The Critical Compass Podcast - Danielle Smith, Transgenderism, & The Coutts Four

00:00:00.000 Like, liberals, like the federal liberals and NDP who have been so vocally against this all week, even they, you know, stumble over themselves to say that, you know, Canadian parents love their children, you know.

00:00:12.880 So, okay, well, if you believe that, then there should be no concern with making sure that parents are notified when these things come up in school.

00:00:23.400 I guess you said one of the three stages.

00:00:27.260 The third, the first stage being this isn't happening and it's bad.

00:00:33.400 Yeah.

00:00:33.540 Second stage is like it sometimes happens and it's still bad, but it's, it's rare.

00:00:40.100 So it's okay.

00:00:40.800 It's, but it's rare.

00:00:41.560 Yeah, that's right.

00:00:42.400 Yeah.

00:00:42.680 And the third is, well, it's happening and it's good.

00:00:45.540 Yeah, that's right.

00:00:46.760 Yeah.

00:00:47.000 And it isn't happening, but it, but it is happening.

00:00:50.100 And if it does happen, it's a good thing that it happened.

00:00:57.260 Welcome to the Critical Compass podcast.

00:01:12.900 Today, we have a weekly catch up from the events that have happened for the first week of February.

00:01:18.940 Um, I'm James and this is Mike and I guess we've had a lot going on in the last few weeks.

00:01:26.280 It's been a big one.

00:01:29.700 Yeah.

00:01:30.180 Some, definitely a lot of excitement.

00:01:33.440 Yeah.

00:01:33.900 Well, it's, uh, it's a, so all, so all the hubbub this week has been centered around Daniel Smith's, uh, announcement.

00:01:40.600 Uh, I think it was on, was it on Thursday last week or Friday last week that, um, the Alberta government was going to be putting provisions in place to prevent, um, various, uh, childhood, gender, uh, medications and, and transition surgery and things like that.

00:02:01.600 Um, it was going to be severely limited and actually, in my opinion, not, not limited enough, but we can get into that.

00:02:07.480 Um, but at least this was a, if you actually watch the video, she, I think she did a pretty good job of, of really whether or not she was, and I believe she was, um, she certainly sounded sincere and compassionate about what she was talking about.

00:02:25.160 And I don't think if, if somebody approached that video from a position of good faith, I don't think that they can say she spoke at all with any hate in her heart or anything like that.

00:02:37.720 I don't know.

00:02:38.480 What do you think?

00:02:39.960 Yeah.

00:02:40.440 The, if you watch the video without preconceived notions of, of what any of the politics are around that, and then you look at the response to it, uh, these things do not seem to align.

00:02:53.340 And the, I, I don't detest the hate in there.

00:02:55.980 She's very careful with how she was describing these issues.

00:03:00.760 Um, she focused very much on the idea of adult choices and these non-reversible changes and the idea of like, can these kids consent to these lifelong changes?

00:03:15.640 Um, that was, that was one, one, one pillar.

00:03:18.680 The other pillar was parents needing to be notified of name changes and it's that parental consent portion of it.

00:03:28.940 Mm-hmm.

00:03:31.020 But I guess that stems to the idea of where on the opposing side, uh, it will say that these kids are at risk from abusive parents, but we already have a framework in place to,

00:03:45.640 to deal with abusive children.

00:03:47.980 So it doesn't really, I guess that arguments, it's kind of demonizing parents saying that like parents don't know the best for their, their children.

00:04:00.440 They cannot offer guidance.

00:04:02.280 They cannot make these decisions.

00:04:03.940 And maybe that's the crux of the matter.

00:04:07.780 Yeah.

00:04:08.380 Well, the, the, the position from people who are against the notion of parental rights in as many words to me seems to be that if a, if a child is, uh, coming out to a teacher or discussing things with their teacher that, um, they're, you know, confused about their gender identity or their sexuality or things like that.

00:04:31.020 It's because they can't have those conversations with their parents, uh, because they fear, uh, retribution in some way.

00:04:38.680 Um, now we can maybe link to some, either some screenshots or it might be a video or something I saw on X, uh, actually just the other day where there actually seems to be, uh, the reason why they might have that notion is because there actually does seem to be teaching materials in the curriculum.

00:04:58.980 Um, at least from one teacher that, that I saw that was actually promoting that very idea that, you know, you actually should be, uh, as a child, you should be, uh, worried about what your parents' reaction to these things might be.

00:05:11.360 So that might be why they have this notion.

00:05:13.700 I don't think it's a safe notion to have, or nor, uh, nor, uh, an accurate, uh, presupposition to be that, oh, well, you know, the, the only safe place where I can talk about these things is in school with a teacher who isn't my parents.

00:05:28.060 Like that's, that's, that's, that's a little bit silly to have as your, as your default assumption.

00:05:32.220 And I don't think it's like liberals, like the, the federal liberals and NDP who have been so vocally against this, uh, all week, even they, you know, stumble over themselves to say that, okay, you know, Canadian parents love their children, you know?

00:05:46.260 So, okay, well, if you believe that, then, then there should be no concern with, uh, making sure that parents are notified when these things come up in school.

00:05:56.440 So, yeah, these, these two thoughts are incompatible simultaneously, like both parents love their children, but children are at risk from their parents and they must have these conversations in private to like with, with parent or with teachers to hide these conversations from parents.

00:06:14.720 Yeah.

00:06:15.200 With non-family members outside of the home.

00:06:17.360 Yeah.

00:06:17.480 That's, it's, um, yeah, it's silly and, and it's, and it kind of parlays into another, uh, thing that I've seen a lot of.

00:06:25.760 If, and anyone who follows us on X, uh, has no doubt seen, uh, our posts pointing this out to everyone who says it, uh, the, the other most common thing that I've been seeing people talking about and posting regarding this is that, well, this isn't happening.

00:06:42.440 Parents, um, teachers aren't having secret conversations with kids about their gender and sexuality.

00:06:48.360 Okay.

00:06:50.980 So the response is the same to that.

00:06:53.360 If it isn't happening, then what's the problem?

00:06:55.240 What's the problem with, if there's legislation in place just in case, just in case there's one teacher that decides to do it.

00:07:02.380 The, the, the implication of the people saying that being, um, well, that it would be a bad thing if, if teachers are having secret sex conversations with kids, but it isn't happening.

00:07:13.580 Okay.

00:07:15.140 Okay.

00:07:16.360 Well, there, then let's ban it just in case.

00:07:19.180 Yeah.

00:07:19.740 Like the putting in a framework to prevent potential abuse within schools, uh, or a teacher preying upon this friendship relationship with children, putting in a framework to protect.

00:07:33.160 Children in this circumstance, especially they are vulnerable.

00:07:36.580 They, if you look at the mental health co-morbidities, these other conditions that are, that go hand in hand, these are vulnerable children in other ways as well.

00:07:47.340 So, uh, it doesn't take much to look at this, this situation and, well, even looking at some of these self-described teacher activists who outwardly admit and boast their, the number of students that have had these kinds of conversations.

00:08:07.180 Um, we don't know to what degree parents were involved in this.

00:08:11.380 I, I would, I wouldn't assume that these activist teachers would involve the parents.

00:08:15.760 They're just, they feel like it's their role to save these children or to help liberate these children from the like oppressive norms that their parents are enforcing on them.

00:08:30.440 Um, I guess you, you said one of the three stages, uh, the third, the first stage being this isn't happening and it's bad.

00:08:40.840 Yeah.

00:08:41.340 Second stage is like, it sometimes happens and it's still bad, but it's, it's rare.

00:08:47.860 So it's okay.

00:08:48.560 It's, but it's rare.

00:08:49.340 Yeah, that's right.

00:08:50.180 Yeah.

00:08:50.480 And the third is, well, it's happening and it's good.

00:08:53.260 Yeah, that's right.

00:08:54.540 Yeah.

00:08:54.780 And it isn't happening, but it, but it is happening.

00:08:57.880 And if it does happen, it's a good thing that it happened.

00:09:00.440 Yeah.

00:09:01.140 So on these discussions, you can see, see it bounce between these threes, sometimes from the same person as they like walk back within an argument or they, they feel like they can't defend a position.

00:09:15.020 So they take a step back.

00:09:17.380 Um, yeah, it's a really fascinating psychological, um, I don't know if it's a defense mechanism or what, like what the actual psychology is behind it, but I'd love to know because I see it all the time.

00:09:28.400 I mean, it's the, the immediate, and you can see it anytime you watch, like there's tons of people on, on YouTube that do these kinds of, uh, uh, the epistemology.

00:09:37.320 Um, yeah, like street, street interviews and stuff where they'll, they'll start with, uh, you know, they're, they're very confident in the claim that something isn't X.

00:09:46.180 And then when they just, honestly, it just takes the littlest, uh, piece of evidence thrown at them that they completely switch and then start defending the point that they said isn't happening in the first place.

00:09:57.200 So it's, I don't know, I don't know, in order to be so vehemently in favor of something that you can both defend it, it not happening and also happening like that's, I don't know, man, that's what is the, what is the quote of, um, can't remember who said it, but it's like, like good people will do good things and bad people will do bad things.

