Ep 990 ｜ Taylor Swift’s Blasphemy & Title IX Betrayal ｜ Guest： Kristen Waggoner
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 10 minutes
Words per minute
165.21333
Harmful content
Misogyny
44
sentences flagged
Hate speech
38
sentences flagged
Summary
On today's episode of Relatable, Allie and Allie discuss the Biden administration's decision to change the law regarding Title IX, Taylor Swift's new album, and much more! Relatable is a podcast that Allie hosts and hosts on a weekly basis. This episode is brought to you by Good Ranchers.
Transcript
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The Biden administration has announced changes to Title IX that puts women and girls at risk.
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Also, Taylor Swift has released a new album, and many of her lyrics are especially sacrilegious
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We are getting into all of that on today's episode of Relatable.
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It's brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.
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Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far.
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Before we get into everything, I have a couple of things to say.
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One, we've got some new merch just in time for Mother's Day.
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Your time is coming because Father's Day is coming up in June, and we are going to put
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Do not forget to send me some stuff out there, hats, t-shirts, and stuff that you like out
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there in the wild because we're still deciding on the Relatable design.
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But first, we've got Mother's Day stuff, a cute kind of mini release of merchandise.
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As you can see, if you're watching on YouTube, my In My Mom era, it's supposed to be a little
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And then we've got little trucker hats, which I'm personally really excited about that say
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But my favorite part of this is the matching onesie in my baby era.
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And on the sleeve, it's got Relatable on there.
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We'll link it in the description of this episode.
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I saw that after it came out like an hour later.
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I don't think that's ever happened to us before.
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I got a ton of messages about it yesterday, and I'm sure that was super annoying to be
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And then all of a sudden, it cuts off mid-sentence.
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But the good news is we're still, well, we're still figuring it out.
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But it is up on YouTube, like the full audio visuals all up on YouTube.
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And so if you need to finish watching or listening, you can go to YouTube and you can finish the
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Third thing, please like and subscribe if you are watching on YouTube.
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Notifications are on so you always know when we are uploading something because we don't
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It helps us stay alive and continue to provide you with content, the more people that are
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subscribed and also are getting those notifications.
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Now we actually got it, got to get, we've got to get into, we've got to get into what
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we are actually talking about today because we have a lot to discuss since it was announced
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that Title IX is being changed by the Biden administration.
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I have been gunning to talk to you guys about it.
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So I'm going to give you a little summary of what's going on.
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And then we're going to talk to the expert from Alliance Defending Freedom, Kristen Wagner,
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She's going to break it down for us in layman's terms, what all of these regulations and what
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And then I am going to give my response and just my reaction to this and what I have to
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say specifically to Christians and influential Christians who just cannot find it within themselves
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And so after that, we will get into the much awaited Taylor Swift lyrics analysis, but we've
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Before we get to Kristen Wagner, let me just give you a brief summary of what's happened.
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So this was last week, April 19th, when this was announced.
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The Department of Education released its long-delayed Title IX rule, rewriting the more than 50-year-old
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civil rights law that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex to now include so-called gender
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identity as Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow Sarah Parshall Perry put it.
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This change promises to turn Title IX's guarantee of sex equality and education completely upside
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You probably saw on social media people saying on the right and the left, oh, conservatives
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It just protects kids from harassment and just makes sure that they are being treated with
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Of course, that is absolutely what the Biden administration would like you would like you
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The final regulations promote their press release reads educational equity, an opportunity for students
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across the country, as well as accountability and fairness while empowering and supporting
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I would say that educational is a euphemism in this case, because as we will hear from Kristen,
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Equity is a euphemism, which is supposed to mean fairness, but it doesn't.
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It means trying to force equal opportunities and denying all differences, such as biological
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An opportunity, I would say that's another euphemism there.
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So already in the first few words, we've got three euphemisms for students across the
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We've got five euphemisms so far in their press release just at the very beginning, empowering
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that six euphemisms, supporting, and that is seven.
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You could even say students and families is coded language to mean boys who identify as girls.
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And what I mean by these are euphemisms is that these are universally positive words that
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actually mean something very harmful and scary, as we will get into.
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The Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona, said these final regulations build on the
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I mean, that's right on par with reproductive rights or reproductive freedom being a euphemism
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So what they're trying to communicate to you is that nothing is really changing, that all
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our nation's students can access schools that are safe, welcoming, and respect their rights.
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So they present it very brilliantly, I will say, in a way that makes it seem like you can't
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possibly disagree with it without being against safety or against equal rights or against equity
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or against being welcoming or being respectful.
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But of course, that is not what these changes to Title IX actually mean.
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It puts our girls, it puts women in danger.
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And this is an absolutely demonic and evil change to Title IX that will end in absolute chaos for females.
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And Kristen Wagner of Alliance Defending Freedom is going to explain that to us and tell us exactly
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what it means, but also give us some encouragement and empowerment as we wrap our heads around what
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we can do to push back against this and also what institutions like Alliance Defending Freedom
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is going to do to make sure that these changes do not stick around forever.
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So we're going to get into that conversation, which is going to teach you a lot.
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Kristen of Alliance Defending Freedom, thank you so much for taking the time to join us.
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OK, you tweeted, April 19th, the Biden admin can't redefine quote unquote sex in Title IX
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without affecting women's opportunities, including women's sports.
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Under these rule changes, privacy, safety, parental rights, free speech, and yes, women's sports
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This is an abuse of federal power that is anti-women, anti-science, and anti-logic.
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And it was that last sentence that really in the midst of just a lot of discouragement,
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seeing this rule change and as a mom of daughters, just kind of feeling this moment of fear that
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I thought, OK, but we've got people on our side and in our corner that are going to fight
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Before we get to the fight aspect of this, though, how you guys are going to push back,
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Like, what is Title IX, for those who may not know?
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And then what does this rule change really mean?
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Because we've seen some conflicting reports on that.
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Well, I mean, it's over 1,500 pages of regulations.
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So to take us back to Title IX and what it is, Title IX is a law that was put in place in 1972.
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It was passed by Congress, and it was designed to ensure women have equal opportunities.
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So it prohibits sex discrimination and ensures that women have equal opportunities in educational
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institutions that are receiving federal funding.
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And we know in the 70s, women didn't have equal opportunities in terms of scholarships and
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just the ability to be able to have comparable programs in women's sports like the men did.
