
00:21:05.060And 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?
00:21:16.680Would I want someone to put me down a path of hormones that are going to change my thinking and change my mind?
00:21:23.98085 to 95 percent of kids who go through puberty will desist.
00:21:31.600But 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.
00:21:43.900So if I'm if I'm going to love my neighbors myself, I'm going to protect them from those harms.
00:21:49.360So I'm sorry, that's probably pretty long winded.
00:22:32.380We only have two trans athletes or two trans individuals in the entire state.
00:22:36.260I know that this issue is incredibly underreported.
00:22:40.460And 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.
00:22:48.060I know this issue is incredibly underreported.
00:22:50.280And I got a lot of flack for coming to Ohio because people will say you're not from here.
00:23:07.340But 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?
00:23:20.840What's your message to them in regards to them saying that them potentially saying, you know, this doesn't happen here?
00:23:30.040Number one, and I heard you express this and I love it because it's true.
00:23:34.780It's not about necessarily how the people affected are not just the trans athletes.
00:23:39.740They say, how many trans athletes are there?
00:23:41.460But how many trans how many young ladies were affected in your locker room by just one trans athlete?
00:23:46.960Those 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.
00:23:55.900Soothe their teeth or are experienced damage, physical damage by competing against a male involuntarily.
00:24:03.280But the other thing is, is it's highly, highly, highly underreported.
00:24:07.600I spoke to a father who was telling me coming out of a junior high school on a whole different topic.
00:24:13.880He said, yeah, I told my son, I said, he's going into junior high.
00:24:17.300He said, I just told him, I said, you know, you're going to see things you've never seen before.
00:24:45.420He said, I just don't want to put my son through that embarrassment.
00:24:47.900I don't want to put my child through this.
00:24:49.380And 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.
00:25:06.280They won't come out in person because their family is at stake.