00:10:22.500 But in order to get good people to do bad things that requires religion, well, this feels like that religion or any other ideology that, yeah, that prevents people from asking the questions.

00:10:34.520 Yeah.

00:10:35.740 The, uh, there, there's another way of, again, can't, can't remember who's, who coins these phrase, but the, the idea of firm beliefs held loosely that like you believe something.

00:10:50.420 And you can take a, and you can take a, quite, quite a dramatic position on something, but it's held loosely in the way of like, well, if new evidence comes along, you should be able to, you're not emotionally tied to the, these ideas.

00:11:06.480 Yeah.

00:11:07.440 Um, so.

00:11:08.780 That's the scientific method really at the, like that's what it should be at the end of the day.

00:11:12.840 Yeah.

00:11:14.000 Yeah.

00:11:14.980 And the, the tricky thing with this discussion around like, uh, the, the transgender youth is the data data is a little muddy.

00:11:29.880 You run into issues with it's the data is not, not really supporting the idea of like trans transitioning at a young age or puberty blockers.

00:11:41.380 Um, uh, there, there, there's one studies that, or one study that looked at the desistance rate when there was no intervention that they found that if children just, or if children had, um, gender dysphoria and then went through puberty, about 80% of them turned out to be gay and desisted after that.

00:12:05.700 Um, the, the, the other issue with the data is you have issues with study design and bias in how they do follow-ups.

00:12:16.200 Yeah.

00:12:16.680 So there is an issue that when people de-transition, they are not happy and they often lose contact or stop talking with some of the doctors who originally prescribed them, um, puberty blockers or cross sex hormones.

00:12:34.580 Yeah.

00:12:35.380 Or did the surgery.

00:12:36.640 Yeah.

00:12:36.880 So the amount of follow-up, that's a whole giant question mark right now of, we don't actually know a lot of, a lot of that information gets kind of thrown out and isn't reflected on studies.

00:12:50.520 And then you have, um, what's the duration of studies?

00:12:54.120 What is the follow-up period?

00:12:55.960 Uh, did they check six months after starting somebody on testosterone?

00:13:02.080 Well, of course they're going to feel happy with this influx of their bodies barely adapted to this and they're getting this rush and this drug, feel good drug.

00:13:11.900 They're getting love bombed and you get this short-term, like short-term euphoria that does not, is not maintained long-term.

00:13:23.720 But if the study only looks at these short-term outcomes, then you can't really make decisions on the long-term off of these studies.

00:13:32.280 And these studies get passed around or quoted, uh, a little bit more than they, they should.

00:13:37.360 Yeah, yeah, well, and, and the study that you were just mentioning about the 80% just ending up being gay once they go through puberty, um, that, just knowing that should be enough to halt any of this, um, mad rush to, to affirm and to, and to start kids on blockers and cross-sex hormones.

00:14:02.860 I mean, it's, if, if, if anything else in your life had an 80% chance of being wrong, you, you wouldn't do it.

00:14:09.880 Not like, and especially anything medical, medically related, right?

00:14:12.540 There's just no, you don't take odds against that, you know?

00:14:17.980 Um, another, another statistic that, um, I read last year in, when I read, um, Time to Think by Hannah Barnes, a fantastic book.

00:14:26.140 Um, she talks about the, uh, the Tavistock, uh, JIDS clinic, a gender, gender identity services clinic, I believe.

00:14:35.080 Um, and how it's, it's since been shut down.

00:14:37.840 It was active for, for a few decades and, um, had to be shut down due to, you know, many reasons, but primarily because there was no, no evidence of long-term effectiveness of any of their, uh, policies and procedures.

00:14:52.300 But also because, uh, they were getting bombarded with lawsuits from detransitioners who felt that they were rushed to certain conclusions when they were kids before they could properly consent to these things.

00:15:03.940 And now that they're young adults and they realize that what they've done to themselves is not actually what they wanted the rest of their lives to be.

00:15:10.100 Well, it's too late for some of them that are now sterilized.

00:15:13.640 They'll never be able to experience an orgasm.

00:15:16.180 They'll never be able to have any normal, um, reproductive or sexual function anymore.

00:15:22.840 It's pretty, it's pretty ghastly stuff.

00:15:25.560 Yeah.

00:15:25.740 The, the side effects are not minor by any means.

00:15:29.500 No, no.

00:15:30.220 And, and, and, uh, sorry, the other statistic I was going to say from that book, um, I believe it's 60 or 65% of the, of the children who were in, uh, the care of the Tavistock clinic also presented clinically as on the autism spectrum.

00:15:46.260 Um, so what you've got is statistically, uh, a gay autistic kid who of course doesn't understand, you know, if they're, if they're in their, you know, tweens or early teens or whatever, of course, they're going to be like any other normal teen.

00:16:00.760 They're going to be uncomfortable with their body.

00:16:02.300 Things are going to be changing.

00:16:03.380 Hormones are going to be surging and as, as, as happens in, in adolescence.

00:16:08.640 Um, but add in the fact that they're unsure of their sexuality.

00:16:13.260 They know that most people are straight and they are not straight.

00:16:16.520 Maybe they come from a family.

00:16:18.160 This is a legitimate concern.

00:16:19.680 Maybe they come from a family that, uh, has very, uh, traditional values of, uh, you know, that might be against homosexuality.

00:16:28.060 That would be very common.

00:16:30.140 Um, and if they're autistic as well, then they don't, they can't properly, um, you know, rationalize those, all these changes.

00:16:39.900 And if somebody presents them with a quote unquote solution that, well, maybe you're, you're just the wrong gender.

00:16:45.140 Well, then maybe they're more likely to go along that path.

00:16:48.620 They feel like this is going to be a, a, a quick and complete cessation of these feelings that they're, that they're having, that they don't understand how to process.

00:16:58.320 Well, you, you look at these additional mental health conditions, often depression, anxiety, and the, the autism side of it.

00:17:08.160 All, all that, all those are, are somewhat tied into your perception of yourself.

00:17:15.140 And I think you run into a case where these things would normally throughout puberty and throughout adolescence, you would find ways of growing through these.

00:17:28.420 And sometimes you don't grow them and some, sometimes these are lifelong conditions that maybe somebody isn't getting treated or just hasn't find it, found a solution.

00:17:39.160 But anytime you have overlap, overlap in symptoms, um, you have to look at root cause.

00:17:47.320 And if somebody's wanting to get a surgery, cause they think they don't feel good the way they are now, is that because there's something that needs to be cut off?

00:18:02.840 Like, is that a surgery problem or is that a, is that a counseling?

00:18:07.480 Is that a mindset?

00:18:08.340 Is that a lifestyle?

00:18:11.380 Well, yeah, it is, are we actually looking at the root cause at this point?

00:18:17.640 Well, that, that's, that's one of the, that's a, that's a perfect point to bring up because it's, uh, it shows just how differently we treat whatever our modern conception of gender dysphoria is, how differently we treat it from every other dysphoria that we already have a, a psychological, um, you know, uh, uh, uh,

00:18:41.380 literature on, you don't treat, um, anorexia by affirming that, oh yes, you look so much better when you're skinny.

00:18:48.840 You should, you should limit your, your food or, or bulimia, but yes, yeah, this is totally working.

00:18:54.040 You should keep throwing up all the food that you eat or, um, you know, there's a, there's, um, a condition called body, body dysmorphic and body dysmorphic integrity disorder.

00:19:05.420 I think it's called, um, is that the limb one?

00:19:08.480 Yeah.

00:19:08.860 Where people feel forever, whatever reason that they feel that they should be, um, uh, they should have a, um, they should be an amputee of, of some, some part or multiple parts of their body.

00:19:19.840 You don't affirm that by, by performing those surgeries.

00:19:22.540 That would be ridiculous to even suggest.

00:19:24.200 Well, who, who are you to question how they truly feel about themselves?

00:19:28.040 If they feel like that leg is not supposed to be there, they were assigned two leg, two legged when they were.

00:19:35.780 They were assigned bipedalism at birth.

00:19:37.560 Yeah.

00:19:38.860 Yeah.

00:19:39.460 I mean, it would be just like, you would be laughed out of a, out of a, anywhere if you had that notion.

00:19:45.820 Here's the issue though.

00:19:47.260 Uh, there are two trains of thought that coexist and they're used depending on how convenient it is in an argument.

00:19:55.640 And one of them is that, um, the gender dysphoria is real and must be treated with these, with puberty blockers, affirmation therapy, and or a surgery.

00:20:10.100 If somebody chooses the other train of thought is that this depends on how you define it.

00:20:17.700 And these definitions are not, it's hard to ever actually narrow down a definition of what it means to identify.

00:20:25.560 And those who basically say that you can identify as anything and your identity is real.

00:20:37.660 And you exist as that they, they also say that, well, being transgender is not, it's not a dysphoria.

00:20:47.480 It's not a mental condition.

00:20:50.260 So both you have a train of thought of, yeah, dysphoria is real, but you also say dysphoria is not required for somebody to go in for surgery.

00:20:59.840 Because you have people saying that, well, these people go in for extensive, extensive psychological evaluation, but at the same time it got, I believe it got declass, like D, D listed.

