Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 653 ｜ Losing Custody of Your ＂Trans＂ Daughter

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable Happy Tuesday. Today I am having a fascinating and at times

00:00:07.260 emotional but also uplifting conversation with a mom by the name of Jeanette Cooper.

00:00:14.320 She lost custody of her daughter three years ago when her daughter suddenly said that she

00:00:20.020 identifies as the opposite gender. So Jeanette is going to tell us what that journey has been like

00:00:26.520 and what her message is to other parents. As always, this episode is brought to you by our

00:00:33.460 friends at Good Ranchers. That's American meat delivered right to your front door.

00:00:37.720 You can go to goodranchers.com slash Allie for a discount. That's goodranchers.com slash Allie.

00:00:51.760 All right, y'all, you are going to love this conversation and love this guest. She's got

00:00:56.300 a really unique perspective. We're not coming from the same place theologically or politically,

00:01:01.580 which is why I think her particular stance is so interesting. And so I think you're going to learn

00:01:08.920 a lot from her. Before we get into it, I'll just make a little announcement that I was once again

00:01:14.520 suspended from Twitter. We just talked about this yesterday, so it's pretty timely. I've been

00:01:20.800 suspended a couple times before for saying that a man is a man, even though he declares himself

00:01:25.880 to be a woman. This time I got a notification that I was temporarily locked out of Twitter

00:01:31.000 because there was a video that I don't even want to play because it's so disturbing.

00:01:35.540 It was shared by libs of TikTok, and it was a pride parade happening in Berlin.

00:01:41.360 And you know, there's a lot of weird stuff happening at these pride parades. It's not just like

00:01:46.240 people throwing around their rainbow flag saying love is love. There's a lot of nudity. There is a lot of

00:01:51.940 what's called kink. And apparently there is a subset of kink that is like where men dress up in leather

00:01:59.140 dog suits. They have like leather dog masks on. It's like BDSM, just very disturbing. I don't even

00:02:06.600 want to go into detail. So this man was dressed up like that. And as part of this kink show, he was

00:02:13.320 also in a cage, I guess, acting like a dog. It's very sick, perverse stuff. And there was this

00:02:19.000 little precious girl, probably five years old, who was like looking in the cage and I guess

00:02:25.000 asking this man questions. What parents in their right mind would allow their child to interact in

00:02:30.700 this way and see something like this? I mean, they're not in their right mind. That is the answer

00:02:35.340 to it. Or they're just evil. And then you see in, so she's interacting with this man. And then you see

00:02:42.260 that she actually gets in the cage with this man. OK, disgusting, disgusting stuff. Yes, this is

00:02:49.320 abusive. It is. It is some of the most wicked stuff that you can even think of. And I quote tweeted

00:02:56.060 it on Twitter. This was several days ago. And what sick pervert reported it? I don't know. My tweet

00:03:01.980 where I said, throw this man in the cage to the bottom of the sea. I didn't think that that would

00:03:09.660 even be remotely controversial. But apparently to some people, to some, I don't know, the predator

00:03:18.340 weirdos, they decided that me saying that was unacceptable. When in fact, Jesus himself is

00:03:27.220 even harsher than that. If anyone causes one of these little ones to sin, it would be better for

00:03:31.880 him if there was a millstone tied to his neck and he was thrown into the depth of the sea. I didn't

00:03:37.120 even say anything about a millstone. So really, I should have taken it to the next level. Twitter,

00:03:42.820 of course, is going to protect these predators. I think based on YouTube comments yesterday about

00:03:48.200 our poll for what we should call some of these people instead of groomers. I'm talking about

00:03:54.220 people that try to interact with kids in a sexual way or groom them to try to question their gender

00:04:01.040 and their sexuality when they're five years old rather than calling them groomers since people

00:04:05.720 are getting kicked off platforms for that. I saw a lot of votes kind of surprising for A4, which is

00:04:11.080 adults after adolescent affirmation. And that seems to be the case here. Twitter loves those people,

00:04:20.000 loves those predators, and will do anything to protect them. So I get suspended from Twitter off

00:04:25.540 because of that. And then meanwhile, people who actually threaten the lives of, for example,

00:04:31.820 conservative Supreme Court justices, they're fine. They're not going to get kicked off. I don't even

00:04:37.200 care at this point. We're so used to that kind of duplicitousness. We're so used to that kind of

00:04:42.040 hypocrisy from Twitter. They let me back on Twitter, whatever, no big deal. But just realize,

00:04:49.700 even as we're going into this conversation, that there is a whole network of entities. We're talking

00:04:56.280 about corporate America. We're talking about big tech. We're talking about the federal government.

00:05:00.120 We're even talking about the UN, the WHO. We're talking about some of the biggest billionaires in

00:05:05.400 the world that are funding this industry of gender confusion and gender mutilation that is then preying

00:05:13.940 upon children through a variety of channels, whether it's social media, whether it's through the shows that

00:05:19.120 they watch, the people they interact with online. This is being affirmed in the classroom, very often

00:05:25.440 without the knowledge and the consent of the parents. And one of the purposes, whether intentional or

00:05:30.260 incidental, is to drive a wedge between parents who love and seek the well-being of their kids and the

00:05:37.660 kids themselves. And so that is the theme of what we're going to talk about today. We are going to talk to a

00:05:44.380 parent who has been separated from her child because of this confusion, because of this ideology you will

00:05:52.280 hear in this conversation. I mean, she is extremely steady, which you will just be floored by her

00:05:58.260 steadiness and all of this. I, however, at one point turned into a puddle of tears. But this is not a

00:06:04.120 conversation that's just going to pull you down and make you sad. Yes, it will make you sad in a lot of

00:06:09.540 ways, especially you who are parents. You can imagine how terrible this would be. But she is also very

00:06:14.560 positive and she is doing something about this issue. She's not the only parent who has experienced

00:06:20.440 this. There has been story after story that I've talked about on this show of parents who have been

00:06:25.120 separated from their kid because they refuse to accept this idea that their daughter suddenly is really a boy at the

00:06:32.640 age of 13 because they love their child. And the state is saying, nope, we know better. Scary stuff, serious

00:06:39.440 stuff, stuff that we really need to care about and know about. And I wanted you to hear firsthand from a mom

00:06:45.440 that has been on the receiving end of this madness. And I know that you're really going to appreciate this

00:06:52.440 conversation. So without further ado, here is our new friend, Jeanette Cooper.

00:06:57.680 Jeanette, thank you so much for joining us. Let's go all the way back. For those who have not heard

00:07:07.440 your story, many have, but for those who have no idea your experiences or why you're coming on the

00:07:13.320 show today, tell us who you are. Tell us a little bit about your story, how all of this started, you

00:07:21.040 talking to the media about your experience with your daughter.

00:07:23.760 Hmm. Yeah. So I guess I could start at what most people are interested in, which is my daughter

00:07:31.400 was with me six days a week, seven, no, six nights a week, seven days a week after I was divorced

00:07:40.080 approximately seven years ago. And that was through mediation. So it wasn't a, you know, a fight or

00:07:45.540 anything about it. We had agreed to that plan here in Chicago. And my daughter went on a regular

00:07:52.480 three and a half hour visit, custodial visit to her dad's house. And then I went to go pick her up

00:07:58.540 and he refused to release her back into my custody. Something felt odd about that. So really odd. That

00:08:07.380 had really never happened. So I actually sent my attorney an email that evening, just giving her a

00:08:15.440 heads up that something was really weird. And what had happened. I just had a conversation and

00:08:21.100 he just simply refused. I didn't quite understand that. So I went back home. And then the next day,

00:08:29.520 I received kind of a an email from her that she had adopted a transgender identity that she was,

00:08:38.640 I think at that time, she said she was a boy and didn't feel safe in my home, for some reason.