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But it also plays out in other areas of educational institutions, including even being admitted into
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And so Title IX has had a significant impact on ensuring that women have equal access and
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And predominantly, it has involved women's sports.
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In addition to that, it carves out essentially that in a number of different instances, sex-based
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distinctions are appropriate under the law because the law recognizes the truth that we are all
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created equal and in God's image, but we are created differently.
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In terms of what's happened in more recent years, we have seen progressively left administrations
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try to twist Title IX to take away those benefits and those opportunities from women and instead
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say it's no longer about sex-based discrimination, but it's about gender identity.
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And that completely turns Title IX on its head.
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And we can talk about all the ways it does that.
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But it started in the Obama administration, actually, where we started to see guidelines
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And you may remember bathroom talk and boys being admitted into girls.
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Then the Trump administration essentially shored up the rule and interpreted the rule consistent
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with what Congress intended in the way it had always been interpreted.
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And now we're in the Biden administration, which has radically redefined sex and gutted those
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How does the Bostock decision play into this from 2020?
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And if I remember correctly, it was Gorsuch, who, of course, was a Trump appointee who went
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the direction that we conservatives, constitutionalists, would not have liked him to go and saying that
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sex can be interpreted to also mean so-called gender identity.
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And it's so disturbing to see the results of Bostock.
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Alliance Defending Freedom has had the privilege of representing parties in a number of different
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Supreme Court cases in the last 12 years and have had 15 victories.
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Our one loss was Bostock, to be candid, and it was a heartbreaking loss, and it was unprecedented
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in terms of how the court interpreted a statute that said sex discrimination to suddenly include
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Now, however, I think when Justice Gorsuch wrote that decision, which was a shock to conservatives
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that he would take that position, he also, I think, thought that potentially the court could
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limit the impact of that and in the decision itself suggest that sex-based distinctions
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may be appropriate in the law as well as protecting the rights of First Amendment rights, religious
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And so since that decision, we have had to litigate all around the edges of that Bostock decision.
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And to be clear, Bostock was under Title VII, which is applying to employers.
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It doesn't apply outside of the employment context, and the court's decision said that.
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It also has slightly different language than Title IX has, and in addition to the slightly
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different language, a difference between because of sex and on the basis of sex, Title IX, as
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I referenced, specifically calls out that there are reasons that are legitimate reasons to make
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biological distinctions in the context of educational institutions.
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So there are some very clear differences between Bostock, a Title VII statute, and a Title IX
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statute that applies to educational institutions.
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But Bostock is a terrible decision, and we're hoping that the court will reverse it.
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And so this is, even though they are two different things, they still correlate in that we are seeing
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this trend that you said started in the Obama era to redefine sex.
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And so we are seeing this in a variety of ways, and now this redefinition has come specifically
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This is something that has been debated and discussed, at least I've seen for the past maybe
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You've probably been privy to that conversation a lot longer than I have.
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And we kind of anticipated that this was about to happen, that they were going to make this
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announcement that they have now changed Title IX, correct?
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And actually, the first lawsuit that we filed was all the way back in 2019.
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Three Connecticut, well, now four Connecticut high school athletes at the time that were
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And two boys came in and transitioned from competing in the boys category and three weeks later moved
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And in just a period of a couple seasons, took 15 state championships, took opportunities to
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advance, 85 opportunities to advance from different girls, and four state championships
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So that's when we first got involved in this issue, and we have continued to see it escalate.
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And there are a number of cases that are being filed right now, including another one of our
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cases called BPJ, which comes out of the Four Circuit.
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And we can certainly talk about that, but I think you can expect that case to go to the
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How I have seen this change interpreted by many on the left and in what you would call
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the mainstream media is that this change really doesn't affect women's privacy rights, their
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ability to compete against one another, that it's really just protecting what they would
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call, I don't know, gender nonconforming, transgender students, whatever, from harassment.
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I was told even by some conservatives when I originally posted about this, that this is
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fear mongering, that this is blowing things out of proportion, that this change is not a
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I know it's 1,500 pages of regulations, as you said, but break it down for us.
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Well, having practiced in these areas for many years now in the areas of constitutional law,
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there aren't very many things that really make me angry.
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Because as a parent, the implications of this rule are staggering on our children.
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As a woman, it denies us of equal opportunities and says that a man's feelings can trump our
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rights as to be equally treated under the law and to have privacy.
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And it shames women for saying we are different and we are equal and tells us to go and sit
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down and shut up and stop complaining about this.
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The way that it plays out in terms of these particular rules is it tells us that if you
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have your children in any institution from kindergarten through 12th grade all the way
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through college and that institution receives any federal aid whatsoever, that these institutions
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now have to open up their locker rooms to boys who identify as girls.
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And we've had real cases where this has happened and girls have suffered as a result.
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It tells your kids that they have to use the wrong pronouns, that their speech is mandated
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It now means there's no longer a boy's PE class and a girl's PE class, which increases
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There are so many different ways that it clearly applies in these instances that the suggestion
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of fear mongering is, again, it's just an effort to try to force people to be quiet
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and to not say the quiet part out loud, which is you're defying biological reality and you
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It also is likely going to impact women's sports.
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And this suggestion, you know, I think maybe what you're hearing as well, the guidelines or
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the regulations don't explicitly say that they apply to sports right now.
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I mean, that's just political pandering because the Biden administration has already said
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very clearly that this redefinition does apply to sports.
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Right now, we are litigating a case that is going to be heading up likely to the U.S.
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And the Department of Justice has taken the position that a boy who decided that he was
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going to identify as a girl has now displaced a number of kids in that particular school in
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And the DOJ, the Department of Justice, has said that's just fine because sex includes
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gender identity and women no longer have the right to be able to participate in their own
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We got to have people stand up on this because it just there are so much implications.
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One more thing, Ali, that I need to mention that is so concerning about this is the guide,
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the regulations themselves actually embrace secret transition policies.
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I'm sure you've seen the cases that are going on.
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We're litigating a host of cases right now where school districts are adopting these policies
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and they're secretly transitioning kids and lying to the parents.
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The Biden administration regulation endorses that in the regulation itself.
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I just want to give people an example of what you're talking about, the danger of what you're
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talking about, because, again, you hear this rhetoric that says, well, we're just blowing
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This is just allowing people to be comfortable, whatever excuse they give.