00:21:13.640 I don't know what the actual term for, I think the DSM five or six or whatever number they're on, they have removed transgender ism as a mental condition.

00:21:25.380 Oh, okay.

00:21:26.520 So it's, this is why you can see in conversations, people get a little bit upset or triggered, even mentioning the mental health side of it, even though it is strongly correlated with, with all these other mental health conditions that go alongside the fact that they're saying that it's not, it means, well, how do you navigate that?

00:21:54.180 Yeah, well, because they'll, they'll probably say that it's a, it can't be a mental condition or a, you know, any, anything viewed as potentially like a, like a weakness or a, a, um, or any sort of negative connotation.

00:22:08.840 Because they'll, what they'll say, I'm sure, is that they've always been transgender.

00:22:15.500 They've always been, they were always in the wrong body.

00:22:18.060 And you might even hear, people love to do this, who are proponents of gender ideology.

00:22:22.840 They love to talk out of both sides of their mouth and say things like, um, we, you know, we always knew little Timmy was actually a girl because when, when Timmy was young, um, she always liked to play with, uh, you know, a girl's toys.

00:22:42.020 He's always liked, Timmy always liked to play with dolls and, and makeup and stuff.

00:22:45.660 So when, when Timmy was 12, we transitioned him to a her, you know, that's because we always knew.

00:22:51.940 But then at the same, at the same time, they'll say, if a little girl, a biological girl plays with the dolls and the makeup and, and the other traditionally stereotypically girls things, that was because society conditioned her to like those things.

00:23:06.320 Is that the patriarchy and action causing the girls to play with dolls?

00:23:11.140 The childhood patriarchy and action.

00:23:12.680 Yeah.

00:23:12.880 So, so it, I don't know, to me, that seems like a contradiction.

00:23:16.280 It feels, it feels like it has to be one or the other.

00:23:19.640 Um, but if you, but the point is, if you view it that way, then what you're actually doing is you're viewing, uh, the, the, somebody's gender as equivalent to maybe something like the soul or some other sort of, um, metaphysical,

00:23:35.900 spiritual, um, conception of what it means to be a person.

00:23:41.700 So, so in that case, how can it be a dysphoria or how can it be, uh, you know, anything related to a, uh, a treatable mental condition?

00:23:51.220 If it's a treatable mental condition that that, then that means it can't be your identity, I suppose.

00:23:57.940 Yeah.

00:23:58.640 And any idea of a gendered soul is unfalsifiable and you can't prove or disprove it's based on how somebody feels.

00:24:07.960 Yeah.

00:24:08.460 So you touched on a couple of key points of the difference between when you define this, is it a way that you feel?

00:24:20.260 Is it a way that you act?

00:24:23.240 Is it a, like, what, what does it mean to identify me as a biological man?

00:24:30.740 If I identify as a woman, well, what does that actually mean?

00:24:35.880 Um, am I doing the things that women do?

00:24:39.840 Am I presenting as a woman?

00:24:42.960 So these secondary sex characteristics, um, when I say I feel like a woman, well, what is that feeling?

00:24:50.140 Are we talking about the big five personality traits?

00:24:52.260 Am I low on assertiveness and do, do I look inward and say that my personality more resembles

00:25:02.680 these traditionally feminine?

00:25:05.060 If we observe the population, we can observe like masculine and feminine in quotes, like traits.

00:25:11.020 They're just more commonly represented in males versus females.

00:25:14.500 So our whole notion of what it means to look or feel or even behave as a woman is still

00:25:22.820 tied to these biological averages throughout the population.

00:25:28.740 And I've yet to get a really good definition.

00:25:32.860 Um, you'll ask activists or just somebody who has bought into this and you start going through

00:25:40.460 this and at some point they're just going to say, well, they are a woman cause they feel

00:25:44.080 like a woman.

00:25:45.240 Yeah.

00:25:45.760 A woman is whoever, whoever identifies as a woman.

00:25:49.020 Right.

00:25:49.540 Yeah.

00:25:50.100 They can't, they can't make the definition not contain the word woman basically.

00:25:55.500 So it becomes self-referential and, and, uh, and, uh, begs the question basically.

00:26:01.220 Yeah.

00:26:01.840 Circular definitions don't really give you anything to, you don't gain anything more from that definition.

00:26:09.200 You still are no closer to understanding what a woman is if the definition of a woman is

00:26:15.840 the identity of a woman.

00:26:18.520 Yeah.

00:26:19.080 Like what characteristics.

00:26:20.860 Yeah.

00:26:21.680 Are under there.

00:26:22.480 And then.

00:26:23.180 What characteristics and what, what of those characteristics are not just a stereotype.

00:26:28.000 Yeah.

00:26:28.840 So are we going backwards if we're just tying these ideas of these identity, like the identity

00:26:35.580 of woman to stereotypes, are we further limiting our ideas of what women should do or the way

00:26:42.160 women are based on reinforcing these older stereotypes?

00:26:48.340 Well, I have a theory and I don't know.

00:26:52.500 I don't think I've stolen this from anyone.

00:26:54.220 I think, but other people may have reached the same conclusion.

00:26:57.200 I, I believe actually that may, and maybe this is extreme of me, but I actually don't

00:27:02.680 think that the word gender has any useful meaning.

00:27:05.680 I feel like when people say gender, if they're not, uh, using it as a synonym for sex, male

00:27:14.460 or female, uh, and they separate those, then what I believe they mean, what they actually

00:27:20.660 mean when they say gender, either it boils down to one of two things, either a, uh, a

00:27:27.020 sexuality, like a sexual proclivity or preference or to a personality trait.

00:27:33.740 And, and I've challenged people to this on, on X before.

00:27:38.400 And they, I, again, like I, same as you, I don't really get a clean answer to it or a

00:27:44.680 concise answer to it, but I would challenge anyone, maybe anyone listening who disagrees

00:27:50.300 with me on this, if you can, if you can describe your gender that isn't, um, that doesn't boil

00:27:57.680 down to just either a personality trait or a sexual proclivity, I would be very interested

00:28:01.720 to know because that's all that I hear about it.

00:28:04.640 When somebody says they're, you know, usually what they're referring to, like say that they're,

00:28:08.960 um, you know, maybe a gender, you know, well, probably that means if you're a woman, maybe

00:28:16.660 you're a little bit bisexual and maybe you present a little bit more, um, androgynous,

00:28:22.240 it may be the same for a man, for a man too.

00:28:24.920 A gender is just one that came to mind, but there's no doubt countless examples, but that's

00:28:29.600 my theory.

00:28:30.620 I'm sticking to it until proven otherwise.

00:28:32.980 Well, if, if there's a word that's commonly used in our society and it interacts with

00:28:42.120 the way people live their lives, we would want a clear definition of that word.

00:28:47.140 We want to make sure that we all know what it means and we're all using it in the same

00:28:51.340 ways.

00:28:52.180 And if gender is sometimes used for sex and then sometimes used for just describing how

00:28:58.120 people feel based on traits or personality, then it doesn't really describe the usefulness

00:29:06.140 of that word is it's useless except for people's feelings about themselves.

00:29:13.700 So if somebody says, well, I identify as female, great.

00:29:20.280 They just told us that they maybe act or feel a little bit more feminine.

00:29:26.180 Well, what does that mean?

00:29:28.120 Like, how, how do we navigate?

00:29:30.060 Do we treat them differently now just because they, they have a few more feminine traits?

00:29:36.240 Like, or are we at this point where differences in some of these big five personality traits

00:29:43.620 don't really matter as much on a day-to-day basis?

00:29:47.120 Like you'll, you'll naturally find people who maybe in like a heterosexual relationship,

00:29:53.280 the high assertiveness in a male, in males is still like still a desirable trait from women

00:30:01.200 when they're dating like men in a relationship, they still look for these things.

00:30:05.960 So in those cases, these, these personality traits, maybe if they fit these traditional kind

00:30:13.640 of averages across the, like when we sample our population, like it, maybe it's more stable

00:30:20.620 in those circumstances, but on the fringes, you'll always have tomboys and you always

00:30:27.400 have like feminine men and yeah.

00:30:31.060 Yeah.

00:30:31.320 And there's, you even look at like the artist community, like there's all kinds of misfits,

00:30:37.940 uh, personnel, like, well, and that's where you get, we're, we're both members of that,

00:30:42.920 of that misfit artist community.

00:30:44.360 So we know it's, it's absolutely true, but, and the, the point of it is too, that, um,

00:30:49.560 like I, I hate that, you know, we have to do this because if anyone knows this in real

00:30:56.300 life, they know that we're not, you know, we're not judgmental people.

00:30:58.940 We're not, um, you know, we aren't, we don't go out seeking to, you know, be rude to people

00:31:04.660 or disrespectful or mean or, or anything like that.

00:31:07.080 And so I hate that I have to say it, but what this ultimately comes down to is I, and I

00:31:14.060 know you would agree, don't believe that there's any right or wrong way to be a boy or a girl

00:31:20.400 or a man or woman.

00:31:21.420 There's just the way that you are and, and, and that's fine.