00:08:47.660 And then, and then I contacted my attorney and I said, Okay, we're doing a, we need to do some sort

00:08:54.780 of petition to bring her back to my custody. I, I tried, I called her on the phone, I believe,

00:09:00.780 and had a conversation. Nothing really happened in that conversation. And then, and then I went to

00:09:09.520 court. Actually, we couldn't get the mediation as fast as we could get to court. But I was basically

00:09:17.580 told that my ex husband had known about this for a month. My daughter had gone to her stepmom,

00:09:24.920 a licensed psychotherapist, and had said, Hey, I'm, I'm transgender, and I feel unsafe with my mom.

00:09:34.920 And unethically, the psychotherapist said, Okay, well, of course, you can live with us. Instead of

00:09:41.840 maybe thinking, Hey, maybe we should talk to your mom, there's, I don't see any reason why your mom

00:09:47.300 would be unsafe. You know, we can have an adult conversation. Instead, my ex husband said,

00:09:55.360 you know, she told me to keep it a secret from you. And so I did.

00:10:00.860 Okay, so she was 12 years old, really, which is not really co parenting, right? So she was 12 years

00:10:07.280 old at this point, correct? Yeah, she was just about to turn 13.

00:10:11.660 Okay. And where do you think she got this idea that she might be a girl or a boy trapped in a

00:10:19.520 girl's body? I will say that the internet is full of all kinds of things. But if if you don't know a

00:10:27.820 child who has claimed a trans identity, you're living in a cave. It's quite the social contagion

00:10:33.640 right now. So I think the idea of adopting some sort of other identity, and becoming a new person

00:10:40.400 is really easy to create in your mind, especially with the idea that you can actually create other

00:10:48.620 identities online. I mean, I happen to be a person who doesn't have kind of multiple Facebook accounts

00:10:54.740 or multiple Twitter accounts or something. But many people do. And so the idea that you can kind

00:11:01.480 of split your interests and personalities into individual identities that you then play out,

00:11:11.580 I think is appealing to young people who are in this identity development stage of adolescence that

00:11:18.600 goes on for quite a period of time. And the idea that you can pick a cool name, that's new.

00:11:25.480 That's kind of appealing, of course. I mean, my daughter picked some anime name. And that was

00:11:31.680 when she was 12. And I don't know how she feels about that now that she's going to be 16 this

00:11:36.580 summer. So was she was anime a big part of her life at this point? Not that I know of. I mean,

00:11:44.140 but I think a lot of characters are written in such a way that they're quite idyllic. Yeah. So you have

00:11:50.400 characters that are written with, you know, such power, bravery, courage, and all kinds of qualities

00:11:56.800 that yes, people have, but any writer of, you know, fiction kind of creates characters that are just

00:12:05.940 a sliver. They're just part of a larger kind of human being. And that's the purpose of the character

00:12:14.320 is to just exhibit a very specific, narrow trait. And so I can understand how children will want to

00:12:22.240 be kind of the hero in the movie, something like that. It makes sense.

00:12:26.340 Right. Well, you're not the first parent that I have heard say that their young son or daughter

00:12:32.600 liked anime, watched anime, was a part of anime communities, perhaps online. I don't know if

00:12:37.760 that's true of your daughter, but had social media accounts. And having not watched anime myself,

00:12:43.180 I don't know what the connection is, but there seems to be a very real connection

00:12:48.260 between anime, the kind of Tumblr, Reddit, online culture for young people, and gender switching,

00:12:59.120 or gender play, or identifying as something else. I certainly think what you just described is part

00:13:04.600 of it. And then also the aspect of the social contagion. And it kind of feels good to say that you're

00:13:12.720 misunderstood by your parents, but you're fully known and accepted by this community online.

00:13:19.020 I do think that that is kind of what lures a lot of young, impressionable boys, but especially girls

00:13:26.380 kind of into this world. Did you see any signals leading up to this kind of sudden,

00:13:34.220 hey, I'm transgender and I feel unsafe with you? Did you see any signals or symptoms in your daughter?

00:13:41.360 Yeah.

00:13:42.720 I mean, no, not really. I think that I don't consider a transgender identity some unique

00:13:49.820 thing. It's the same as any sort of, I hate the word phase, but it is any sort of experiment that

00:13:59.960 children are making as they push pull through this period of adolescence. So it's not unusual in that

00:14:07.460 way. The difference in this particular arena is that it forecloses other options. So it's not as

00:14:16.560 if I can dress kind of goth and take on this personality for a couple of years, you know,

00:14:23.320 sixth, seventh grade, and then all of a sudden I'm in eighth grade and I, you know, I start dressing a

00:14:27.740 different way. You can just take it off. You can't exactly do that when you've bullied people into

00:14:34.020 calling you a certain name and you've changed a bunch of records and people actually don't know

00:14:40.240 what your real name is because maybe they've never heard it. So it's not so easy to come back from summer

00:14:46.940 break. And all of a sudden you're wearing different clothes or you have a different style. It's not like

00:14:53.040 that. So I can understand that any child, you know, it's not as if this, this period, there was nothing

00:15:03.580 unusual in that way. I suppose I'm the most gender nonconforming of the two of us. So if anybody were

00:15:13.740 going to be considered a boy with this, to be honest, stupid criteria, it would be me. I mean, I don't

00:15:22.760 shave. I've never worn makeup. I have short hair. Like I said, I'm a general contractor. I spend a lot of

00:15:31.440 my time with men. Um, I would be the one that you would probably say that about not my daughter who

00:15:38.320 wears makeup, does her nails and always has those beautiful nails, um, wears a bra and, um, and it's

00:15:47.780 just, she's not the one. Right. Right. Tell me what it has been like emotionally for you. Take us back

00:15:56.640 first. I'm sure what was kind of the sudden shock of, wait, what do you, what do you mean that you

00:16:01.540 are not going to allow my daughter to come back into my custody? I mean, you said that you had spent

00:16:06.660 every day with her and suddenly, no, you can't have your daughter. I mean, as a mom myself, I just

00:16:13.200 cannot imagine the anxiety that comes with that. But then tell me how it felt and also what unfolded

00:16:21.420 over the next several years. Yeah. So it's been three years now, a little over three years since

00:16:28.060 July 22nd, 2019, when she went to her dad's house and didn't come back. Um, I don't know if you've

00:16:34.560 ever had a concussion. Um, but if you can imagine somebody hitting you on the back of the head with a

00:16:40.740 two by four with full force, I would say that's what I felt like for about six months. It's pretty

00:16:48.120 disoriented. Um, because I have such a strong belief and justice and, and the government to

00:16:56.000 create that. I have a strong belief in people doing good things. I believe all people are good. And,

00:17:02.580 uh, so it's a little bit, I don't say a little bit, a lot confusing when all of the rules of child

00:17:09.360 development have been thrown out the window. It's very confusing to have sat on the school board of the

00:17:15.740 local schools to be the room parents for her school and to be around children kind of all the

00:17:21.360 time. I mean, I'm, I'm a candidate for a PhD in education at DePaul university. So to say that I

00:17:27.620 am somehow unsafe for children, it is quite the insult. Right. So it is very, it was very confusing

00:17:36.080 to me. It's not confusing so much anymore. Um, because I know there are certain assumptions

00:17:42.480 within this frame of family court and society in general at this cultural moment, but those six

00:17:49.820 months, yes, absolutely. I came home and I had to walk by a room that was filled with everything. I

00:17:56.540 mean, uh, she went through all the steps. I went to many workshops on suicide after she had left

00:18:02.520 because that was the narrative of, okay, she's, you know, suicidal or something like that, or had

00:18:08.420 some sort of this, a whole idea of a transgender identified child and suicide are kind of interlinked.

00:18:15.440 So I went to lots of workshops about suicide and, and, um, they talked about signs of suicide. For

00:18:23.240 example, they say, you know, what a person does is they kind of talk to people and kind of a last

00:18:29.920 goodbye way. So, uh, they talk to them, uh, for the last time they clean, generally organize their own

00:18:37.620 stuff in life, uh, make everything neat. They give away some prized things. Um, she actually went

00:18:44.660 through all of those steps. She did all of those things. And, and I consider it a living suicide.