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This is just one recent story of many that I've seen over the years.
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If you don't know the examples of what's happening in women's and girls' private facilities
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and on their teams, it's because you don't want to know at this point.
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It's very easy to find all the examples of what you're talking about.
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A 13-year-old boy who identified as a girl violently attacked a 12-year-old girl in a
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Montgomery County Middle School cafeteria, sending her to the hospital with head trauma
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And one of the girl's friends, her name is Emily, Brave Girl, she gave a testimony to
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the local community saying, look, I warned teachers that this was going to happen.
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Teachers had the ability to stop this from happening, and they didn't.
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And we had to sit in there and watch them clean up her blood off those tables and ground.
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And we had to watch them take her out with blood dripping down her face, and I will never
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And laying in bed last night, I just kept repeating it in my head, and we shouldn't
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have had to sit there and just watch that, like, watch them clean up her blood with the
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Watch her repeatedly yelling that I'm going to murder you and just hitting her with a Stanley.
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And I don't get how, like, you couldn't have stopped it.
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It was five hours from when I told you it was going to happen, and when it happened, it
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I don't get how you couldn't have stopped that.
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And how Ms. Fattori said, don't worry, it's not going to happen.
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Oh, Kristen, I'm trying not to cry because that little girl is so, she's so brave with
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her voice shaking, and yet she is so bold in defending her friend.
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So just to give people a little bit of clarity of what happened, this boy, who identified as
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the opposite sex, of course, was allowed to go into female facilities and had threatened
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that he was going to beat this other, this young girl with a Stanley cup.
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It's a stainless steel big drink vessel, so it obviously would hurt, do a lot of damage.
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And this young girl that gave that testimony, Emily, she said, I warned teachers about this.
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And then this young girl was beat mercilessly by this boy.
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And I'm sorry to say that this is a pattern that we see over and over again.
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Am I saying that all boys who try to identify as the opposite sex are doing this?
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No, but if it happens once, it's happened one too many times.
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As you said, there is a biological reason for sex, separate places, spaces, and it is
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for the protection of women and girls because boys and girls are different.
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So here's an example of exactly what you're talking about and what we will now see more
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And I think that we, in this process, we want to, as those who are people of faith and just
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people who are kind to others, express compassion towards those who are suffering.
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But expressing compassion doesn't come at the expense of individuals' rights to also be
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safe and to have private spaces and to not share our bathrooms and our locker rooms and
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our sports and not to be compelled to say things that we believe are false.
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And the Biden administration regulation does all of these things.
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It's moving us to this path where we are having to express a lie and to live a lie.
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And I think it's important to point out that it's causing not just great harm to those of
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us who believe in these biological realities, but it's leading children and others to great
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We know that this idea that we should transition minors as minors into a different sex or identifying
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In fact, the data is becoming clear that biological realities are important to reflect and that
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90% of all kids who receive counseling and work through these issues of the uncomfortableness
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They live healthy lives in the end, whereas when a student is pumped with hormones or puberty
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blockers, there are lifelong ramifications to this.
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And that's one reason why we see Europe right now retreating from the gender identity movement
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and the studies that they're publishing say this is wrong to do this.
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It's experimental and it's going to cause great harm to a generation.
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So, again, I don't think it just affects the students that believe in biological reality,
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but it's affecting a whole host of families that are being deceived.
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And that deception is going to cause great, not just injustice, but harm to them on a permanent
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People have asked me since this change was announced, okay, but what do we do?
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It's a very helpless feeling, which is why I appreciated your tweet, see you in court, POTUS.
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So, I know what ADF and how you guys will be fighting against this, although I would love
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But also, for those of us who aren't lawyers, I mean, what do we do?
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In some ways, we think we get a free pass if we're not a lawyer or a politician.
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But what we have to remember is God has called each of us into different areas, and He expects
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us to live a faithful witness to Him in those areas.
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So, I love seeing the podcasts that you're putting out, as well as even your own tweets
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about, again and again, reinforcing biblical truth.
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Because in the church, there's even a temptation, whether it's how we use pronouns or what we think
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We never see in Scripture compromising your biblical witness.
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And so, I think, again, as Christians committing to, God's Word is true, and it promotes human
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flourishing, and biological realities matter to all of us.
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So, looking for those spaces to speak out, not complying when we have these mandates to
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That's the only way that we will get ourselves out of this, is to insist that we will live
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the truth, and as that young girl did at that public school board meeting, standing up, and
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as many other parents did, to say, this is wrong, and we will not allow this in our communities.
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Because these policies aren't just playing out at the federal level, which is a result
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But they're also playing out at the local level, in our local communities.
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And it's not going to be resolved just by litigation.
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It's not going to be resolved just by state legislation.
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It's going to be resolved by our witness and what we do in our own local communities.
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But on the local level, if schools are saying, if institutions who take federal funding are
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saying, look, you're not going to get this federal funding if you don't comply with this,
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if you don't expand the definition of sex to mean gender identity, what can the members
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Like, I mean, do they have the ability to push their local public institutions to say,
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I think they do have the ability to stress that the school policies need to be protective
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of biological sex and particularly protective of women and girls, because it's the women and
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girls that suffer the most under these policies.
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And I think if enough public schools stand up, the administration will have to back off.
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We know that the Biden administration takes the position that men should and boys should
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be able to identify as girls and compete in girls' sports, because we've seen that in
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They tried to obscure that in the regulations that have just passed.
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Well, one, they're seeking to chill the speech and try to force these public schools into doing
00:29:09.640
it without necessarily explicitly saying it in the rule.
00:29:13.080
But the reason they're trying to do that is because they know that there will be a backlash
00:29:17.960
And it's important that they feel that backlash, that we continue to stand up, particularly in
00:29:23.760
this moment and say, our girls are not going to compete against boys.
00:29:27.800
And that's not fair to the women and the girls that have to stand up.
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00:29:30.960
But you're seeing more and more people say, no, this is not happening.
00:29:34.280
We're also seeing a number of parents who are standing up.
00:29:37.740
We have a client who one of their daughters was supposed to sleep in a bed in a hotel room
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00:29:44.060
with a boy who identifies as a girl without the school telling the parents.
00:29:48.100
And the parents are standing up and saying, no, this is not acceptable.