00:31:25.480 And you should be able to have a community that you can, you know, have friends and relationships

00:31:30.900 in and, and be accepted for exactly who you are.

00:31:33.980 I think that actually that's, that's much less sexist and, uh, divisive and exclusionary

00:31:43.560 I think that's a word, uh, then, then being the other way where, you know, if you have

00:31:49.240 to take it back to the schools, if you have an activist teacher who, who looks at a, at

00:31:52.820 a little boy who maybe is more interested in playing with, uh, the stereotypically girls

00:31:57.380 toys or the, or a little, uh, girl who's more interested in playing, you know, sports or something

00:32:03.200 more stereotypically boyish or masculine to suggest that those little boys or girls are, uh, exhibiting

00:32:11.660 signs of transgenderism or, or, or, are, are truly the opposite sex or whatever.

00:32:16.280 That seems to me to be very regressive and sexist and, and not accepting of the differences

00:32:22.560 of in personality that everyone has.

00:32:24.720 It's, it's amplifying these differences in a way.

00:32:28.520 It was saying these differences means you are now in this other category and the fact

00:32:33.480 that the transgender category now includes non-binary.

00:32:38.240 Um, so if you feel like, well, these wearing a dress or these traditional ideas of what

00:32:46.400 it means to be a boy or a girl or a man or a woman, if you don't really agree with that,

00:32:50.400 you're considered non-binary.

00:32:51.880 I've even like, I've had people accuse, well, when I say like, well, I don't think gender

00:32:57.760 exists, like gender as a concept doesn't exist.

00:33:00.700 And we're just men and women with variations in personality and being told like, well, yeah,

00:33:06.000 you're, you're non-binary.

00:33:07.660 Welcome to the club.

00:33:08.880 Oh yeah.

00:33:09.940 Yeah.

00:33:10.380 That's a good one.

00:33:11.200 That's good.

00:33:11.820 So I like when I hear personally, when I hear that somebody is a non-binary transgender person,

00:33:17.300 what did you trans to from?

00:33:22.880 Yeah.

00:33:23.460 The, they're still tied to these, you can't escape some of these, these binaries.

00:33:29.580 It's a definition problem.

00:33:31.600 Yeah.

00:33:32.220 I, uh, I did have one thought.

00:33:35.300 Uh, that actually came up and I didn't actually really think about this until this conversation

00:33:40.400 today, but we talked about affirmation and started thinking about like, well, you have

00:33:49.940 some teachers, the teachers that fall into that community who are themselves, um, well,

00:33:56.540 they are partially an activist because their identity is within the LGBTQ community.

00:34:06.160 But I started thinking of this idea as affirmation.

00:34:09.780 And I have a feeling there, some of these teachers are using their students as a way to affirm their

00:34:19.460 own identity.

00:34:21.000 It's less, maybe it's a little bit like through affirming, uh, being there to help a child affirm

00:34:28.580 themselves.

00:34:29.140 They are reinforcing the feelings within themselves as a teacher and their own, their own identity

00:34:37.140 is now affirmed.

00:34:38.620 It's being recognized.

00:34:40.100 Yeah.

00:34:40.260 And, and, well, I guess my evidence from this is the self-proclaimed like activists who

00:34:48.260 are almost bragging, like seven out of my 25 students have opened up to me and like, what

00:34:55.040 are these eight or nine year olds?

00:34:57.100 Like.

00:34:57.220 Yeah.

00:34:57.680 Yeah.

00:34:58.240 Are opening up to you.

00:35:00.060 And they're in fourth grade.

00:35:00.940 About their, yeah, about their, like, about their, like identities at this point, their

00:35:07.180 sexual identities, their gender identities at that age.

00:35:12.100 Well, that, they seem very happy that like a good portion of their class, like a one quarter

00:35:19.060 of their class is comfortable enough to discuss these things.

00:35:23.340 So that again, opens up the idea of there's a G word that people don't like to hear.

00:35:32.140 And yeah, um, I guess the idea of grooming is it, the connotations are, I can see why it's

00:35:43.280 a charged word because it implies, um, kind of the worst of the worst of the grooming.

00:35:48.260 Yeah.

00:35:48.700 But in a way, maybe, yeah, like go to like grooming in the sense of like criminal acts,

00:35:59.100 but there's grooming gangs, whatever.

00:36:00.940 Yeah.

00:36:01.440 Yeah.

00:36:02.980 But there's this, it doesn't have a softer definition though.

00:36:05.860 Like you're, I think, yeah, there, there, there's this idea of love bombing children.

00:36:12.720 First of all, you assert that there's something wrong or that there's a problem.

00:36:17.900 And the problem is they're born into the wrong body or that there's a mismatch between how

00:36:22.960 you look and how you feel.

00:36:24.680 And through these layers of complexity of these ideas, because you have the whole gingerbread

00:36:33.040 gender man, gender bread person, whatever these kind of analogies to teach the children,

00:36:39.400 you start wrapping up these ideas in more complexities, you've kind of created a barrier.

00:36:45.260 And now you have the knowledge holders.

00:36:47.060 You have these teachers as a source of knowledge, wisdom, and also they are a source for love

00:36:54.160 of these kids.

00:36:54.920 So they start love bombing these children and also telling them, well, you're not safe around

00:36:59.700 your parents because your parents don't have access to this knowledge.

00:37:03.200 They don't agree with this knowledge or there's already this, this divide happening.

00:37:08.120 That, in a way, is grooming children to be comfortable with adults outside of parents and families

00:37:17.260 and friends.

00:37:18.280 In a very, in a very intimate way that, that doesn't seem appropriate for the, for the

00:37:23.100 relationship that a student teacher should have, really.

00:37:26.460 Yeah.

00:37:27.140 Well, I, I think you're absolutely right.

00:37:28.900 And I think that, uh, not only are they using it as an affirmation for themselves, potentially,

00:37:35.840 you know, for, for, for these parents.

00:37:38.120 These specific activist teachers that we're talking about, uh, at their current stage

00:37:42.200 of life, I feel like also there is a, there is a, uh, a thought just to, you know, completely

00:37:50.460 put myself in, in their head and, and just, you know, completely mind read right now.

00:37:54.240 I know this is a fallacy, but I believe that probably they think that if only they had a

00:38:00.180 teacher like that, when they were a young kid who, who legitimately was concerned, confused

00:38:05.040 about their, their sexuality or their identity, that they would have grown up to be, to have,

00:38:10.320 they would have had a better childhood and a better adolescence and adulthood than they

00:38:14.920 had.

00:38:16.380 And I think there, there may even actually be some merit to that depending on the age of

00:38:21.280 the teacher and the specific circumstance, because of course, you know, you know, 20,

00:38:25.920 30, 40 years ago, um, it was a much different social, uh, uh, landscape than it is now.

00:38:33.220 And there was much more, um, um, prejudice and, and, and non-acceptance.

00:38:39.400 There was explicit hate.

00:38:40.940 That's right.

00:38:41.560 That's right.

00:38:42.080 And it was still illegal in, in many parts of North America, even, you know, 30 years

00:38:46.780 ago.

00:38:47.780 So, so I can understand a little bit, uh, the, um, the natural inclination to want to be

00:38:55.780 somebody's, um, you know, reason that they feel comfortable with themselves, but it's, it's

00:39:01.820 misplaced and it's not, it's not, it's like, it's not modernized.

00:39:07.940 You know, it's, it's, they're approaching these topics of like 20, 30 years ago, there

00:39:15.160 was not this rush to medically affirm, go on medication, go on cross sex hormone.

00:39:22.560 Like this was not something that happened with the degree in the percentages that we see

00:39:28.960 now.

00:39:29.540 So it's, it is different and it's, and it's dangerous because, well, you know, this, the

00:39:35.560 saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, right?

00:39:39.060 This, this is a much more complex issue than, you know, just a teacher simply saying, well,

00:39:44.800 I'm just accepting my students for who they are and I'm making them feel free to, you know,

00:39:48.500 to express themselves.

00:39:49.360 It's, it's different than that.

00:39:51.020 And I think we need to recognize that it's different without, without implying that we

00:39:57.840 agree that parents should be, uh, you know, uh, abusive towards their kids who are, are

00:40:04.100 showing these things.

00:40:04.720 Of course, that's not true.

00:40:05.860 Of course, that shouldn't happen, but there needs to be a little bit more of a recognition

00:40:09.620 of, there are certain things that are sacred within a family and there are certain things

00:40:13.640 that are not meant to be, um, there, there are certain things that are meant to be kept

00:40:20.100 to trusted loved ones only.

00:40:22.420 And there's a, a, a level of professionalism that's being crossed in a relationship that would

00:40:30.260 not have happened, you know, even, even maybe 10, 15 years ago.

00:40:34.580 Yeah, it is possible to, to hold the position of thinking that teachers have a certain role

00:40:41.840 to play and that parents should love their children unconditionally.

00:40:46.300 And obviously we should be advocating and reminding parents, like there are, maybe there's abrasive

00:40:56.560 ways of navigating this issue with your children and there's less abrasive ways.

00:41:02.080 There's obviously you can navigate any situation with compassion, but this idea of that affirmation

00:41:10.460 and unbounded love and compassion without any ties to reality is, I think that's where harm

00:41:21.480 happens.