00:18:51.020 This is the, that was the moment in which she kind of killed off Sophia and created this new

00:18:59.060 identity. So she did that before she went to her dad's and basically said, Hey, I'm not coming back.

00:19:04.900 Right. Because for that month, um, when she had told her, her stepmother, the psychotherapist,

00:19:12.800 and then, uh, her dad, um, that was a month in which, and you said you have kids. So if your child

00:19:20.440 is unusually kind of generous and nice, like, Hey mom, can I, can I bring you anything? Do you want

00:19:26.360 this? Do you want that? It kind of gets your antenna up and you think, what are you going to ask me for?

00:19:32.540 Or what did you do? Uh, you have kind of a weird feeling that something is about to come. Uh, and

00:19:39.420 it felt like that for about a month. And I, I honestly thought, as they say in the suicide

00:19:44.140 workshop, you feel like your child has turned a corner and you feel like the weight has been lifted

00:19:50.740 off of them. And all of a sudden they're, they're kind of anxiety, depression, all those kinds of

00:19:54.940 things disappear. And the reason that it happens is because they have made a decision

00:20:00.540 and the release of all of that stuff kind of falling off, um, creates a sense of kind of

00:20:09.420 happiness and peace. That's what I saw. I didn't know that that was a sign of something.

00:20:15.880 Now I do because I know quite a bit about suicide. Had she been depressed and anxious or, or lonely

00:20:25.300 or, or brooding leading up to this? Oh, of course. I mean, every child who experiences the trauma of

00:20:29.840 divorce has those feelings. I think that is a major trauma and we know that it's part of the adverse

00:20:35.300 childhood experiences survey. So we know that that is trauma. Um, and yes, you know, I, without kind

00:20:42.900 of disclosing, um, you know, anything, of course, many children who have suffered that trauma have

00:20:50.320 suicidal ideation, anxiety, depression, kind of stemming from that significant rupture of family,

00:20:57.160 that sense of loss, um, that there's not a lot you can do about, um, in that moment. You just kind

00:21:04.520 of have to help a child build, um, some coping mechanisms around that and create, you know, uh, a

00:21:11.260 different kind of life than they had in their mind. And then what everybody had in their mind.

00:21:27.320 Tell us what it has been like through the legal process. I know that you said for six months there,

00:21:34.640 you came home. It just felt like a gut punch and it sounds like you were doing everything that you

00:21:39.680 could to try to understand what was going on. And that you also held on to hope that the wrong would

00:21:46.060 be made right really soon. This assumption that the justice system will deliver justice, that people

00:21:52.220 are basically good. Once people saw that, Hey, you weren't unsafe for your daughter, that things would

00:21:57.020 resolve, but that hasn't happened. So tell us exactly what that process has looked like.

00:22:02.540 Hmm. So, uh, one of the things that I guess people assume, which is, I find very interesting,

00:22:08.180 is that I never used this, this name and these pronouns that she decided. I did that. I actually

00:22:17.260 wrote kind of a long three page, uh, affirmation letter, if you want to call it that. Um, I was told,

00:22:25.560 uh, I can't, I can't actually say this. Uh, there are some limits to what I'm allowed to say legally.

00:22:33.860 So I did say that I would use this name and pronouns, but I had a lot of questions. Um,

00:22:42.940 that's not a thing I was really allowed to have. You're not allowed to question.

00:22:47.480 It has to be on critical acceptance of this newfound identity that your 12 year old has.

00:22:53.360 Yeah. I mean, kind of coming with a, with a question versus balloons and a cake is not the right

00:22:59.460 response in this current cultural moment. So, um, I just don't think that's good parenting. So I,

00:23:07.900 I really did want to ask questions and talk to my child and I went to family therapy. I've had

00:23:13.200 approximately eight and a half hours of family therapy, uh, with my daughter and it's how I would

00:23:19.620 describe it as some sort of triangulation. So my daughter, uh, had quite the advocate in the therapist,

00:23:27.780 um, and so there was no opportunity really for me to ask any questions at all. Um, in the way that

00:23:36.140 therapy is supposed to be private, it wasn't really because anything that happened in therapy

00:23:40.720 seemed to make its way back to family court. So if you have my attorney and me, and then you have my

00:23:47.180 child who has her own, uh, attorney, and then my ex-husband who has his own attorney,

00:23:53.160 it becomes a bit of a two against one situation. So I'm not really sure. I think at that point when I

00:24:00.840 wrote the affirmation letter, which would have been about 10 days after she left, um, the response

00:24:08.600 that I received, not from her, but from professionals in this arena, um, was that that wasn't going to

00:24:16.980 work? And at that point it was a bit of a jolt because I, I knew that there was something up.

00:24:26.480 I'm not sure I knew what, but I knew, wait a minute, I, I did what I thought I was supposed

00:24:31.420 to be doing. I don't understand this. And I was confused for quite a period until I realized, uh,

00:24:39.380 at some point that everything was resting on kind of two central assumptions within the entire thing

00:24:47.460 that I had no control over. So the two central assumptions that any of these family court things

00:24:53.600 and the bigger, wider society rest on is one, there is such a unicorn as a transgender child.

00:25:00.560 Um, and, and they are wholly unique from other children. And the second assumption is that they

00:25:09.680 will kill themselves. If you don't, if you don't use whatever name or pronoun they happen to decide

00:25:16.440 upon, um, which has no relationship really to anything, but their own feelings. And if, if those

00:25:22.260 two things are true, then you get my situation. So it's not, it's predictable in a way. Once I figured

00:25:29.960 those two things out and I said, you know, I, I can't do that because I have a strongly held belief

00:25:39.320 in what I would describe as reality, our material reality.

00:25:44.460 Well, how, so how did you move from the letter that you sent her 10 days after she was taken out

00:25:50.260 of your custody to affirming her? And I think you said using like the name and pronouns that she said

00:25:55.700 that she wanted to realizing, okay, I can't continue down this path of uncritical affirmation of this

00:26:03.760 new identity. It sounds like something kind of changed in your mind.

00:26:07.620 Well, I was always kind of questioning. I, I understand the word critical and the way that

00:26:15.500 you're using it. I don't think it's, uh, critical meaning questioning, just asking curious questions.

00:26:23.560 That's what I mean. Yeah. Um, so, so yes, I, I can understand that. I, I was kind of in a state

00:26:29.920 of neutrality of asking questions and this, uh, curious, yes, I'm concerned that my child is distressed.

00:26:35.820 Yes. I'm concerned that she is kind of thinking and saying these things. And I, I would like to

00:26:40.680 know more about that. Um, and in, in that process, there were just, I, I was not given any opportunity,

00:26:49.880 uh, to really get any information or answers at all. So it was just, don't you understand that she's

00:26:58.640 trans. And asking what does that mean is a bigoted question. It's not acceptable. Um, and I guess I,

00:27:13.560 I learned in a bit of a way that other people are not in charge of deciding. Um,

00:27:22.340 I mean, I, I'm not really concerned about their judgments of me. I know what kind of parent I am.

00:27:31.520 I know that I'm a good person. I know that I love and deeply care for my daughter. So you can say all

00:27:38.700 kinds of things, but it kind of doesn't impact me anymore. So little by little, I could see every

00:27:44.980 question was met with kind of a, a bit of a shut up. Um, this is what good parenting is. This is what

00:27:52.020 you should be doing. And I don't believe some of those things. And I don't think that's good

00:27:59.200 parenting just because my background is with children. Like I actually know how the brain

00:28:05.000 develops. I know how an adolescent brain is.

00:28:07.680 Right. And you know, your daughter, as you said before, she, she hadn't demonstrated

00:28:11.800 any symptoms of gender dysphoria. This was sudden and you were supposed to accept it.

00:28:18.600 Right. And I don't know if you're able to say, I know that you said there are some legal boundaries

00:28:23.160 to what you can say. So just say what you're comfortable with. I'm personally just curious

00:28:26.960 what role you believe your ex-husband and his wife have played in this. Because to me, I'm thinking,

00:28:35.500 okay, what was going on when you weren't there that she kind of suddenly said,

00:28:40.560 oh, I'm unsafe with my mom, whom she had been with for a very long time. And I am safe with these

00:28:46.940 people over here. That to me, I don't know, seems like a red flag.

