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Tennessee Democrats Debate Conservative Podcaster About Children’s Sex-Changes

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Tennessee Democrats Debate Conservative Podcaster About Children’s Sex-Changes
Conservative podcast host Matt Walsh speaks at War Memorial Plaza during the “Rally to End Child Mutilation” Oct. 21, 2022, in Nashville, Tenn. Bobby Sanchez for The Epoch Times
By Jackson Elliott
2/14/2023Updated: 2/14/2023
0:00

Conservative political commentator Matt Walsh has escalated his efforts to call attention to child sex-change surgery, sparring with Tennessee lawmakers about a proposed bill.

Walsh’s appearance before the Tennessee Legislature marks the latest advance in a crusade that began when he discovered that Vanderbilt University was performing sex-change operations on minors.
On Feb. 7, he spoke in favor of the proposed House Bill 0001, which would ban gender-transition surgery for anyone under 18.

If it becomes law, it would forbid use of drugs and surgeries to help boys take on characteristics of girls, and help girls take on the appearance of boys.

Protestors yell at supporters of Matt Walsh at The Daily Wire’s "Rally to End Child Mutilation" on Oct. 21, 2022 in Nashville, Tenn. (Bobby Sanchez for The Epoch Times)
Protestors yell at supporters of Matt Walsh at The Daily Wire’s "Rally to End Child Mutilation" on Oct. 21, 2022 in Nashville, Tenn. Bobby Sanchez for The Epoch Times

“We should be able to agree that children do not have the physical, emotional, or mental capacity to protect themselves or to make life-altering decisions,” the Daily Wire podcast host said as he testified before legislators.

“We should be able to agree that it’s never okay to chemically castrate, sterilize, butcher, or mutilate a child.”

Walsh, a father of six, got into the Tennessee fight when he used his podcast, “The Matt Walsh Show,” to call attention to Vanderbilt’s practice of performing mastectomies on young girls.

He was prompted to act after seeing a video showing a hospital official praising the profitability of the procedure.

In October 2022, Walsh led a “Rally to End Child Mutilation” in Nashville.

Walsh also wrote “Johnny the Walrus,” a book in which a boy pretending to be a walrus gets pressured by his liberal mom, doctor, and “internet people” to eat worms and surgically replace his limbs with fins.

The book became Amazon’s best-selling transgender children’s book before the corporation recategorized it.

Leveling Attacks

During his testimony before the legislature, Democratic lawmakers questioned Walsh’s credentials and quoted his old posts on Twitter.

Though he has no medical expertise and didn’t attend college, anyone can see that the permanent surgical mutilation of a child is wrong, Walsh told lawmakers.

“I’m a human being with a brain and common sense, and I have a soul,” Walsh said, when they belittled his lack of credentials. “And so, therefore, I think it’s a really bad idea to chemically castrate children.”

Studies by groups such as the World Professional Association of Transgender Health, which supports transgenderism, show sex-change medications don’t stop suicides, he noted.

“They commissioned a study to try to prove that hormones and puberty blockers decreased suicide rates among trans-identified youth,” Walsh said. “And even in their own study, they found that they couldn’t prove it.”

State Rep. John Ray Clemmons, a Democrat, asked Walsh if he was testifying about child sex-change surgery to get “clicks” to boost his livelihood in media.

Walsh retorted by asking Clemmons if he was asking questions to get “clicks” from his supporters.

“I really like the idea of drawing attention to the fact that this is happening to children,” Walsh said to the representative. “I know you seem to find it very amusing. I don’t.”

Clemmons accused Walsh of making “misrepresentations,” but didn’t name anything specific.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., is pictured on July 16, 2013. (Mark Humphrey/AP Photo)
Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., is pictured on July 16, 2013. Mark Humphrey/AP Photo

In response to Walsh’s assertions that child sex-change surgeries should end, Democrat Rep. Caleb Hemmer grilled him about statements he'd made years earlier. Walsh had spoken about the historical trend of married teens starting families.

Left-wing fact-checking site Media Matters published a story about Walsh’s statements and linking to recordings of a 2011 radio show recorded before he joined The Daily Wire.

“At about 16, you’re an adult who is mature and can make decisions—you are that at 16,” Walsh said in the 12-year-old broadcast. “I don’t care what anybody says. And if you’re going to tell me it’s different, well, then how come for the first 10,000 years of human civilization, that’s the way it was?”

Walsh said the 2011 statement had been taken out of context.

“Do you think that a 16-year-old can meaningfully consent to having their body parts removed?” Walsh asked Hemmer.

A period of silence followed.

“We ask the questions,” Hemmer finally responded.

Rep. Bo Mitchell, another Democrat, said he dismissed Walsh’s opinions because he'd praised Singapore’s justice system in a post on Twitter.

“Singapore is able to have nice things, in part because they execute drug dealers by hanging, and arrest even petty vandals and thieves and beat them with a cane until they bleed,” Walsh wrote.

“We don’t have nice things here because we aren’t willing to do what is required to maintain them.”

Singapore is the world’s 11th-safest country, according to the 2021 Global Peace Index. The United States ranks as the world’s 122nd-safest country.
“With statements like that, I kind of have to question your public policy beliefs,” Mitchell said.

Surgery and Suicide Risk

Transgender activists often say children who aren’t allowed to have sex-change surgery are more likely to kill themselves.

Walsh disagreed with that assertion. And Mitchell objected, saying a University of Pittsburgh study showed transgender-identifying children commit suicide more often than non-transgender children.

But the study doesn’t mention sex-change surgery.

“I think, you know, before you state things, you may need to know all the facts,” Mitchell told Walsh.

Walsh didn’t get a chance to respond.

Prisha Mosley, who had both of her breasts removed when she believed she was trying to live as a man, now hopes to receive reconstructive surgery. (Courtesy of Independent Women’s Forum)
Prisha Mosley, who had both of her breasts removed when she believed she was trying to live as a man, now hopes to receive reconstructive surgery. Courtesy of Independent Women’s Forum

Mitchell said he didn’t think child sex-change surgeries were happening in Tennessee.

Walsh cited materials he'd found on Vanderbilt University’s website.

“The health care providers’ own words outline Vanderbilt Health and their transgender care program, and the people that work for that program,” Walsh testified.

“Double mastectomies do happen. And the way that I know that they happen is that after I called attention to this program at Vanderbilt, they said that they were going to stop performing, they were gonna put a pause on the program that performs these surgeries on minors.”

Possible Penalties for Performing Procedures

If the ban on children’s sex-change surgeries passes, medical institutions could face fines of $25,000 per procedure. And profits from those procedures could be confiscated.

It also lets affected minors sue the doctors and parents responsible for their sex-change procedures.

Minors would receive no penalty for getting a sex change.

A person holds a transgender flag at Washington Square Park in New York on Oct. 21, 2018. (Yana Paskova/Getty Images)
A person holds a transgender flag at Washington Square Park in New York on Oct. 21, 2018. Yana Paskova/Getty Images

It’s likely the bill will pass Tennessee’s Republican-controlled government.

Across America, the movement to ban sex-change surgeries for children is accelerating. Oklahoma has a bill that proposes ending the practice. Utah already has outlawed child sex-change surgeries.

In Florida, the state Board of Medicine and Board of Osteopathic Medicine barred doctors from prescribing hormones to children identifying as transgender hormones or performing surgeries on them to treat gender dysphoria.

Jackson Elliott
Jackson Elliott
Author
Jackson Elliott is a former reporter for The Epoch Times.
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