00:41:22.640 Like this idea of tough love is that when you love somebody, you will tell them, you will

00:41:30.520 tell them truths that are uncomfortable.

00:41:33.960 It's the same thing.

00:41:34.840 If you have a friend who is not going to tell you, you've got a little bit of mustard, like

00:41:39.160 on the side of your mouth and you're just sitting there, like it's, you'd expect, you don't

00:41:44.560 want to hear that because it's embarrassing.

00:41:46.100 And like, nobody wants to be told that nobody wants to be told that it's like, maybe your

00:41:52.140 idea of how things are going does not line up with the reality of that you're facing in

00:41:57.400 front right now.

00:41:58.940 So I think tough love is still a compassionate.

00:42:03.180 And it, it's, it's, it's still, it's still compassionate way to navigate because you're

00:42:09.960 getting somebody closer to the realities of the world.

00:42:13.700 Well, and it's, and it also, you know, shows how you, you, you can't get a full picture

00:42:21.160 of something.

00:42:21.540 Like I know that these teachers might think that they know, you know, they know their

00:42:24.960 students intimately and they know them, you know, some maybe say they know them better

00:42:29.200 than they know themselves, you know, at a certain age or whatever, but it's a very small portion

00:42:34.080 of their life that they're going to be interacting with this one person and they're going to be

00:42:37.500 with their family their, their whole lives or as long as they're, you know, their family

00:42:42.580 stay together.

00:42:43.120 So it's, it's, it's a, it's a extreme act of hubris to believe that, um, you know, you

00:42:51.520 who see this kid, you know, 40 hours a week, 30, 35 hours a week, maybe, you know, are, are

00:42:58.340 better able to guide them through potentially life-changing medical alterations to their

00:43:06.380 biology than their own family would know.

00:43:09.980 Uh, it's, it's, it's a little bit, it's a little bit much and I've had this discussion.

00:43:15.860 Um, I have a family member who is a teacher who, um, has told me before about, uh, the

00:43:24.740 students that a young student in this person's school who the school has, uh, decided to affirm

00:43:34.760 and treat as it's a little boy who is living as a, who has changed their name and their

00:43:40.040 pronouns to that of a girl.

00:43:42.180 Uh, the kid is in grade four, I think maybe grade five and, and they thought it was fine

00:43:48.960 because, you know, the, the student has, um, ostensibly always known the pet, the family

00:43:54.940 has always known, you know, that the, that the little boy was actually a little girl and

00:43:59.480 likes to dress in dresses and act, you know, have long hair.

00:44:02.960 And, um, so they're affirming.

00:44:04.740 So, and they didn't see any issue with this.

00:44:07.540 And so we started, we talked about it a little bit and me being an insufferable podcast host

00:44:13.700 who talks about these things, co-host, uh, started asking some questions and, and really the,

00:44:20.980 the, the one that triggered them to kind of think about this a little differently is when

00:44:26.520 I asked, so what are you going to do?

00:44:29.740 What is going to happen with this kid?

00:44:31.480 Who's, um, not maybe nine years, eight or nine years old, some like a nine or 10, maybe

00:44:36.300 now, um, call it a 10 year old kid.

00:44:39.500 What are you going to do in two or three or four years when they start getting facial hair

00:44:45.980 and their voice starts dropping, their shoulders start widening, Adam's apple starts forming.

00:44:51.780 What are you going to do?

00:44:52.860 You know, this kid has been affirmed for however many years leading up to this point.

00:44:56.240 So is that when the, the puberty blockers start?

00:44:59.100 Okay.

00:45:00.020 A couple of years after that, they're still living this way.

00:45:02.380 Is that when the cross sex hormones start?

00:45:04.620 Are they being put on by, by simply having the act now when they're a little kid who,

00:45:11.580 and like all little kids up to a certain age are androgynous to an extent, like little

00:45:15.680 boys and girls are interchangeable for the most part.

00:45:19.660 Um, other than how they act.

00:45:22.140 And usually the little boys are psychotic and usually the little girls are little princesses.

00:45:25.420 But, um, when, when, you know, things started getting real and puberty starts to kick in

00:45:34.200 and these unavoidable biological changes start to happen, what are you going to do?

00:45:39.560 And that starts to become a little bit more of a serious and a little bit more of an uncomfortable

00:45:44.560 discussion to have.

00:45:46.800 Well, here, here's the thing in that, that case, you've affirmed an identity and then it

00:45:54.200 seems like it's very much tied to traditional norms of like long hair, dress, and a lot of

00:46:03.840 these secondary, these secondary, like sexual characteristics.

00:46:08.620 Well, they never like to play sports.

00:46:10.040 They only like to play with, uh, you know, with, uh, sisters dolls.

00:46:13.600 So if there's a mismatch between how somebody feels about themselves inside and what their

00:46:18.700 outside is like, obviously somebody who's born biologically male and dresses like a girl,

00:46:26.920 you're still fighting the body wanting to, it's down a path of development to produce like

00:46:36.900 small moment, uh, mobile gametes, uh, sperm and the body through the hormone profile that

00:46:44.160 it has will structure around that.

00:46:46.260 Yeah.

00:46:46.720 And then even at that age, bones are still like, you look at the frames of boys and girls,

00:46:51.760 they're still not identical per se.

00:46:55.680 So to, to, to say that you can just like start it at a certain point, you're, you're chasing

00:47:01.220 this, you're fighting biology at this, at this point.

00:47:04.560 At every point.

00:47:05.300 Yeah.

00:47:05.460 And, and certainly more so when, when puberty starts to kick in.

00:47:08.720 Yeah.

00:47:09.220 And it's, and then you, you have to make, they're going to have to make a real decision because,

00:47:13.180 you know, yeah.

00:47:16.440 So I don't know.

00:47:16.940 It, it was a little bit, it bummed me out a little bit and I hope that maybe, you know,

00:47:21.400 I don't know.

00:47:22.120 I can't, I can't know, but if, if anything was said or, or changed about how they treat

00:47:26.400 this kid, but I just worry that they're going to grow up and they're going to realize that,

00:47:31.420 Oh, maybe I was just always a bit of an effeminate boy, but I was, I was affirmed by my teachers

00:47:36.960 and my family and everyone surrounding me.

00:47:38.700 And so I just thought I was a girl.

00:47:40.200 And now I wonder why I'm a young adult and nothing feels right.

00:47:43.840 And I'm not happy.

00:47:45.460 Maybe it would have just been better if somebody didn't even put these ideas in my head as

00:47:49.560 a kid in the first place.

00:47:50.420 So what's going to happen is either kid does not go through puberty and starts becoming

00:47:57.840 more masculine in their body.

00:48:01.280 And that further does not sit right and makes them feel even worse about the fact that inside

00:48:09.140 they feel like a girl and on the outside, they're looking more like a man.

00:48:14.140 Or what they've been told more accurately, what they've been told feeling like a girl is

00:48:18.600 like, Oh, you show these, these, these traits of the things that you are interested in your

00:48:23.820 personality traits, because they're too young to have a sexuality develop yet, but their

00:48:28.060 personality traits were indicating was that of femininity.

00:48:34.100 Yeah.

00:48:34.900 Or the second, the second path is puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, and some sort of a surgery

00:48:42.260 to affirm as well.

00:48:43.960 But at this point they are, people may have an idea of what the ideal feminine female form

00:48:53.960 is.

00:48:55.340 And I think it doesn't take that much to pull up examples of people transitioning and chasing

00:49:02.880 through surgeries.

00:49:04.200 The fact that like, well, what's their jawline like?

00:49:09.160 What's their shoulders?

00:49:10.120 And they keep, they keep on having to make these modifications because there's so many

00:49:15.740 innate differences between men and women by the, like, for the most part, we are more

00:49:22.960 of the same than we are different.

00:49:24.800 And then you look at these differences.

00:49:26.400 We have how many, like millions of years of evolution of us being able to recognize these

00:49:34.160 small little differences in face and bone structures.

00:49:36.860 And that's why people can predict somebody's sex with accuracy most of the time.

00:49:46.160 Like it's a pretty accurate, like instant, somebody doesn't need to be specially trained.

00:49:52.340 It's something, even when people have their faces are covered or they have different clothing

00:49:58.380 on, like the average person is still pretty good at detecting this, which means you are fighting

00:50:04.360 some of these very, very subtle differences that either they're going to be a lifelong patient

00:50:13.160 at that point.

00:50:14.140 If they don't get the root cause of why are you not feeling comfortable in the body you

00:50:20.620 were born in?

00:50:22.640 So yeah, it's, that's a tricky situation for sure.

00:50:27.820 Yeah.

00:50:28.060 So it's, it's a, yeah, it is.

00:50:29.980 And it's, um, well, good.

00:50:32.660 We have some framework, like some frameworks in Alberta to help maybe if this lets a couple

00:50:41.220 kids maybe give more time to think, and maybe some adults choose to have some surgeries

00:50:46.340 and maybe some just realize that they're gay and they can live their lives and they can

00:50:50.520 dress and act the way that they want.