00:28:52.980 Yes. I think that children use the word safe in a way that actually isn't the using the word

00:29:00.020 properly. So what they're saying is I'm more comfortable here because the boundaries are

00:29:05.940 different. So I'm able to do more things and take more kind of risky behavior. I can get away with

00:29:17.440 more because these adults wish to please me and cannot bear the distress of seeing me upset.

00:29:26.180 Um, I think adults think that they're doing good things for children. I think that they think that

00:29:36.080 they are good parents in that moment. I think that my ex-husband believes that. And I'm sure stepmom

00:29:42.640 thinks that she's doing the right thing. But the differences between supporting somebody in healthy

00:29:50.180 behaviors and enabling unhealthy ones. Anybody who has been with anyone through addiction or self-harm or

00:29:57.760 any of those things knows the difference between those two terms, supporting and enabling. Supporting

00:30:04.660 healthy behaviors, enabling unhealthy ones. So, uh, supporting healthy behaviors means setting clear

00:30:12.020 boundaries. And, and that person in order to set clear boundaries has to have a level of resilience

00:30:17.580 that they can cope with being present with somebody who is in distress. And they don't kind of transfer

00:30:24.360 that distress inside of them and take it on. And it distresses that person. Um, when you enable

00:30:30.100 somebody, especially, you know, addiction type of situations, the person who is enabling cannot bear to be

00:30:37.480 around somebody in distress. They simply suck all that distress in, feel like they want to stop it

00:30:43.400 because they cannot bear it. The person around the person in distress cannot bear it. They are not resilient

00:30:48.700 enough. They don't have the coping skills. I would say they're not strong enough in that moment. And so they'll do

00:30:54.680 anything to get rid of that person's distress because they cannot bear it. That is a call for somebody to kind of

00:31:03.540 learn better coping skills and to surround themselves with others who can support the child and bear through

00:31:12.640 those moments of distress. I can do that. I mean, that's the thing when people say, Oh my gosh, you know,

00:31:19.920 it's been three years, um, without kind of having any real private contact with your daughter. Um,

00:31:27.340 I can bear that I am bearing that, right? It is possible. Now, my daughter is suffering serious trauma. She separated

00:31:37.580 from her mother, no child protective services or anybody else would think that that's a good idea in any way, shape

00:31:44.380 or form. So I'm not sure why it's happening now. I'm not sure why they don't see it as a trauma to her. She's a child and

00:31:51.040 shouldn't have to suffer that the adult should really step in and do something about that. They're

00:31:57.240 not, um, they don't have the resilience to, to set good boundaries for children. This is a normal

00:32:05.240 thing for teenagers to push boundaries. Usually they're supposed to hit some, they're not supposed

00:32:12.440 to run into people. When the teenager says jump, um, the adults are not supposed to say how high,

00:32:19.320 right? That's not the role of a supportive adult in a child's life.

00:32:34.800 So this is happening. This has been happening. These proceedings in Cook County, Illinois. And so

00:32:41.660 is it a judge, one particular judge? Is it CPS? Who exactly is saying, Hey, you cannot have contact

00:32:51.960 with your daughter? How did this kind of come down?

00:32:56.420 Um, so, so there's a first, uh, when you go into court and a child says that they're unsafe in some

00:33:01.980 way, there's, it kind of triggers, uh, a custody evaluation if you can't agree to that custody.

00:33:08.420 So no kind of, we have department of child and family services, which is, uh, you know,

00:33:13.520 child protective services and other, in other States, there was no investigation in that department

00:33:19.040 because there was no, uh, abuse or neglect. So there was nothing that indicated abuse or neglect.

00:33:27.080 So that investigation was never opened. What was opened was what's called a 604B custody evaluation,

00:33:33.080 which involves, uh, psychological testing and hours and hours and interviews, basically since

00:33:39.040 birth to present, um, that talks about all kinds of things. And the interviewer can ask you really

00:33:44.200 whatever that person then, uh, produces a report. They're supposed to talk to other people who have

00:33:50.860 observed the family and, uh, together who observed the child, um, has some relationship. Uh, I gave a list

00:33:59.020 of maybe 10 or 12 people on that list. Uh, the investigator contacted one of them. Um, and that

00:34:07.700 was kind of sad. Uh, so I don't think that person really had a good understanding. Um, but they have

00:34:13.920 to yield something, um, to give some recommendation to the court. So what happens is it's a bit of a,

00:34:20.940 a series of, uh, communication games where the investigator has a lot of information, summarizes it

00:34:27.960 in a report and then has to give a recommendation to the court. Uh, so the judge really doesn't have

00:34:35.560 a lot of information, all they're kind of doing and I'll see it was a female judge. So all he's doing

00:34:42.420 is saying, what does that person recommend? I'm kind of going to go along with that. Uh, the

00:34:47.520 investigator recommended that I get a better understanding of my child's, uh, gender dysphoria

00:34:53.480 and transgender identity. Which meant not asking questions basically. Uh, it kind of meant, um,

00:35:01.400 that I should follow whatever people were telling me to do as if I don't have my own intuition or

00:35:08.160 educational background in life experience as a mother. As if everyone else knows your daughter,

00:35:11.800 right. And you don't. Yeah. As if certificates make somebody superhuman, um, and, and that negates

00:35:18.200 kind of the millennia of experience of mothers, um, um, and their adolescent daughters, right?

00:35:23.820 This is a perpetual thing, um, that, that adolescent daughters and mothers go through. So this is quite

00:35:30.280 normal. Um, but I didn't have the belief that they wanted me to have, not the understanding. I would say,

00:35:35.600 I think it's a belief that they want me to have. They want me to believe that it is the right thing

00:35:41.640 to allow my child to have a different identity, a real true other identity as another person with a

00:35:51.220 different history. I mean, the children who come out with kind of this transgender identity or adopt

00:35:56.920 this identity, they recreate their entire childhood in a way that it, it, it wreck it. Like it harkens

00:36:04.180 back to that, uh, repressed memory syndrome where people would create memories that never existed.

00:36:09.780 Yeah. As if adults don't remember those things much better than children themselves.

00:36:16.080 Yes. I have heard that from multiple people. And it, again, it goes back to two things that you've

00:36:22.080 already mentioned, the communities that are created online, the social contagion aspect. I think kids

00:36:28.800 in general, but especially kids who decide that they identify as the opposite gender, they kind of take

00:36:34.880 someone else's narrative as their own so that they can identify with it so that they can create

00:36:41.960 community and affirmation around it. This idea that, Oh, when this happened, when I was three years

00:36:48.400 old, that really meant that I was supposed to be a boy. That seems to be a common theme. And you're

00:36:54.960 right. We're apparently just supposed to take kids at their word whose brains haven't even fully

00:37:00.180 developed over their parents who not just know them, but love them. Yes. I think that the

00:37:06.780 adolescent period, you're of course searching for meaning. I think that we all do that for the rest

00:37:12.280 of our lifespan. So identity development isn't solidified, you know, when you're 25, clearly we

00:37:18.840 are always in a state of becoming. We're always in that, but in the adolescent period is a bit of an

00:37:25.900 experimentation kind of, let me look into a bunch of different things and see which one fits. They

00:37:32.140 usually describe it as trying on different outfits or personalities. And, and yeah, it makes sense to

00:37:39.020 do those kinds of things to try things out. But this solidifies things in a way that is not helpful to a

00:37:47.360 child because they can't simply change it one day. Right. They can't simply discard something that they

00:37:54.160 try on and doesn't exactly work. We do see though children who like my daughter will say, you know,

00:38:00.400 first they'll say, I'm a boy. And when you're sitting in a room with me, it's a bit difficult to

00:38:06.800 get away with that. I would say, because I, like I said earlier, the list of boy traits, I think I hit