00:29:53.120
We have a couple of other parents where their children have been secretly transitioned and
00:29:57.900
they are standing up and saying, we want to change in the school policy.
00:30:07.660
And sometimes it's really uncomfortable to do that.
00:30:14.880
I always think about the story of Yaley Martinez, the young woman from California whose mother
00:30:20.420
She was transitioned, so-called, against her will at public school.
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She was taken out of the home because her mom didn't affirm that, that her daughter could
00:30:31.800
And so she went into foster care and she went into group homes.
00:30:35.520
And of course, without any support, without the people who really loved her, she was abused.
00:30:41.200
And that's one of many stories of young women who are taken out of the home.
00:30:45.680
They end up being trafficked, exploited, because, of course, they are now around people who don't
00:30:50.980
have a vested interest in their well-being and their long-term health.
00:31:08.040
And as you said, this has happened because of who people voted for in 2020.
00:31:14.680
And we have the opportunity to vote again in November.
00:31:17.800
And we remember that these kinds of things happen because of who is in office, happen
00:31:25.540
And so this November, obviously, a lot is at stake there.
00:31:29.180
But tell us how the ADF is involved in pushing back against this.
00:31:33.520
Well, and I would also add that I think another reason that this happened isn't just because
00:31:40.260
Because we've got to get past the point of one administration using its executive power.
00:31:47.580
Frankly, with the Biden administration, it's an abuse of power because it goes beyond what
00:31:52.500
But our laws and policies shouldn't be so affected by who's in office in the moment.
00:31:57.900
And it really comes down to what we're teaching our own children at our kitchen tables, what we're
00:32:02.260
allowing them to be taught in the schools, and taking back the educational institutions to ensure
00:32:08.220
that our children understand why biology is important.
00:32:12.440
In terms of what ADF's role has been, we work both on the litigation side and the public policy,
00:32:18.620
and also with churches and ministries and Christians to help educate them and provide
00:32:25.500
So you referenced children that have been put in the foster care system or potentially up for
00:32:32.760
And I would just mention, I mean, we see this issue as the civil rights issue of our time,
00:32:37.580
It has to be one, because in our view, Western civilization depends on it.
00:32:41.720
We cannot ignore reality and have that mandated and have any rights, including parental rights
00:32:48.800
But we are also seeing a massive trend in Christians or others who believe in biology and human sexuality,
00:32:57.160
that men are men and women are women being boxed out of being able to provide foster and
00:33:03.740
So there are a number of cases right now where we're litigating the fact that you should not
00:33:09.320
be excluded from being able to serve as a foster care parent simply because you are not going
00:33:16.140
to be taking a child to have a puberty blocker injection or take hormones.
00:33:24.160
And I just want to reinforce for those who are watching, you know, God has put on our
00:33:29.140
hearts and He's called us to serve those who are in need.
00:33:32.900
And it's wrong for you to step out of that space completely and not challenge what is obviously
00:33:39.740
an obstacle to the Great Commission and to the Cultural Commission.
00:33:43.600
So again, we need more people to stand up and say and expose this and bring light into
00:33:51.000
Well, I'm thankful for ADF and how you guys hopefully are going to be taking this all the
00:33:58.720
way and pushing back as successfully and as effectively as you possibly can.
00:34:04.140
And I'm just so thankful for organizations like yours that are in it.
00:34:11.960
People talk about commentators being on the front lines and we all have our part to play,
00:34:15.700
but you guys really are and making a tangible difference.
00:34:19.140
And I'm just so thankful for how God has called you and equipped you and thankful for
00:34:26.340
How can people either follow you, support you, but also understand everything that ADF
00:34:37.480
We're on Instagrams at Alliance Defending Freedom.
00:34:45.240
All of our services are provided free of charge and they can pray for us.
00:34:50.040
But I also just want to highlight that it's our clients that are our heroes.
00:34:54.600
And these are just counselors who are seeking to live faithful to the gospel, women athletes
00:35:02.760
These are just ordinary people that God has given them a moment to stand.
00:35:06.600
And again, it might be just a stance that you take in explaining to your daughter why it
00:35:11.400
matters, why she's created fearfully and wonderfully made, and why she might feel awkward in the
00:35:18.720
Or it is a doctor who needs to stand and says, no, I'm not going to perform this surgery
00:35:28.260
And I believe, and I have seen again and again, that when we take those moments that we know
00:35:33.780
God has called us and we speak truth and we do it in love, that's when we hear that still
00:35:43.640
The cost of disobedience is much higher than the cost of obedience in this moment.
00:36:07.940
So I gave you just one example of the consequences of saying that there are really no differences
00:36:14.040
between the sexes, that if you declare that you are a girl, even though you are a boy, your
00:36:21.860
biology tells you that you are a boy, that you are just as valid in your femininity.
00:36:28.260
In your femaleness, as anyone who is actually biologically a girl, we can see the danger
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00:36:35.520
of that, not just when it comes to their physical safety, because of course, that's a huge part
00:36:42.580
of this, whether or not all people who identify, all men who identify as the opposite sex are
00:36:50.260
The fact of the matter is their presence in private facilities is a danger to women because
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they are bigger than us, because they are stronger than us.
00:37:00.520
Even a guy who is shorter and skinnier is still stronger than the average female because God
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00:37:09.160
Even if they have been on hormones, even if they're wearing lipstick, even if they have a
00:37:13.460
small stature, they still have bigger bones, they have a greater lung capacity than we
00:37:19.380
do, they have a greater wingspan than we do, they are on average much faster and stronger
00:37:36.880
You heard Kristen talk about those young women who are racing in track, and unfortunately,
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00:37:43.260
they have had opportunities, they have had titles, they have had scholarships taken from
00:37:48.320
them because these boys who were okay, they were mediocre runners before when they were
00:37:56.820
Now they have become all-stars, they have become champions because of course, they are still men.
00:38:02.900
After you go through male puberty, it's done.
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You've got all of the benefits of testosterone.
00:38:09.440
Even if you try to go back on those benefits by injecting your body with estrogen, what has
00:38:15.720
been done to your body, to your muscle mass, to your heart, to your lungs during puberty,
00:38:23.260
And girls who do not, cannot go through male puberty, even if they are injected with cross-sex
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hormones during their preteen years, they are just not receiving those benefits.
00:38:34.600
Men and women are different, really from the point of conception.