00:50:52.400 Like if that saves a few, few children or a few young adults from getting a surgery and

00:50:59.780 having lifelong complications, like that's, that's worth it in my mind.

00:51:04.540 Yeah.

00:51:04.720 That's a win, I think for sure.

00:51:06.740 Yeah.

00:51:06.960 And I think it's, um, there are many thinkers in this space who have, uh, predicted that

00:51:16.120 within the next five to 10 years, uh, people are going to be doing everything they can to

00:51:22.100 distance themselves from ever having a strong opinion in favor of childhood, puberty blockers,

00:51:30.360 surgeries, uh, transition, cross-sex hormones.

00:51:34.600 Because when the lawsuits start, when the lawsuits happen and when, when public opinion shifts as

00:51:40.460 it does in every era, in, in, in every, um, you know, social, uh, sociological, I don't

00:51:51.900 want to say craze, but you know what I mean, you know, of, of the time, every, every era

00:51:55.660 has their own thing and without fail, it, it ends up being sent to the dustbin of history.

00:52:03.500 So, yeah, it's, uh, it's kind of a crazy time to be, be a kid.

00:52:08.300 I had a, I had a friend of mine on my Instagram.

00:52:11.920 Um, I post some stories sometimes of, uh, clips from Twitter posts and stuff about this,

00:52:20.060 this topic.

00:52:20.540 And I had a friend today actually just, uh, message me and say that she is so glad that

00:52:25.720 she grew up in the nineties and not now because she, she was, uh, the definition of a tomboy

00:52:30.880 as a kid.

00:52:31.880 Never liked having long hair.

00:52:33.120 I'll always put her hair up or, or made her parents cut it short.

00:52:36.480 Um, and, uh, you know, like playing sports and, and was just, you know, not feminine

00:52:41.620 at all.

00:52:42.060 And now as an adult, she's in her thirties now, uh, she's 100% a girly girl.

00:52:48.780 She hates, you know, any, any little bit of, uh, like peach fuzz on her, on her face, she

00:52:53.500 says, and she always, you know, she does her makeup and has her hair long now and, you

00:52:57.760 know, hates any form.

00:52:58.720 Like she, she says she describes herself as naturally a little bit androgynous and she doesn't

00:53:02.260 like that about herself anymore.

00:53:03.280 She wants to actually be more feminine.

00:53:04.840 So it, I mean, that, that goes to show, right?

00:53:07.720 There's, there's very little, Oh, things change.

00:53:10.500 Well, and there's very little about yourself as a kid or an adolescent that, that won't

00:53:16.000 be different in some way in a few years.

00:53:18.040 And I think you just have to, uh, just have to wait and see.

00:53:21.760 Yeah.

00:53:22.200 So it seems like some of the conversations are shifting.

00:53:25.760 There's some good, uh, there's at least more awareness and it feels like sometimes it

00:53:33.640 takes some of these key voices for maybe some of the other politicians or, uh, key commenters

00:53:41.040 to finally get some courage to actually take a stand.

00:53:44.820 Uh, I know.

00:53:45.720 Yeah.

00:53:47.120 Polyev, uh, finally kind of did, he denounced today.

00:53:52.880 He denounced childhood transition.

00:53:56.600 Puberty blockers.

00:53:57.420 Yeah, for sure.

00:53:58.040 He's been, he's been quoted before as saying he is, he is totally in favor of parents' rights

00:54:02.860 and wants, wants, uh, governments to stay out of, uh, out of parental decisions.

00:54:07.080 But today, yes, he was, uh, he was very clear a little bit more direct because the other

00:54:12.060 I can, I can see how historically with the media that this situation that we have with

00:54:18.740 the media that they'll take any little statement and just beat it to death and mass repeat it

00:54:27.380 and make something if it, if they can make it into something, they will, and they'll use

00:54:34.600 it against you. And I, like, I don't, I don't want to defend any, like, there's obviously

00:54:39.940 certain politicians that have a bigger backbone and have been very consistent and very vocal

00:54:47.000 about their messages for a long time. Then there's others who wait a little bit longer

00:54:51.260 before it's safer to say these things. And I wish there was less waiting. And I also wish

00:54:59.160 some of these positions were very clear and that there was less of a risk to having any

00:55:06.540 opinion outside of a very narrow band of opinions.

00:55:10.940 Well, it's been, yeah, like, like you say, it is, it is historically with, with many issues.

00:55:16.480 I mean, I can think back to, back to COVID issues just from a couple of years ago, it will always

00:55:21.700 take one or two politicians or public figures in some way to, to be, to risk being the first

00:55:29.580 one to be called a conspiracy theorist or a, or a, or a radical or a, or a far right or

00:55:35.580 whatever to, to, to bear that weight and be the first one. And then once those ideas start

00:55:41.820 to be forced into the kind of force open the Overton window a little bit, then you start

00:55:46.900 to see more and more people actually were thinking of this all along. And now that it's safer

00:55:50.260 to do it. I think Polyev has done this a couple of times with certain issues, but he, in his

00:55:55.460 defense, I believe he's struck a pretty decent balance of being generally right about most

00:56:05.220 things when he does make a statement on them and not, not waiting too long so that you get

00:56:10.500 the impression that he's just waiting for opinion bowls to roll in. I believe that at least

00:56:15.220 the way that he's treated the, the, uh, his MPs as conservative leader thus far is I, in

00:56:22.760 my opinion is that he has tried to avoid, um, unnecessarily fanning flames or, or jumping

00:56:30.540 into a, into a debate when it's very, very fresh and raw and, you know, waiting, you know,

00:56:35.620 two, three, four days to kind of, uh, have a more, have a reasoned more, uh, you know,

00:56:42.260 a lower temperature take on it because it's not fresh and, and, you know, wild in people's

00:56:48.240 minds. So, which is a good reminder for any of us to, as something comes out, like sometimes

00:56:55.400 event a will happen and everybody's up in arms. And I'm, I'm always curious to like, wait

00:57:02.920 for a little bit more or wait for the next little bit of evidence or the next key piece

00:57:08.960 of anything. So that, that is a good reminder to like, things happen so fast on the internet,

00:57:14.280 but we can take a day or two just to like, before we have our full emotional reaction

00:57:22.420 to something, we can like take a step back. Uh, I did want to say with the Overton window

00:57:28.540 expanding, um, another thing happened in the last couple of weeks is Tucker Carlson came

00:57:36.220 to Alberta and with some massive shows and, well, he had one at, was it Rogers place? Like

00:57:45.580 stadium at the saddle dome in Calgary too? I believe so. Yeah. Yeah. The biggest, basically

00:57:51.900 the biggest, uh, arenas, huge, huge, huge, huge attendance. Um, and he did cover some good

00:57:58.120 things, but the week before that he had somebody on his show and he didn't interview and there

00:58:06.200 were talking about the coots for, and that was also mentioned. And Danielle Smith mentioned

00:58:11.720 the coots for protesters that were still locked up after two years. And, and I don't know,

00:58:19.780 behold, it feels like that. And the decision on the emergency act, like the saying that it

00:58:29.480 was unconstitutional. Hmm. Those two things happened in the last two weeks. What happened just

00:58:36.020 now is that two of the members, uh, of coots are now, they're now let out and this is something

00:58:44.060 for plea deals, right? Yeah. And notably there, and you'll, you'll be able to expand more on

00:58:50.260 this because you follow this closer than I did, but the, the two, two of the four who have

00:58:54.980 been released, uh, have had their charge of conspiracy to commit murder against an RCMP

00:59:02.040 officer dropped. Yes. And that was the whole reason they were denied bail. Yeah. For two and

00:59:10.140 a half years or almost two and a half years. Yeah. More than two years. Uh, like seven,

00:59:15.280 no, sorry. It's not two and a half years. It's 700, 700 days or something. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

00:59:21.640 You're when you're into the hundreds of days, that's still a significant amount of time. And

00:59:26.900 apparently like roughly 60 days of solitary confinement as well, because there's issues.

00:59:35.020 Um, one thing to know is in Canada, if you're not convicted of something, you don't go to a normal

00:59:42.720 prison, you go to a remand center and you don't have full rights of a prisoner yet because you're

00:59:49.120 not fully convicted. And so there's, there's numerous accounts of, um, somebody awaiting a,

00:59:58.600 a sentencing going through the ringer and getting, being put through abuse. Um, and one example is

01:00:06.840 that that many days of solitary confinement partially happened because there was, I think

01:00:12.800 the members of the COOTS four, since they were all being trial tried, they could not be in the same

01:00:20.000 location. So I think they had to separate them and they use solitary confinement as a way of

01:00:25.220 separating some of them in prison because they could not have contact because they're worried about,

01:00:29.200 well, are they going to corroborate their cases or change their discussions? And so I guess the,

01:00:35.440 just a recap of the situation, trucker convoy happened in Ottawa, but you had the COOTS border or like

01:00:42.780 the COOTS town of COOTS, Alberta, Southern Alberta bordering on, uh, uh, Montana, Montana. Yeah. Um,

01:00:53.940 you had that blockade happening and right before the emergency act was implemented and when tensions were

01:01:04.680 high, all of a sudden RCMP found a weapons cache of all these assault weapons.