00:38:16.540 better than my daughter for sure. So it's a bit difficult to sit in a room with me and say that

00:38:22.720 you're more of a boy than I am. But then a lot of the girls switch to this non-binary identity, which

00:38:29.980 my friend describes as a house plant. And it's pretty, it's lovely, but most people don't notice

00:38:37.220 it. So it kind of blends in. And so they can kind of be anything they want. There is a woman, a brilliant

00:38:45.580 genius, Exo Lanzic. She describes it as the church of trans because it's a, it's a religious belief

00:38:53.580 system. Yeah. So in the church of trans, you have these two different sects and those two different

00:39:00.460 sects are Our Lady of Perpetual Hormone Replacement Therapy, which is I was born in the wrong body and I

00:39:09.540 need to change my body to match my mind. That assumes that the mind is not plastic. There's

00:39:18.980 nothing you can do to change it. The entire field of psychotherapy shouldn't exist. And the body is

00:39:27.740 the only thing that cannot, can be changed. So that's the kind of one sect, this Our Lady of Perpetual

00:39:33.320 Hormone Replacement Therapy, and that assumes male and female. But then there's this other sect called the

00:39:39.440 Church of the Non-Binaries he describes, Exo Lanzic. And the Church of the Non-Binaries is gender is

00:39:45.540 fluid. You can be whatever you want. It changes maybe day to day, kind of like feeling. But that

00:39:54.040 negates the idea that you should change anything about your body because whatever you change about

00:39:57.660 your body is permanent. You're doing permanent things to your body, to a healthy body. And that

00:40:05.240 doesn't seem logical to do. Certainly not to children. Now, my daughter never wanted any of

00:40:11.840 these things. So that's the thing I think that is also misunderstood. In the agreement that I feel like

00:40:19.020 I was pushed into, I'm not sure that I had much of a choice. I signed an agreement that had a provision

00:40:28.260 that prohibits any medicalization through gender medicine for my daughter. And I was happy to get

00:40:36.460 that provision. And then the second thing that I asked for and got was communication by postal mail.

00:40:44.300 And they tried to say that, no, I shouldn't have that. But I said, then you have to give me a

00:40:49.500 restraining order because that's where we would be at that point.

00:40:53.360 So they tried to cut off all communication and then they relented a little bit and said,

00:40:58.740 you can write letters. And you lived 10 minutes away from her.

00:41:01.700 Yeah, so I asked for letters. Oh, yeah. She's just up the road.

00:41:05.620 Does she write you back?

00:41:07.840 She hasn't written back in about a year. Her father responds. Actually, I don't think her father's

00:41:12.620 actually responding. I think it's, I know his writing because I was married to him for about 11 or 12

00:41:17.200 years. Um, I'm pretty sure his wife, his wife is responding to my text messages. Uh, it's not his

00:41:23.340 writing. So it's, Oh, you can't, you can text her. I can, no, I can text my ex-husband. Oh, okay.

00:41:30.860 Uh, to say, Hey, uh, for example, the last time I texted, I said, Hey, it's mother's day. I haven't

00:41:36.460 received a mother's day card. Um, since she left, I haven't received anything for Christmas, my birthday,

00:41:42.580 uh, nothing actually. It's as if I don't exist. And I'm told by my ex-husband that it's all my

00:41:48.600 fault. And that if I would just accept, um, this identity, then everything would be great.

00:41:56.280 Unfortunately, I kind of learned that lesson early on. Right. I, I tried that. Yeah. That's not what

00:42:02.480 she wants. It does remind me, I don't know if you did this when, when you were little, um, before you

00:42:08.900 kind of understood a lot more, but I remember stealing like a sweater of my older sister and

00:42:16.120 she came into the room and she asked me, did you take my sweater? And I said, no, no, of course not.

00:42:23.160 I wouldn't take that. And, and of course you have this sick feeling. It's awful. Cause you're stuck

00:42:31.360 in a lie. You're stuck in a situation where you, you, you know that you lied. Um, you were lying to

00:42:37.800 avoid a conflict in that exact moment. And then all of a sudden you're stuck in it. How do you get

00:42:44.920 out of that without quite a bit of shame? Because you're then fearful of somebody then being angry.

00:42:50.120 Number one, that you took the sweater and number two, that you lied about it. Um, and you have all

00:42:55.100 these people kind of, let's say fighting against my sister to say, she said, she didn't take it.

00:43:00.940 Right. Um, and then all these people are fighting on your behalf over kind of a lie.

00:43:07.800 Hmm. I can imagine that my daughter is in this situation. I mean, the, the amount of money spent

00:43:13.600 on this case, uh, is, is well over $150,000. Right. So I can imagine that if you, if you start

00:43:23.360 out with something like, uh, my mom, I'm unsafe at home. And then all of a sudden everybody rushes

00:43:29.500 to your aid. Um, I'm not sure what you do after that. So I really, I genuinely feel for my daughter.

00:43:38.460 I can imagine, um, that she is in quite a bit of distress about that.

00:43:44.780 And she is about to turn 16 now.

00:43:47.860 16. Yeah.

00:43:49.000 I think her, I think I read her birthday is coming up.

00:43:51.700 Yeah. Yeah. In August. Uh-huh. Yeah. This month. Yeah. And so for the past few years,

00:43:58.240 you missed her 13th birthday. I believe you said that this happened right before she was about to

00:44:02.580 turn 13. Yeah. A month before you missed her 14th birthday, 15th birthday, and now coming up on her

00:44:09.700 16th birthday. I know you described what it was like to not hear anything for mother's day, Christmas,

00:44:15.380 your birthday, but what is it like for you missing these milestones in your daughter's life?

00:44:25.880 You have to remember that the, the day that you had, I have only one child. So the day that I gave

00:44:33.300 birth is the anniversary of my motherhood. That's mine. That's what you get. It is your child's

00:44:41.280 birthday, but it's also the anniversary of your motherhood. You will always have that.

00:44:47.340 So really what we do is we have a, we have a parent group and we share, um, pictures of our

00:44:54.200 children and kind of celebrate, uh, that our motherhood. Yeah. It doesn't matter whether or not,

00:45:03.020 um, my child is kind of acknowledging her own birthday with me in our own relationship that we have had.

00:45:11.280 And we'll continue to have forever. Um, I know, um, I know what the day is and it's okay if she's in this

00:45:22.040 actually really normal angsty period of, of her teenage years, it's normal. What's not normal is adults

00:45:32.320 facilitating the separation of us. Right. That doesn't make sense. And that's the wrong part. She's doing a

00:45:39.940 normal thing. It's quite normal. Right. And for those who are listening, I'm trying to, I'm trying

00:45:48.140 to hold it together because, um, it's just, I mean, that's the worst thing that can happen to you

00:45:57.940 as a mother. Really? I just can't imagine the separation from my kids by the state, by other

00:46:06.060 adults who are supposed to be protecting them. And the way that you hold it together when you're

00:46:10.620 talking about this and sound hopeful and so even handed, I really respect while I know that this

00:46:17.800 has probably been, I mean, a nightmare, a nightmare in so many ways. I think every mother or maybe even

00:46:25.140 a non-parent can imagine just the depth of the pain. I mean, going back to the moment, and I talk about

00:46:32.280 this a lot, I'm going to try to say this without just like breaking down in tears, but sorry, you go

00:46:39.320 back to the moment. Wow. I wasn't anticipating crying, but you go back to the moment when your

00:46:45.360 kids are born and they like, they lay that baby on your chest and you can't even describe like the

00:46:52.860 tidal wave of love that hits you in that moment. And for an entity that does not know your child,

00:47:01.400 has it been with your child, wasn't there in that moment, doesn't know your child's experiences,

00:47:07.640 how their mind works, what's best for them to then separate you from that child. I mean, I just

00:47:13.700 can't think of a greater evil than that. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you have experienced that.