00:38:40.420
I actually have the biggest debate that I have done, the longest debate that I've done on
00:38:45.180
this subject coming out next month, Ellen Fisher's podcast.
00:38:49.760
I flew to California to film this, and I am actually debating someone who identifies himself
00:38:55.960
as non-binary, and we went back and forth on this for almost three hours.
00:39:09.240
At the end of the day, I didn't have to be some skilled debater to present my side.
00:39:14.160
It is just so obvious and true that there are male-female differences from the point of
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00:39:19.820
conception onward that really cannot be changed.
00:39:28.140
That is why we have different gender roles, different roles in society.
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00:39:33.100
Those gender roles don't prove to be as important when it comes to non-physical roles.
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00:39:40.340
But because men and women's bodies are different, we need sex separate spaces.
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And we are going to see the worst and the most gut-wrenching and disturbing consequences because of this.
00:40:00.380
Let me give you a few more examples of what this looks like when we decide that boys who want to
00:40:06.540
become girls get to share spaces with girls.
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00:40:12.160
September 29th of last year, a viral cell phone video shows an Oregon middle school girl getting
00:40:17.600
beaten up by an attacker who everyone at the school is claiming is actually a male who identifies
00:40:25.200
The school district won't say whether or not this person has that so-called gender identity.
00:40:32.540
Redux also reported last year, June 1st, 2023, an Oklahoma school is being sued by a mother
00:40:41.180
of a female student who was assaulted by a trans-identifying male in the women's bathroom.
00:40:47.760
Of course, when your policy is that men can go into these bathrooms, you are going to get
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00:40:54.160
men, whether they identify as the opposite sex or not, exploiting that rule so that they
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Ask yourself, I've seen this question posed before, but ask yourself what kind of boy wants
00:41:08.080
to enter a space in which they know there are going to be naked girls, vulnerable girls,
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00:41:16.140
girls who are uncomfortable with a male presence.
00:41:20.680
I don't think that's even a man who truly has, or a boy who truly has what's called gender
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00:41:26.820
These stories that we see in locker rooms, in Planet Fitness, in spas, in bathrooms, in
00:41:34.760
locker rooms of these basically exhibitionist men, flashing women, flashing girls, getting
00:41:48.800
Gender dysphoria means you have a consistent, persistent, insistent discomfort in your own
00:41:54.720
body from a young age that you feel like you just want to escape your skin.
00:42:00.500
This almost exclusively happens in boys, by the way, and has throughout history.
00:42:06.900
And it has also historically been a tiny, tiny sampling of boys who just feel like they are
00:42:15.160
It typically manifests itself in a lot of hiding and a lot of covering up and a lot of insecurity
00:42:21.600
and a lot of just of trying to isolate yourself away from the public.
00:42:30.980
And so these boys that we see going into girls' bathrooms and going into women's facilities
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00:42:36.460
who want to show off their male body parts, who are beating up on and sexually assaulting
00:42:42.380
these women, they don't have gender dysphoria.
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We don't have to have compassion for the idea that they think that they're the opposite
00:42:55.760
They might have things that we should feel compassion for.
00:42:58.780
And of course, they're still made in the image of God.
00:43:02.700
But we really need to rack in with the fact that these boys and men infiltrating these
00:43:09.320
spaces and flaunting their bodies to intimidate and humiliate women are actually just porn-addled
00:43:18.900
When you see it from that perspective, which I truly believe from the many interviews that
00:43:24.980
I've done, from the journalists that I've talked to, from the activists that I've talked
00:43:28.260
to, from the detransitioners that I've talked to, all of the reading and all of the research
00:43:32.860
that I have done over the past five or so years, I truly believe that that is what is driving
00:43:40.160
this ideology is pornography and perversion and sexual immorality and sexual depravity.
00:43:47.360
And when you see it from that perspective, at least when I'm talking about boys and men
00:43:53.960
trying to be the opposite sex, when you see it from that perspective, you can stop being
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so crippled by this, what I call toxic empathy that preempts you from being bold in the truth,
00:44:10.500
that prohibits you from seeing and saying things as they actually are.
00:44:17.060
When you see that you don't have to have this crippling feeling of compassion for these
00:44:24.780
boys and men who are going into women's spaces, when you can actually see them as what many
00:44:31.500
of them, I can't say all, but what many of them are, these sexually depraved people that
00:44:36.800
actually get off on making women uncomfortable, then maybe you will find the gumption and find
00:44:42.540
the strength to stand up for your daughters, maybe then you will be able to stand at the
00:44:49.480
pulpit and use the platform that God has given you and say, enough, enough.
00:44:56.000
And what really just makes me so angry and makes me so upset is that so many of the evangelical
00:45:04.340
leaders that I saw stand up in the summer of 2020 and bravely, using scare quotes because
00:45:14.120
I have my problems with this, but they use their voices to speak out against things like so-called
00:45:21.260
white supremacy and systemic and institutionalist and institutional and structural racism and white
00:45:29.700
privilege and speak up on behalf of Black Lives Matter and anti-racism and speak out against
0.54
00:45:40.500
They were so quick to post the black square to make sure that they had the round tables and
00:45:46.200
the sermons at their church talking about the big problem of systemic racism and social injustice
00:45:58.980
And now the reason why I say that with just a tinge of sarcasm is because the connections
00:46:05.060
that were made during that time between slavery and historic racism to any disparities or injustices
00:46:19.520
They're fraught with a lot of logical inconsistencies and just ahistorical analysis.
00:46:26.880
Obviously, I am not saying that racism shouldn't be talked about or that injustice against people
00:46:35.580
I'm not saying that those conversations shouldn't be had, but those conversations and the activism
00:46:41.420
that I saw from the evangelical church largely pushed unbiblical principles when it came to
00:46:49.200
justice and when it came to the relations between white people and Black people, white Christians
00:46:56.680
and Black Christians, this language that was employed by them was extremely worldly, extremely
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00:47:03.480
divisive, extremely secular, saying things like white privilege, basically putting the onus
00:47:09.780
all on white people, taking the agency away from Black people, preaching two different messages,
00:47:15.540
almost two different gospels to white and Black people in the name of so-called racial reconciliation.