01:01:12.780 And they charged for these four, the COOTS four with conspiracy to commit murder or conspiracy to

01:01:21.540 murder police officers, police officers, which would be RCMP in this case. And that happened.

01:01:28.420 And it was referenced as the reasons, as justification of why the emergency act was necessary because of

01:01:35.580 this threat. Right. So that ties in.

01:01:38.560 All these, all these weapons were like found in, in, if I have the story right there,

01:01:41.920 found in like one truck too, right? I think they were found in like a shed miles away.

01:01:46.700 Oh, they weren't even, it's not like they were even right there at like at the border. Um,

01:01:55.000 so they were charged. The other thing on it is one of the vests in the pictures had a little patch,

01:02:04.020 a black patch, a black patch with a slash, a diagonal, a, a diagonal line.

01:02:12.780 I hope to God, Rachel Gilmore isn't listening to this podcast right now.

01:02:16.440 She could not, she could not even.

01:02:19.260 It's well, there you have the whole anti hate. That's another side of it is that they tied it to

01:02:24.900 diagonal line, which was listed as a alt-right extremist acceleration group, which is run by

01:02:33.960 Jeremy McKenzie. He's a podcaster and comedian. And you can see, he has episodes on how they

01:02:42.280 created diagonal or dial diagonal on, which is a make believe country. They, they decided it's a

01:02:50.600 meme. They looked during the lockdowns, they, they looked at, well, which provinces and which,

01:02:56.380 uh, which States had the least restrictions and were the most free. And they looked at Alaska and

01:03:05.000 like Alberta and then Montana and then like Texas and Florida and they made it, they made it like

01:03:11.940 the line line doesn't go straight down. It goes in a diagonal. Yeah. So they drew that he, he made,

01:03:19.060 like, he said he made the design for the logo by like an app on his iPhone. And he like dragged

01:03:25.300 his finger down to like draw a line on that. And that's the, the whole flake. And the vice president

01:03:32.360 of this fake camp, uh, country is a cocaine addicted goat named Phillip. So given this meme, the fact that

01:03:43.160 this got mentioned in the house of commons and the Senate as a existential threat, either means

01:03:51.400 our intelligence service, uh, they're completely corrupt or incompetent or both a little bit of

01:04:00.460 both. Yes. Yeah. A little column a little column B there, there have been some, some documents showing

01:04:06.260 that the anti, well, there's kind of a revolving door between anti-hate.ca that they will

01:04:13.580 kind of do a dossier. And then the government references or news organizations reference anti-hate,

01:04:20.620 which is funded by the government to, they look at alt-right extremists or they'll label people as

01:04:26.860 alt-right. And they, this is their whole thing. They're combating hate by singling out people that are

01:04:36.260 that are fascist. It's kind of, there's an overlap kind of with Antifa, but they're more of a formal

01:04:42.320 organization and it's worth us exploring that because there's some good, uh, exposés on what

01:04:50.420 documents and the corruption of this government funded group, which is then referenced by the

01:04:56.980 government as proof that these things exist. It is idea laundering and it is giving justification

01:05:03.580 for these actions. So the anti-hate was part of it. And then the government references the link to

01:05:12.680 Diagon because of these patches on, in this photo, the thing is the, the Coutts four, they were, uh,

01:05:20.340 charged, but not convicted with the, uh, conspiracy to murder police officers and denied bail for two

01:05:29.220 years. And one thing did happen. The defense did ask for a publication band. It wasn't the

01:05:35.820 prosecution. It was the defense because they wanted to prevent the media from just slandering

01:05:41.800 every little thing, but that didn't stop. That doesn't stop the media from talking about

01:05:46.820 why these four individuals were in jail for 700 days or more.

01:05:51.860 why the, like the process was taken so long. Um, yeah, well, we, we have in Canada, I mean,

01:06:00.900 I don't, I don't know that it's the same wording or the same, uh, um, you know, uh, privation of law,

01:06:10.920 if that's the term, uh, as the U S has, but, uh, look, we have the right to a speedy trial, right?

01:06:16.820 I mean, speedy trial is not two years with taking days to uncover one little envelope that doesn't

01:06:24.240 actually get anything. If, if you dive into the trial, there's been so much, just

01:06:30.460 so much waste of time. It is. Yeah. I need to interrupt you. Yeah. I just looked up privation

01:06:39.380 and that's not, that's not the word I meant. It's provision of law. Pardon me. Carry on good.

01:06:46.820 Good to clarify. So as it stands, you, this week, um, Chris Lysak and Jerry, Jerry Morin,

01:06:57.740 uh, they pleaded guilty to firearm charges. Yeah. It was like an unregistered handgun or something.

01:07:04.740 I think a improper storage of a handgun. Okay. And they pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to murder

01:07:12.260 police officers. That charge was withdrawn, wasn't it? Like it was just with, like it was dropped

01:07:16.740 completely. So, so I I'd love to know what the two years to, to drop a charge like that.

01:07:24.320 That's the thing is right now, what there needs to happen is there needs to be enough vocal public

01:07:30.360 awareness on this. And there needs to be an inquiry of what the hell's happened with this process.

01:07:36.280 Cause there's definitely some misconduct. Oh, for sure. In this process. And if you look at the

01:07:45.420 original kind of CBC article and the original description of this, and there's some summarizing

01:07:50.880 the initial part of the trial, um, apparently the, these four, like how to drink with an undercover

01:08:01.460 female police officer. And a conversation was heard of them talking about smuggling weapons.

01:08:08.840 It like across or like into the blockade. Now, like if they had physical evidence and recordings,

01:08:21.560 then yeah, they should have brought that up and that should have been dealt with right away.

01:08:25.700 But maybe, maybe there was something like they were making a joke or maybe they were,

01:08:30.760 maybe the female police officers like, Oh, so if you're going to, if somebody was to smuggle weapons

01:08:36.140 and how would you do it? Like kind of a leading question or it, it doesn't take much to imagine

01:08:44.000 a scenario of, well, you're, you're at a point where the Ottawa convoy has been there for weeks

01:08:49.640 and the government's looking at some way to get out of this. We have a history of RCMP scandals.

01:08:57.040 We know that they do think they do shady things from once in a while. They even sabotaged

01:09:04.000 excavators and some heavy equipment in coots. They damaged people's equipment to make it immobile

01:09:12.860 and unable to be used. And I think there's still like a lawsuit going on there. So we know they've

01:09:20.520 done shady things. And if they had material evidence, it would have been addressed and it would

01:09:25.340 have been dealt with. It would have been opened and shut with some, with a, with a, um, a heavy

01:09:31.180 charge like that. Right. Yeah. Like it, it shouldn't take two years to, to go through that

01:09:36.400 conveniently. The inquiry to the emergencies acts have, well, they happened before this trial has

01:09:47.020 got to this point. What it feels like is that this two-year delay is that you have this thing

01:09:53.880 that was used as a justification for the emergencies act and it's not resolved. Therefore it can still

01:09:59.320 be mentioned as a threat or an ongoing reason during that inquiry. If it was wrapped up before

01:10:05.880 the inquiry, you'd have other material evidence that would not be in the government's favor.

01:10:13.260 If, if the charges were solid, you think they would, they would have wrapped it up and it would

01:10:19.200 have been used as evidence in the emergency act commissions into the inquiry. They would have used

01:10:25.760 it then. So, well, and then, and another thing that this is a little bit unrelated, but to speak

01:10:30.720 to, uh, corruption in, in very, at the very least the media, but if not potentially some RCMP or, or

01:10:39.100 police sources, uh, they already tried before the coots for, they already tried to do that in Ottawa

01:10:46.280 during the protest. If you recall, there was the false, uh, story that was tweeted by, I think it was just

01:10:54.140 a private individual, but it was amplified and written about by Rachel Gilmore for global news,

01:10:59.800 the false arson attempt on that apartment, that residential apartment building in downtown Ottawa.

01:11:05.280 There was a story that was published and they, without any evidence linked, um, a very spurious story,

01:11:12.020 uh, of a attempted arson on a residential apartment building to the convoy, which was very,

01:11:20.520 very quickly, um, found to be complete nonsense, complete horseshit from the start. Um,

01:11:28.280 but what is the retraction was never, was never written by Gilmore.

01:11:31.700 What is the length of memory for the average person though?

01:11:36.100 So that that's the issue is even when retractions, well, you have, think of it this way,

01:11:44.700 you have loud headline and really, really quiet retraction. Yeah. So what's the net effect of

01:11:53.320 loudly proclaiming something? Yeah. Well, it had, it had the effect in, in, in the public anyway.

01:11:59.960 Like there are still, there are still people who believe that, uh, the, the convoy in Ottawa was

01:12:05.220 causing havoc in downtown Ottawa and, and accosting people. And there, there are still people who have

01:12:10.900 this idea. You mean the hundreds of hours of live stream footage hasn't convinced them otherwise?

01:12:16.600 That's what I always tell people when it comes up and they, and they still believe this is like,

01:12:19.960 you can, you can literally from half a dozen sources that I could point you to in, in 10 minutes,

01:12:26.020 you can literally watch the whole protest from start to finish all three weeks of it.