00:47:20.940 Yeah, it's wrong. But like I said, I'm an adult. I can cope with that. People, the thing is, you asked

00:47:33.640 earlier that I've started talking about this and I started talking about it because court is over. I

00:47:39.400 mean, I signed an agreement that I don't feel like I had much of a choice. I think Matt Walsh

00:47:45.620 described it as a deal with the devil. So I did agree to that, mostly to save my child from some

00:47:55.500 more distress. But I mean, she will grow up. And I don't want to scare people to say, you know,

00:48:06.020 you could be kind of coerced into this situation also. But what I do tell people is you're going to

00:48:12.280 be okay. You know, if you cry on the floor, like I did for hours and hours and kind of not eat and

00:48:20.120 not sleep and think that the world is falling to pieces. After a while, nobody comes to save you.

00:48:28.120 And, and then you just get up. Because your body doesn't actually die. You would have to actively

00:48:38.180 kill yourself. Yeah. I mean, your body is still breathing. Your, your heart still beats. And you

00:48:45.800 get up. And the sun is still up. It comes up every morning. So all you have to do is wait for it. And

00:48:52.860 it will be there. Yeah. And I tell parents, something will change. Either you will change,

00:49:01.980 or something in the environment will change. Probably both. Nothing will stay the same.

00:49:08.800 So you could not imagine that this would have happened five years ago. You would never imagine

00:49:14.920 that. That means that you cannot imagine what will be true in five years. You have to imagine that that

00:49:22.360 will be good. Because I believe that people are good. I think all of these people, every single person

00:49:29.140 believes that they are doing good things for children, they're just relying on kind of value

00:49:38.660 systems and false premises. They're relying upon truths that are hollow. They're relying upon

00:49:47.400 professionals who are just as human as they are. There's no special kind of, like I said, superhuman

00:49:55.180 thing that you get when you get when you get a certificate. After so many years of training.

00:50:01.720 Human experience is still the greatest thing we have. We know our children very, very well.

00:50:10.360 Those of us that are kind of have the capacity to really be present with our children, you know,

00:50:18.020 like I can see that you are, and that I have been. So you have to have hope that every single person

00:50:24.920 is good and wants to do good things. You just have to reframe what it means to be good. And once you do

00:50:33.480 that, then I think the environment can shift around my child. I may not be the person who kind of impacts

00:50:40.380 my child, and she can see things that she couldn't see before. I might do that for somebody else's kid,

00:50:47.060 I don't know. But we just keep acting in ways that create good things in the world. And we know that

00:50:53.740 those things will come true. Maybe not for us, but for somebody.

00:50:58.320 Well, I think that we agree on a lot and share the same hope. Now, I think we disagree on human nature.

00:51:08.040 I do not believe that people are fundamentally good. I think people can do good things. I do not think

00:51:14.540 that people naturally gravitate towards goodness. And unfortunately, I've learned a lot about

00:51:19.720 the system and this industry that is pushing a lot of the confusion in kids. And while I do think that

00:51:26.720 there are people who are misinformed, but while meaning, I think that there is a lot of malice.

00:51:32.340 I think that there is a lot of nefarious intent behind it. Unfortunately, good and evil is a very real

00:51:39.380 dichotomy in the world. And in a time when people try to push moral relativism and say,

00:51:45.560 you can be whatever you want to, you can define good as you want to, you can define gender as you

00:51:50.400 want to, the reality is, is that just like male and female exist, so does good and evil. And so I think

00:51:57.820 we share a lot of commonalities, we might disagree on fundamentally, kind of what human beings are.

00:52:04.720 And I will say that when we say good, I'm not saying good for others. I mean, if somebody thinks

00:52:12.020 something is good, it may mean in a narcissistic way that it's good for them. I think that when we

00:52:18.880 say people are doing good things, it's not necessarily good for the world. It's just their concept of what

00:52:26.560 is good. Maybe it's good for them. And they think that they're kind of better than other people.

00:52:34.080 Yeah. And if they get good things, they get more money. Good. Yeah. And that's a problem. But they

00:52:40.700 still think it's good. Yes. Yes. People have all kinds of ways to justify what they're doing.

00:52:46.940 What happens when your daughter turns 18? I don't know. I mean, I don't have her phone number.

00:52:55.060 I suppose I don't have any educational decision making. So I don't have any choice in where she

00:53:03.260 goes to college or how much that costs me, to be really honest with you. I don't have any ability

00:53:12.340 really to contact her other than postal mail. So I suppose I wait.

00:53:17.240 And has she been on hormone therapy? No, she's not interested in any of that. I don't think she's

00:53:25.580 ever had any, you know, body hatred or anything like that. But she still identifies as a boy and

00:53:33.860 non-binary right now. She's got really cool pronouns. So she has pronouns that are Zzer that

00:53:39.440 start with an X. And that's super cool. Okay. So that's kind of evolved over the past few years,

00:53:46.680 too. Yeah. Like I said, it's hard to pull off boy when you're sitting in front of a woman like me.

00:53:52.600 Yeah. So, you know, a lot of kids will then become this. They'll move from what I just,

00:53:59.640 you know, what Exelonzik describes as the Our Lady of Perpetual Hormone Replacement Therapy,

00:54:07.080 where there's a binary, male, female, and they'll move into gender is fluid,

00:54:11.480 the church of the non-binary. Because they can be anything. It's, you know, it's completely fluid.

00:54:17.160 Right. And that's appealing. I can be anything I want any day. You know what that's called?

00:54:22.640 It's called personality. Yeah. That's personality. Right. It is strange how,

00:54:28.760 especially adolescents today, I mean, there are so many different flags, so many different identities,

00:54:32.860 and they're all called sexual identities. And they're so specific. Like there was one, it was

00:54:37.780 like, I think it's Demi or something where you like romantic love before you want to have sex with

00:54:45.100 someone. I saw another one that was like, oh, you don't want, you want to, you want to want to have

00:54:52.480 sex, but you don't want to have sex. I'm like, oh, because, so these are all like marginalized

00:54:57.940 identities now, rather than just like feelings and emotions that are all along the normal human

00:55:04.060 spectrum. Right. I mean, these are normal adolescent feelings and even normal human

00:55:09.880 feelings and experiences. Yeah. But somebody else is putting a word to what you're thinking. I mean,

00:55:16.720 it's exactly why you probably do your podcast, is that you have people on and people talk about

00:55:22.880 their experiences and then they go, oh my God, I totally get that. Yeah. And that's what's

00:55:28.500 happening in all of those labels in a way. Now, are we asking kids questions that they don't

00:55:34.060 quite understand yet? For sure. I mean, asking a five-year-old their pronouns is,

00:55:39.960 they can't even understand. It's too big of a burden. Right. Yeah. And it shouldn't even be

00:55:45.020 happening anyway, because pronouns are obviously based upon biological sex. It's something you're

00:55:51.220 choosing. Yeah. It's something that the wider society as a group gives to you. Yeah.

00:56:07.840 Now, are you, how would you describe yourself politically, religiously? One critique that,

00:56:15.340 you know, the trans activists have is that, oh, anyone who criticizes transgenderism is just a

00:56:21.200 right-wing fundamentalist Christian bigot. Does that describe you accurately? Oh, yeah. A right-wing

00:56:26.360 Christian evangelical bigot. Yes, yes, yes. And, you know, I will say that, you know, I could get

00:56:33.400 cooties by being on your podcast, right? I could get conservative cooties, which I'm totally okay with

00:56:39.440 because, you know, I can go to any hospital without any sign of illness, like a gender clinic,

00:56:45.200 and get treatment for something that really doesn't exist. So I'm not worried about that.

00:56:49.960 Yeah. So I voted Democratic in every election since I was 18. And that includes primaries. You know,

00:56:59.940 I vote in school board elections at every single election. Even when I lived abroad, I did that.