00:47:23.040
I mean, I had a lot of problems with all of that, but I say all that to say that evangelicals
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00:47:28.180
were willing to stand up for a so-called social injustice that they didn't even really have a
00:47:36.420
But now they won't stand up against this real, true, clear, objective injustice that the Bible
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very clearly speaks to in the first chapter of the first book of the Bible.
00:47:48.980
Like, there's a lot in debate, a lot of debate and discussion around what it looks like to
00:47:53.900
have a biblical and Christian response to a police officer's interaction with a Black person,
00:47:59.660
like what justice actually looks like, which we've talked about exhaustively on this podcast.
00:48:04.300
Justice, according to the Bible, and social justice, according to secular society, are not the same
00:48:10.340
things. And yet when it comes to this, this issue of the denial of the gender binary and the risk
00:48:21.140
that that places, especially on women and girls, but really on all people and all children in
00:48:26.620
particular, we all of a sudden have those same evangelicals unwilling to say what the Bible
00:48:35.480
says is true. It's so clear in scripture. It's in the first chapter of the first book of the Bible,
00:48:42.600
Genesis 127, God made them in his image, in his image. He created them male and female. He created
00:48:50.260
them, boom, right there. Jesus repeats that in Matthew 19, 4 through 5. In responding to a question
00:48:57.620
about divorce, he did not have to bring it all the way back to creation and its explicit
00:49:04.820
distinctions, definitions of male and female, but he did because that mattered to him. Have you not read,
00:49:11.420
Jesus said that in the beginning, God made them male and female? He's talking about marriage,
00:49:18.240
but he is clearly defining marriage and the importance of marriage by the reality of the
00:49:24.460
gender binary, by the biological reality of the gender binary, male and female. We see that definition
00:49:31.300
of male and female, the definition of gender all throughout scripture from the beginning of creation
00:49:39.180
in the first chapter all the way to Revelation 22 and the marriage supper between Christ and the church
00:49:46.060
where Christ is called the groom and the church is called the bride. That is a gender distinction
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00:49:53.380
that shows that the gender definitions of marriage on earth actually have an eternal and profound and
00:50:00.840
spiritual meaning as we read in Ephesians 5. We've got it all right there. It's not confusing.
00:50:08.400
It's not nuanced. It's not gray. It's actually very black and white all throughout scripture that God has
00:50:16.480
made us male and female, that these are distinctions that actually matter, that manifest themselves in the
00:50:23.300
world in important ways. And yet, so few pastors, so few Christian teachers, so few Christian influencers
00:50:35.160
who were all about being social justice activists four years ago will speak up about this now.
00:50:43.500
Why? Why? Because many of these people who fancy themselves brave,
00:50:50.740
they're really very cowardly. Because see, you got a lot of applause by the secular world
00:50:57.780
and by progressives four years ago if you were willing to just repeat their mantras and maybe
00:51:02.180
put Micah 6-8 in front of it when you were talking about racism and discrimination back in 2020.
00:51:09.020
That was popular. That was mainstream popular. You got written about positively by the New York Times
00:51:15.580
and by the Atlantic. But now, if you say, I can't get on board with that and I am going to speak out
00:51:24.080
vehemently against this gender confusion and gender deception, you're not going to get positive press.
00:51:34.360
All those people that were clapping for you, all those people in the secular world,
00:51:38.100
all those progressives that were on your side back in 2020 when you were posting the black square,
00:51:42.620
they're going to turn their back against you. And if you have not counted the cost, you might not
00:51:48.700
think it's worth it. A lot of that activism back in 2020, while much of it might have been sincere
00:51:56.340
and might have been from a true motivation of thinking that you are doing good, a lot of it
00:52:05.040
was selfish, I think. I think. I don't know. I can't say. But when I look at the inconsistencies
00:52:12.880
and what that batch of evangelical Christians is actually willing to stand up for, sometimes
00:52:18.600
they'll give abortion a mention every now and then. Sometimes they'll talk about, I don't know,
00:52:26.760
maybe some other things that they know the Bible speaks against and traditionally fall into the
00:52:34.660
conservative definitions of what's important. Sometimes they'll do that, but very few of them
00:52:41.580
will talk about the definition of marriage anymore. Very few of them will talk about the reality of
00:52:48.000
gender. Very few of them will be public on their Instagram stories and in their Instagram feeds about
00:52:54.220
this because for some reason, for some reason, they're so scared to offend people when it comes to this
00:53:01.840
subject. They weren't scared. They weren't scared of offending white evangelicals when they were
00:53:06.660
talking about white fragility and white privilege. They weren't scared of offending Trump supporters.
00:53:13.040
They weren't scared of offending Republican voters four years ago. Now, that offense was worth it to
00:53:18.380
them. But now they say, well, they are scared to offend the man who identifies as the opposite sex.
00:53:26.180
They are scared to offend the two men who threw surrogacy by a baby. They're too scared to offend those
00:53:33.420
people. They weren't scared to offend their legitimate brothers and sisters in Christ who were white Trump
00:53:39.940
voting evangelicals four years ago, who many of them categorized and cascaded as racist just because of who
00:53:47.520
they voted for and because of the absence of a black square. That just goes to show that the activism of some
00:53:54.660
of these people is purely selfishly motivated. It's not about care for the marginalized. It's not about
00:54:02.460
care for the vulnerable. You know who's marginalized and vulnerable? These kids who are being put on
00:54:07.740
puberty blockers. These girls who are losing opportunities because men are now competing against
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00:54:15.160
them. Women in prison who are forced to share spaces, to share prison cells with male rapists who now
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00:54:27.860
identify as women. This is happening in this country. And how many pastors, how many Christians do you know
00:54:36.080
are speaking up about it? This is a civil rights issue. Don't you spout off about Micah 6-8 if all you
00:54:45.320
talk about is the issue that the secular world disagrees with you on. That America is some systemically
00:54:54.340
racist country that needs to be gutted and basically rebuilt in the image of DEI. That's not
00:55:05.740
courage. That's not courage. You sound just like the world. You're defining justice as they do. If you
00:55:13.080
want to be courageous and if you want to be loving as God defines loving because love rejoices with the
00:55:20.180
truth, as 1 Corinthians 13-6 tells us, if you want to be loving as God defines loving and God gets to
00:55:27.560
define loving because he is love, 1 John 4-8, then you will simply agree with Genesis 1-27. You will
00:55:35.020
represent that to the world because if you believe that God is in charge of all things because he
00:55:40.240
created all things, if you believe that his ways are better, then you will be loud and proud about
00:55:48.580
those things. That doesn't mean that you have to be purposely offensive. That doesn't mean that you
00:55:52.640
have to be spiteful. That doesn't mean that you have to be sarcastic. That doesn't mean those things.