01:12:29.800 It was all live streamed. Multiple angles. All kinds of different people.

01:12:32.280 Multiple angles. It was all live streamed. The whole thing. There was not a single part of it that

01:12:36.340 wasn't on video and I don't know. Anyway, this, we could, we could go on all night about this.

01:12:43.960 We've been at this for 75 minutes, James. Yeah. The, uh, plus whatever amount of time we

01:12:51.520 ramped up and organized before we, uh, so good part of an hour. So yeah, the coots, uh, there's still

01:12:58.680 two in jail. Uh, but one of them have, uh, I think Anthony Olenek has a new lawyer and his trials

01:13:08.760 delayed until February 20th. So I'm not sure if you'll get the same kind of like small firearms

01:13:15.920 related charge, which, uh, it is worth saying that in Canada, there are so many rules and regulations

01:13:22.160 around firearms that it is not difficult to charge somebody with a firearms offense.

01:13:29.520 Yeah. It's not surprising. It's not as egregious as, as people think. Yeah. Yeah. People hear

01:13:34.440 firearms offense and they think, Oh, this, this guy is, you know, he's, he's, you know, he's a mule

01:13:40.120 for a, for a gang or whatever. Not the case. It's, it's very easy. If, uh, in fact, because of our

01:13:46.120 prime minister, if you happen to have a, uh, otherwise completely legal model of, uh,

01:13:52.140 shotgun for, uh, target shooting or for bird hunting, that happens to be the, the all black

01:13:58.060 version, well, then you're a criminal because the all black version that is in every way functionally

01:14:03.440 identical is a restricted firearm. And the, the camo version is not restricted. So our, our gun laws

01:14:09.260 are, are absolutely bonkers and it would not be surprising for any gun owner, uh, to be found,

01:14:14.700 uh, accidentally in contravention of some nonsense provision. Yeah. It seems like it's there to

01:14:21.600 be weaponized when it needs to be. And it is, yeah, no pun intended. It is worth noticing,

01:14:29.120 uh, noting that Chris Lysak, his improper storage of a handgun in that charge, it didn't say for a

01:14:38.200 criminal intent. So it could be just a civil, uh, that's the thing. If there was still this motivation

01:14:45.980 to cause harm and wreak havoc or conspiracy to murder a police officer, you think they would

01:14:52.060 tack that on to like, why, why is the charge just a random improper storage of a handgun? It's,

01:14:59.260 it's not even tied to any mischief or a misdemeanor activity or anything else like that.

01:15:07.340 Is it, is it right? I think I may have read this. Is it right that, um, with this plea deal that they

01:15:13.240 took as a, as a, because of that, they now have no legal recourse against the government? They can't,

01:15:20.260 they can't countersue, they can't. I don't know for sure. Um, I have a feeling that might be true. Um,

01:15:27.180 or you might have them, this, you, you have men who have spent 700 days in,

01:15:36.620 not ideal conditions and they're broken mentally at this point. Like they are morally. How could

01:15:43.720 you not be? You are morally broken. And I think this actually describes why they took a plea deal

01:15:52.040 to just a gun charge. And it doesn't sound like they, they don't have to serve any time because

01:15:57.720 the time spent in remand counts towards the charge and time in solitary has, it's even worth like 1.75 or

01:16:06.320 two times per day. So they get that towards whatever sentence they would have normally.

01:16:13.220 But if they're in, they're just wanting to see their families. And I think for them, they're,

01:16:19.680 they did a cost benefit analysis and they're like, well, we just want to see our children. We want to

01:16:24.360 get out and we're done with this and to fight it. Well, it could take another year and they could run

01:16:30.400 out of money and there's been all kinds of issues with funding and, uh, with lawyers. And there's

01:16:35.420 even some parasitic individuals like getting close to family members and trying to get access to

01:16:42.280 funding. And there's a whole clusterfuck and it's worth a greater exploration because, uh, there's a

01:16:49.140 lot of details there and a lot of the information is still not even clear. But, uh, the fact that two of

01:16:55.060 them are out is great. And I'll hopefully the other, the other two, uh, get out as well. And we'll,

01:17:00.260 we'll link, we'll link some individuals, I think, uh, or like some accounts to follow. Um, because

01:17:07.080 even like you, you had a couple independent, um, reporters following this. Um, you had Mocha

01:17:17.600 Bezergin, um, who was there almost for every important day of trial. Yeah. He's doing good

01:17:24.360 stuff. We should link to him in the comments. Yeah. You also, uh, Jason Levine, he was, uh,

01:17:29.580 following everything there as well. And he was reporting on some of the issues with the funding

01:17:35.580 and the crowdfunding for lawyers and those issues there. Uh, and it's also worth us exploring.

01:17:41.440 Um, right now, Ezra Levant of Rebel News is on a blocking spree, blocking a whole bunch

01:17:49.780 of individuals who called him out because he had a raise money for truckers. Um, well,

01:17:57.180 he had a page to raise money for the truckers in Coots and they're asking, well, where's

01:18:02.940 the money now? It seems like because of the severity of these charges, the conspiracy to

01:18:08.880 murder police officers, a lot of the, even the alternate, like alternative media did not

01:18:15.780 want to touch this. Yeah. They, everybody's distancing themselves. So if that's all that's

01:18:22.120 needed to create a chilling effect, this is going to be weaponized in the future that

01:18:25.600 for sure, these kinds of charges will reduce dissent because people will not want to protest

01:18:31.980 because they don't want a bogus charge. They don't want to, even if they're innocent,

01:18:35.500 they don't want to go through one or two years of legal fees and the process or be stuck in

01:18:42.100 purgatory without bail. Like they're, they're stuck in, in prison at this point. So it has a

01:18:49.280 cooling effect and there's a lot to unpack further with, with some of this because we are not in a

01:18:55.660 good place in Canada for this to, for this to happen. This should be all over the news. This is

01:19:02.620 not a part, part of partisan issue. No, this is, this is a country taking political prisoners,

01:19:07.940 which, which they've just admitted essentially. Cause they haven't, cause they, they dropped the,

01:19:12.540 they dropped the charge. The original charge was, yeah, it was dropped.

01:19:16.300 It's, it's not that it was like, I think that that needs to be hammered home a little bit because

01:19:20.260 it's not that it was, it's not that it was a charge that was legitimate, that was fought in a

01:19:25.900 court of law and found to be false. By dropping it, they've admitted that it was horseshit.

01:19:31.740 Yeah. A hundred percent.

01:19:33.560 So yeah, that's the, you know, that's Canada is a country that takes political prisoners now. So

01:19:39.500 we'll, uh, and it takes apparently the, uh, you know, if your, if your timeline is, uh, is what

01:19:45.080 actually happened here, it takes a, uh, a famous American media personality to, to mention it and

01:19:51.020 to become more widely known for, for some action to happen. The timing does seem rather convenient,

01:19:55.980 doesn't it? I think we should do a full, we should do a full episode deep dive into this,

01:20:00.580 I think. Yeah. I think there's, well, there's multiple facets of this whole situation. It's

01:20:08.160 hard to know exactly what, um, what started this, the, the change, cause this is all of a sudden,

01:20:13.980 but the correlation of both Daniel Smith and Tucker Carlson talking about this, I don't know,

01:20:20.500 that's, that's a lot of eyes on this issue that was muted for the longest time. It was,

01:20:25.760 it wasn't getting very much traction at all.

01:20:31.500 Well, yeah, been a crazy couple of weeks.

01:20:34.140 Yeah. And this, yeah, this, this was all in the last like 10 days. So that's, um, yeah,

01:20:40.420 that's some big shifts in, in, in the conversations.

01:20:43.640 Yeah. Yeah. And, and largely for the better, I think. So we'll, uh, we'll monitor these, uh,

01:20:50.500 these things and we'll, I'm sure we'll, we'll come up in conversation again and we'll do a little bit

01:20:55.020 more of a deep dive into, into Coots for sure in the future. And, uh, we'll see how that story

01:20:59.680 progresses with the remaining two. Uh, just a quick question. Do you know, uh, so the, the,

01:21:04.200 the third guy has gotten new representation, his trial is in a couple of weeks. Uh, do we know much

01:21:10.340 about the fourth guy, what's going on with him? Uh, I don't have that information. I'm not actually

01:21:17.120 quite sure. And also there's so little information on this and there is a lot behind a publication

01:21:23.420 band that, um, I, I don't know if all the, all, all the pieces are there yet, even, um, because of

01:21:33.460 how new, new this is. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we'll, we'll keep an eye on it. Yeah. And we'll, we'll link

01:21:39.740 to some, some good resources and people to follow and to stay on top of this. Yeah. Very good. Okay.

01:21:47.800 Awesome. Well, thanks James. Yeah. Good, uh, good dissection the last couple of weeks and good to

01:21:52.560 touch base on this. It's always a pleasure. All right. Till next time. All right. Cheers.

01:22:03.460 Cheers.

The Critical Compass Podcast - February 13, 2024

Danielle Smith, Transgenderism, & The Coutts Four ｜ A Critical Compass Discussion

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