00:57:06.300 So I would describe myself, of course, as truly progressive, not the regressive men who put on

00:57:12.380 dresses are women, regressive, progressive thing. I believe in some things that are, I think, quite

00:57:22.380 out there. Like, I don't think that all kids need to go to school, for example. I think that, you know,

00:57:30.160 we shouldn't have prisons. I think that we as a community, it's an unattainable goal, of course,

00:57:36.740 but it's for sure a vision that communities should kind of work with each other to educate children in

00:57:45.440 a way that is practical. I believe in the original concept of unschooling, where adults, supportive

00:57:51.120 adults kind of guide children in their education. So I know it sounds odd to be getting a PhD, so I can

00:57:57.320 tell people to drop out of school, but I think they'll listen when I say that.

00:58:01.520 Yeah, yeah. And you're not, do you have religious beliefs?

00:58:06.260 No, no, I've never been a believer. I, you know, I never, I always kind of gravitated towards

00:58:11.280 people who would go to church because they had some sort of moral backbone. So it was always nice

00:58:16.840 to be around people who had some sort of principles and value systems based upon the idea that many

00:58:23.520 people will couch it in some sort of religious idea. But to be honest, as a species, we have to work

00:58:28.760 together with each other in order to survive. So we have to do good things for other people,

00:58:35.060 or else we won't continue as a species. That's just evolution. So that's never been a religious

00:58:41.480 thing. I wasn't raised with any sort of religion. I've never been a believer, but I don't mind going

00:58:45.320 to somebody's church. I think it's kind of exciting. I've spoken in churches. Yeah. And to be honest,

00:58:51.520 I think what's interesting is if I went to your church, if you go to church, I think you'd be fine

00:58:58.880 having me there. I can sing the hymns. But when it comes to repeating the prayers, I think the concept

00:59:05.240 is bearing false witness. And what's happening in transgender, the Church of Trans, as Exelonza

00:59:12.460 calls it, is we are being asked to bear false witness to this idea that we do not believe in.

00:59:19.140 Yes.

00:59:20.100 I don't, I don't, I think that's hypocrisy.

00:59:23.000 Yes. Well, this is a Christian podcast. And thankfully, we believe that all truth is God's

00:59:30.120 truth. So the scientific truth that you just pointed to in the reality of male and female

00:59:33.900 is just as important as the theological reality that God made us in the beginning, male and female.

00:59:40.940 So that's both a theological for us and a scientific truth. And that's also one thing I love about

00:59:47.100 Christianity. Of course, I believe in the redemption and the salvation that comes in Christ and the

00:59:55.480 forgiveness of my sins, but also the clarity that scripture gives us in the reality of male and

01:00:01.400 female, that that is part of being made in his image. And that is also what the entire idea of

01:00:07.700 Western civilization's rights is based on, that we are created by a God who gave us these inalienable

01:00:14.400 rights because we are made in his image. But part of being made in his image, as we read in the first

01:00:18.880 chapter of Genesis, is being made male and female. So that's just another layer for Christians of why

01:00:25.280 this is so important. In addition to caring for the vulnerable, especially vulnerable children,

01:00:30.040 I see this as another form of child sacrifice. And so Christians have always been in the business

01:00:36.620 of trying to protect children from that. And that is, of course, part of why it's so important

01:00:41.240 to me. But I have loved talking to people who don't have my same theological perspectives and still see

01:00:47.440 the urgency of this issue, especially when it's so personal, like in your situation. So I'm just

01:00:52.800 appreciative of you. Oh, thank you. Somebody was just telling me the story of the two mothers and

01:00:59.920 the baby, King Solomon, some story of that. Do you mind sharing that?

01:01:05.760 Yes. So this is where you put me on the spot here, but this is where he's talking to. Well,

01:01:16.540 okay, here, let's, let's pause. Let me make sure that I have the correct reference. To answer your

01:01:22.560 question. I wanted to make sure that I got it correct and that I didn't just pull for memory,

01:01:27.820 but that I actually read the scripture. So this is from first Kings three 16. So this is Solomon's

01:01:35.060 wisdom. Obviously Solomon, we know from scripture was a very wise king. He asked for wisdom. God gave

01:01:40.440 it to him. So verse 16, then two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. The one woman said,

01:01:46.020 Oh my Lord, this woman and I live in the same house and I give birth to a child while she was in the

01:01:50.580 house. Or I gave birth to a child while she was in the house. Then on the third day, after I gave

01:01:54.700 birth, this woman also gave birth and we were alone. There was no one else with us in the house.

01:01:59.560 Only we two were in the house. And this woman's son died in the night because she lay on him.

01:02:04.880 And she arose at midnight and took my son from beside me while your servant slept and laid him

01:02:09.140 at her breast and laid her dead son at my breast. When I rose in the morning to nurse my child, behold,

01:02:13.820 he was dead. And when I looked at him closely in the morning, behold, he was not the child I had born.

01:02:18.020 But the other woman said, No, the living child is mine and the dead child is yours.

01:02:22.600 Then the king said, The one says, This is my son that is alive and your son is dead. And the other

01:02:26.840 says, No, but your son is dead and my son is the living one. And the king said, Bring me a sword.

01:02:31.540 So a sword was brought before the king. And the king said, Divide the living child in two and give

01:02:35.980 half to the one and half to the other. Then the woman whose son was alive said to the king,

01:02:40.600 Because her heart yearned for her son, Oh my Lord, give her the living child and by no means put

01:02:45.280 him to death. But the other said, He shall neither be mine nor yours. Divide him. Then the king

01:02:50.400 answered and said, Give the living child to the first woman and by no means put him to death.

01:02:54.600 She is his mother. And all Israel heard of the judgment that the king had rendered. And they

01:02:58.840 stood in awe of the king because they perceived that the wisdom of God was in him to do justice.

01:03:02.880 And that's justice. I mean, I have had to render my own justice to my child by giving her

01:03:10.640 something that they were not willing to give her. Nobody was going to stop her if she wanted

01:03:18.040 to do anything. And, you know, kids' minds change. So I can bear that kind of being away from my child.

01:03:26.180 Um, but what I cannot bear is a future in which she could possibly, um, change her body in ways

01:03:35.600 that are permanent. I can't bear that because she has to live with that beyond what I will be alive.

01:03:43.020 So that's a choice that I make. It's a bit of a sacrifice on my own part because I can bear it.

01:03:49.100 Um, and she shouldn't really have to bear that. She shouldn't have to bear any of this.

01:03:55.900 But in my case, um, I didn't want to fight anymore. Uh, I didn't want to harm her psychologically

01:04:02.900 through that distress. She had already kind of suffered the, the, um, the divorce between her dad

01:04:10.720 and I. So I didn't want her to have any more suffering by continuing around this.

01:04:19.100 Right. So I think that, you know, she'll grow and change in, in many ways. And at least I have

01:04:24.900 that provision and I encourage other parents to have that provision, um, in any kind of parenting

01:04:31.200 agreement. Yeah. And tell us, um, about your organization or the organization that you're a

01:04:38.040 part of Partners for Ethical Care. Yeah. So we formed that organization almost going on two years ago.

01:04:44.900 And we, we do two things. We support efforts, um, and we raise awareness around the affirmation model,

01:04:54.640 meaning the idea that you affirmed children to prevent some sort of suicide or self-harm.

01:05:00.980 So we don't believe that those two premises are true. Um, and we're fighting against that. And of

01:05:06.720 course, I think your listeners probably know this is part of an entire industry called the gender

01:05:11.600 industry. Uh, this idea that you somehow have to change your body because of feelings inside of

01:05:17.580 your head and body, um, because of some sort of thought inside your mind that you need to change

01:05:23.720 your physical self. Uh, that's just, uh, built on quicksand. So we're fighting against that industry.

01:05:31.240 There's people making billions of dollars off the distress of children and adults. So we wish to

01:05:38.400 abolish that entire industry. Um, I personally have testified in state legislative hearings.

01:05:44.460 I don't mind going in front of people and talking about this issue. Uh, I say, what are you going to

01:05:49.500 do? Take away my kids? Yeah. The worst thing that can happen to you has already. Yeah. Yeah. So I,

01:05:56.540 I'm really not scared. I'm not scared when people call me a transphobic bigot. Um, it's kind of

01:06:01.520 meaningless. It doesn't have any impact on me. Um, even being on your podcast, I, I, I guess I,

01:06:08.960 I don't really care how people label me for that because you're a human being and I'm a human being.