00:55:57.320
Just understand that truth will offend the world and it matters, pastor. It matters. If you're a girl dad
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00:56:04.540
and you're not speaking up about this, shame on you. Shame on you. You don't have to have a public
00:56:12.780
platform. I'm not saying that. You don't have to run for office. But with whatever sphere of influence
00:56:18.240
God has given you, whether it's five people or 5,000 people, you need to be speaking up about this.
00:56:23.040
This matters. This is an assault on creation. And because of that, it's making vulnerable girls
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00:56:31.360
even more vulnerable. Okay. I promised y'all that we would talk about Taylor Swift and we really don't
00:56:38.900
have time. So maybe we'll do a little bit of Taylor Swift. And then if we have time and a future
00:56:45.600
episode, we'll break it down. We'll break it down some more. But I promised you guys that we would.
00:56:52.020
All right. All right, Brie. Your girl, Taylor Swift, has released an album. She released an album
00:57:14.560
on Friday. This is her 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department. Two hours after
00:57:22.500
releasing the album, Swift announced that the album was a surprise double album, dropping 15
00:57:28.020
additional songs to complete this album. And the four days since its release, the album has become
00:57:33.300
Spotify's most streamed album in a single day, exceeding 200 million streams. While the album's
00:57:38.020
title single, Fortnite, featuring Post Malone, became the streaming platform's most streamed song
00:57:43.520
in a single day. Wow. Now some Christians are pointing to problematic lyrics from Taylor Swift's
00:57:49.300
latest album, The Tortured Poets Department. All right. Before we get into some of those lyrics,
00:57:54.960
I want to set this up a little bit for those of you who are maybe new here and who don't know.
00:58:01.440
So we've talked about Taylor Swift a few times. Obviously, I and Brie too. We disagree with her
00:58:06.860
politically. And I would not call myself a Swifty. But I have enjoyed many of her albums and many of
00:58:13.460
her songs. I've kind of been just like agnostic about her. I do listen to like if she puts a new
00:58:19.240
album out, I like typically listen to a couple songs. Of course, I think they're catchy. Of course,
00:58:23.960
I understand why people like her. I don't like when people are like, I have no idea why people like
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00:58:29.260
Taylor Swift. Like she is not talented. That's obviously not true. I mean, you cannot like her.
00:58:35.640
And you can even think that she's unimpressive, like her songwriting abilities or whatever,
00:58:39.800
because it's subjective. But I can see why she is impressive. I can see why tens of millions of
00:58:45.780
girls flock to her. I can see why she is appealing. And of course, I've liked some of her music.
00:58:52.680
However, some of the lyrics in this particular album are just extremely blasphemous.
00:58:59.880
Extremely sacrilegious. And I do find it. I do find them disturbing. So I'm going to go through
00:59:05.480
some of those lyrics. We're going to get Bree's take because she does consider herself a Swifty.
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I laughed at Bree's story. She said that like people text you, like you said that people text
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you when she puts an album out like you did it, like congratulating you. They congratulate me.
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They're like, happy release day. Congratulations. And I'm like, thanks.
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Like everyone's thinking of you when Taylor Swift puts out an album. So I'll get Bree's take on this
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because Bree is not, let me just say, Bree is not like an unhinged Swifty, okay? I would say some
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Swifties as well as some of the Beehive and Ariana Grande fans and K-pop fans are truly like detached
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from reality and they cannot even like ever criticize the person that they are a fan of.
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That's not Bree. So we're going to get her take in just a second. But let me tell you some of these,
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I think, really disturbing lyrics in some of these songs on this new album.
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So one of the songs is called Guilty as Sin. And it says,
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what if I roll the stone away? They're going to crucify me anyway. What if the way you hold me
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is actually what's holy? If long-suffering propriety is what they want from me, they don't
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know how you've haunted me so stunningly. I choose you and me religiously. The Berean millennial, Katie,
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she released or she posted some of these lyrics on Axe and she said that almost half of the songs on
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her newest album. I don't know. I haven't listened to all the songs. Either make fun of Christians or
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blaspheme him. The smallest man who ever lived, one of the lines is, because it wasn't sexy once
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it wasn't forbidden. I would have died for your sins. Instead, I just died inside. And then there is,
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but daddy, I love him. And we've got a researcher note. The song is not a response to Christians,
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despite her using the small town metaphor throughout its response to fans who cried out to
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cancel her when she was dating Maddie Healy, who has made jokes and said things in the past that
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people deem offensive. When her album Speak Now Taylor version came out, she was dating Maddie.
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A group of fans created the Speak Up Now campaign requesting that Taylor give more than a simple
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apology for the bigoted remarks that Maddie Healy has made. Okay, I didn't know any of that.
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So this response is apparently in response to those people. So she says, for example,
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clutching their pearls, sighing, what a mess. I just learned these people try and save you
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because they hate you. Too high a horse for a simple girl to rise above it. Blah, blah, blah.
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God saved the most judgmental creeps who say they want what's best for me. Sanctimoniously
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performing soliloquies. I'll never see yada, yada, yada. I don't really know why we even included that
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song in this, but I don't know. I guess it's just people thought that it was a response to Christians
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and it wasn't actually a response to Christians, but people were kind of understandably upset about
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that. She also had this song in 2019 from her album Lover. False God, I guess, is the song,
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but we might just get away with it. Religion's in your lips. Even if it's a false God, we'd still
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worship. We might just get away with it. The altar is my hips. Even if it's a false God, we'd still
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worship this love. We still worship this love. Blah. But we can patch it up good, make confessions,
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and we're begging for forgiveness. Got the wine for you. Yikes. Okay, Brie. She's got some
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sacrilegious and some blasphemous stuff up in here. What was your thought? As a Christian who
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likes Taylor Swift, as you were listening to this, what were you thinking? Yeah, I think
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there's a little bit more in this album than there has been in the past, but I included that
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from her 2019 album because I remember hearing that song and thinking, okay, this is
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pretty sacrilegious at that time, too. So it's not exactly new for her. And at that time,
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I couldn't find the exact interview, but I remember her saying something about how she
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is just fascinated by religious themes. She was like, I've never been religious, but I'm
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interested in the themes. And I was like, I don't know what that means. So she just kind
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of said that she's never been religious. Yeah, she said that. I think that was maybe in 2018
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when she said that. Yeah. Because remember in that when she was talking about Marsha Blackburn
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and that she said that she was a Christian. She was like, as a Christian. And I think people
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have kind of assumed that she's like at least a Christian in name. So that's interesting.