01:06:13.600 And I think that I can have a conversation that's pretty great with just about anybody.

01:06:17.620 Yeah. Um, and we've had lots of people on, I mean, we have people on all the time,

01:06:22.460 atheists, agnostics, leftists. Of course, we've had Megan Murphy, we've had Kathleen Stock,

01:06:27.260 we've had Genevieve Glock. I don't know if, uh, you're familiar. Yeah. So other transphobic

01:06:32.040 bigots like me, but if you had a transphobic parent, I mean, that's really like a transphobic

01:06:37.360 bigot parent. Well, I've had some, um, a D transitioner who of course is very transphobic

01:06:43.640 himself, the worst kind. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I totally know what you mean. It really does just

01:06:49.520 roll off whenever I get some kind of one-star review from someone or I saw the other day, I wrote a

01:06:55.920 book and I talked about this whole, what I think is a destructive concept of gender identity and

01:07:00.820 this person, I guess they thought that they were really sticking it to me. They posted like a page

01:07:05.740 of my book and, you know, gave it a one-star review saying this is transphobic. And I'm like,

01:07:10.320 you think I care? You think I care about that label? Yeah. I don't. And no one that I care about

01:07:15.340 cares about that label. It really is meaningless at this point. Yeah. So the part, I mean, part of the

01:07:20.360 work that we do is kind of being public and talking to people. So we each kind of have our arenas, um,

01:07:26.520 within partners for ethical care. So I tend to do the more pedestrian talking to regular people

01:07:31.940 about my experience, about the entire concepts in a way that is, I can't believe I'm saying this

01:07:37.800 relatable. Yes. Uh, in a way that people can understand, you know, you, you put it in a context

01:07:43.340 that makes sense, um, within a certain frame. And so I can frame things in a way that I think people

01:07:48.480 understand. I don't mind speaking publicly about this issue. Uh, I think generally my look tends

01:07:55.240 to signal to people that I'm not a person who believes in traditional, uh, gender roles. Uh,

01:08:01.440 so that's a little bit helpful. It dispels a bit of the myths that you were referring to.

01:08:06.000 Of course, Alex Aaron is part of the founder group, uh, of women of partners for ethical care. And she does,

01:08:12.100 she's gender mapper. So she maps all of the gender clinics. We have another woman, Jennifer Crone.

01:08:17.180 Um, her daughter was kind of, uh, sucked in through the school system and, um, and the schools

01:08:23.260 hid a bunch of information about her, uh, from her, um, about her daughter. And so there, there's

01:08:29.900 other people who are within the organization of partners for ethical care, some public, some working

01:08:34.320 behind the scenes, all women, uh, kind of fighting against this gender industry. So we, we, our whole

01:08:40.400 function is to make connections for people. So people will contact us and they'll say, Hey, I'm looking for

01:08:45.120 some resource in some way. And we then share that resource with them, try to connect them with

01:08:51.180 others like them, because the general idea is that you're not alone in this. I mean, nobody is alone

01:08:56.340 in this. There are others like, like you who have your same thoughts and feelings who think that what's

01:09:01.020 happening to children is wrong. Uh, a recent project that we started, um, in collaboration with

01:09:06.880 some other people who are interested in supporting it is transition justice. So that's a website that

01:09:13.080 really, we bring in information from people who are either formerly trans, um, ex-trans, former trans

01:09:20.000 kids, D-transitioners, however they wish to kind of describe their experience. And we try to connect

01:09:25.620 them with number one resources to support them, um, coming out of this kind of trauma. And then, uh,

01:09:32.800 secondly, to try to connect them with legal assistance to then go forward possibly with some

01:09:39.360 sort of lawsuit. So transition justice is really helping that we have more and more people kind of

01:09:44.180 coming toward it. And we're, we're trying to make connections to all kinds of attorneys. This is

01:09:49.300 completely new. So nobody has really gone into this arena yet. Um, and we're trying to make that

01:09:56.160 happen. Somebody has to do that. And there's nothing magical about our skills. I mean, we're just human

01:10:03.640 beings talking to other human beings and trying to make things happen in the world. Uh, so that's,

01:10:09.880 that's the work that we do. I think we enjoy it. We tend to be, I've noticed, um, the only nonprofit,

01:10:16.800 non-religious, non-partisan organization who's speaking at legislative hearings. And, um, that's

01:10:23.160 a bit disappointing to be really honest. Um, but I like it when individuals come forward and,

01:10:29.520 and just talk about what they think about this issue. I tell people some of the most basic things

01:10:34.840 that you can do is if somebody asks your pronouns, you should be a polite Midwesterner and say, no,

01:10:39.600 thank you. Yeah, that's it. No, thank you. No, thank you. Well, I really encourage people to check

01:10:45.720 out partnersforethicalcare.org. They can see how they can donate and get involved. I know there are a lot

01:10:54.080 of people constantly asking, but what can I do? What can I do? Well, this is one thing that you can do.

01:10:59.220 We talk a lot about raising a respectful ruckus on this show. And this is also one of the hills that

01:11:04.340 I say that people should be willing to die on. This is a big one. You can't die on every hill,

01:11:10.620 but to me, the stakes are so high. There's so much on the line that this is the thing. This is one

01:11:15.580 thing that is willing to, that we should be willing to fight for. So thank you so much. Thanks for using

01:11:20.440 your voice. Thanks for using your story. I know that that's not easy. And while you are not a believer,

01:11:25.240 since I am, I am going to be praying for you, your daughter, this situation, that redemption,

01:11:31.320 that goodness would come from it. And again, I'm thankful that you took the time today to talk to

01:11:35.900 us. Thank you. I appreciate it so much. All right. I told you that you were going to enjoy

01:11:43.720 that conversation. Please share it if it was meaningful or helpful to you at all, especially

01:11:48.340 if there are other parents who are going through, um, something like this. And of course we know

01:11:54.200 from, um, as believers that God is completely and totally sovereign that God gives that he takes

01:12:00.780 away. Blessed be the name of the Lord that no plan of the Lord, uh, Job 42, two tells us can be

01:12:08.520 thwarted. So as nightmarish as this story is, we can trust in the faithfulness of God in that one day

01:12:15.860 as Psalm 37, I think tells us so well, he will make all things right in all injustice will be

01:12:23.200 corrected. That is the hope that we ultimately have. I still think that we can make a big difference

01:12:29.020 here in this life, raising a respectful ruckus and remembering that politics matter because

01:12:33.500 people matter and advocating on behalf of the most vulnerable, but eternally we know that all things

01:12:39.660 will be set right. So we do not work as people who have no hope. We move toward the goal of

01:12:47.920 improvement for society and advocacy for the most vulnerable, knowing that one day Jesus will

01:12:54.520 ultimately win this battle. I also wanted to give a very important shout out to Kelsey Bolar.

01:13:00.520 She is the journalist who first wrote about this story and, uh, she works for the Independent Women's

01:13:06.860 Forum. She wrote this story for the Daily Signal. I'm very thankful for the work that Kelsey does.

01:13:13.160 She is incredibly courageous and just a great writer too. I encourage you to follow Kelsey.

01:13:19.020 She flagged this story for me originally. So I'm very thankful and just wanted to give a shout out to

01:13:22.920 her. I'll link that original reporting in the description of this episode. Thank you guys so much

01:13:28.360 for listening. We will be back here tomorrow, probably talking about everything that's going on in

01:13:33.720 Taiwan with Nancy Pelosi and China. Are we going to war? What the heck is happening? And by what the

01:13:39.680 heck is happening? I mean, what is really happening that the mainstream media isn't telling us? So

01:13:44.480 hopefully we'll get into that tomorrow and I'll see you guys then.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - August 02, 2022

Ep 653 ｜ Losing Custody of Your ＂Trans＂ Daughter ｜ Guest： Jeannette Cooper

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