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Yeah. And she apparently is because that documentary was after she said this thing about like, I've
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never really been religious. So yes, obviously it's like all nominal. But yeah, no, I mean,
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there are a lot of songs that I don't condemn or that I don't condone from Taylor Swift. And
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some of these are some of them. I still think the album's really good. I also think there are a lot
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of themes in it that are actually really good. So I don't know. It's kind of like every Taylor Swift
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album. Some things I think are really not worth listening to and some are. Yeah. So I go back and
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forth on this myself as someone who is like not a Swifty, but does, you know, like and can appreciate
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some of her songs. Like some of her songs I just, I can't listen to. And again, I haven't listened to
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this album. I maybe have listened to one song, but there are some songs like on her last album,
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she had a song called Karma that I just thought was really sad. And I'm sure that's how she thinks.
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And I think that's how a lot of women think that karma is something that's real. It's basically
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like a works based religion, but it's also a very like vindictive way to think. And I think from the
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songs that she has, that she is a very vindictive, she does seem to have a vindictive streak. And to
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me, she also dons this kind of humility that not real humility, or maybe it is real humility,
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but it makes it seem like she is a victim and that she has always, you know, kept her side of the
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street clean. And she has always kind of been the good girl and people have come after her totally
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unprovoked. And because of that, I have to get back at them. Maybe you should be afraid of me
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kind of thing. And that persona is probably charming. I think it speaks. It seems sad to me.
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It seems sad. It seems a little bit unstable to me. It's not something that is like appealing when I
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listen, when I really think about like all of her songs and the kind of persona that she builds.
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I'm like, I don't know if this is something that I would ever want to be friends with and
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definitely needs Jesus for sure. But I go back and forth between like, okay, do people hold her to
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too high of a standard? Do we, for some reason, hold her to a standard that we don't hold any other
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artist? Like no one has these, like all these tweets and all of this, like these op-eds about like
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Ariana Grande and the things that she sings about or some of the other artists that are similar to
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Taylor Swift. Like people just don't talk about them as much. But then I also go back and I think,
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well, I think the reason why people point this out about Taylor Swift, even though she's not
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religious, so none of this stuff should really be surprising at all, is because so many Christian
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women listen to her and do kind of give her a pass. Like they wouldn't listen to hip hop or they
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wouldn't listen to like Lil Nas X because he's blasphemous, but they will jam out to Taylor Swift.
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They will go to her concert. They will take their 13 year old daughters to their concert while she's,
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you know, dancing in a leotard on a chair. And because it's Taylor Swift and she has a wholesome
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image, they kind of excuse her blasphemy and sacrilege in a way that maybe they wouldn't for
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another artist. So I don't know. I go back and forth on that a lot. I don't know what you think.
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No, I think that's a fair point. I do take issue with people exaggerating some of these things. Like
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I would disagree. I don't think half the album references things like this, like negative things
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like this. But I also don't think that most of her fans are under 15, which a lot of people claim.
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That's just not true. A lot of her fans are like my age. They've grown with her. Yeah,
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they've grown with her. So yes, people are taking their daughters to her concerts for sure. I think
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that's a fair point. But I think that a lot of people get a lot wrong about it as well when they
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criticize her. So yeah, I think people need to be a little bit more even handed with it. In my opinion,
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I think what's fair is to say that I think we should if anyone thinks like, for some reason
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that she is like, that these are wholesome lyrics and a wholesome example. And like someone that you
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want, like as a Christian, your daughters to look up to, or that this is someone that you can let your
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daughters listen to without you first assessing the lyrics. Then you need to just get that out of
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your head because that's not true. Like in the same way that it, you know, my parents were like,
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what is Christina Aguilera? And what are Britney Spears? What are they talking about? How did we go
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from the first album to slave for you? Like big difference. Of course, my at first it was like,
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oh, Britney Spears is a Christian. She's from Louisiana. The same thing I think about, I don't know,
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Mandy Moore and those people. And then you kind of see, okay, as they grow up, the image is different.
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The lyrics are different. And you have to start paying attention to those things. For some reason,
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I do think that, I don't know, simultaneously, I see on one hand that it seems like Taylor Swift
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is held to like a Christian standard, even though she is not a Christian and is really not really
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said that she has. Maybe she's gone back and forth on that. But, and then on the other hand,
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I feel like she just gets like a total free pass from Christians who should know better and to think
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that she is like some Christian example and she's just not. So I think if you just see her how she
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is, she's a secular artist who has sexual, well, yeah, secular sexual values and a secular sexual
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ethic. And she is going to play into this theme that is really popular right now, which is playing
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upon religious themes as, you know, Madonna did 40 years ago. And like a prayer, like, I think that you
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can see it clear-eyed. That doesn't mean that you should approve of it. That doesn't mean that your
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daughter should be listening to it. Maybe you shouldn't even be listening to it. But I also
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think that when people view her as like, I don't know, some sort of like witch that is putting people
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in a trance, I'm not so sure I would go that far. I don't think she's necessarily unique in that way.
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I don't know. Is there anything else you want to add?
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I'm not offended by people who really, really dislike her for these reasons. I just think there's a
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Yeah. Got it. Got it. Resident Swifty has weighed in. All right. That's what I think. And you know
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what we all have to do to make sure that what we are imbibing is lovely and pure and excellent and
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praiseworthy. And that is the call of the Christian. I certainly don't get that right all the time.
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And I still regret watching The Sopranos all the way through like five years ago. I'm haunted by
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that. I should have listened to Philippians 4 and I shouldn't have watched that because it wasn't
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pure excellent and I still have those scenes in my head. So, I've learned my lesson. I've learned
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my lesson. All right. That's all we've got time for. For today, we will be back here tomorrow with
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an awesome guest. I'm so excited. See you guys then.