Author, political commentator, podcaster, and documentary filmmaker, Matt Walsh, recently testified before a Tennessee House of Representatives’ Health Committee about whether or not 16-year-old kids are capable of making adult decisions with respect to life-changing surgeries. Walsh was accused by his Democrat questioners of saying that 16-year-olds should marry and that 16-year-old girls should get pregnant. Walsh acknowledged the attack and calmly explained that the remark was an observation he had made many years ago on his radio show about how, historically, people married at young ages.

After correcting his questioner [Rep. Caleb Hemmer, D-Nashville] and not about to be bullied, Walsh continued: “People are considered adults at 18, but their brains are not fully developed until they’re 25, so we should be considering whether we should be doing these surgeries to people at 18. But certainly before 18 it shouldn’t be considered.” He then pointedly asked: “Do you think that 16-year-olds could meaningfully consent to having their body parts removed?” An awkward silence followed his question, then Hemmer haltingly informed Walsh that “We ask the questions.”

A video clip of Walsh’s testimony was posted on Twitter with the descriptor: “Watch @MattWalshBlog paralyze a house full of Democrats into 12 seconds of absolute stunned silence with this simple question.” The clip prompted a flurry of comments. One user responded: “Awkward silence to a very simple question that any rational person would answer NO to, followed by [the] stuttering response of ‘We ask the questions’ tells you everything you need to know. Dems have been hijacked by extremists & are afraid to speak honestly about important topics.”

Another user said Walsh deserves “a medal,” while still another mimicked: “We ask the questions. In other words, ‘shut up, you’re revealing our evil agenda.’”

Common-sense research

On February 8, The Epoch Times reported that “a leading Finnish pediatric gender expert” is speaking out against transgender therapies being pushed on children. The expert, Dr. Riittakerttu Kaltiala, chief psychiatrist at Finland’s Tampere University’s department of adolescent psychiatry, explained that “some children will strongly identify with the opposite gender at some point in their lives,” but that “four out of five will feel differently about the matter once they hit adolescence.”

Kaltiala cited the fact that “there has been a tenfold increase in the number of children with ‘gender identity’ issues since 2015, most of whom are teenage girls.” This sounds familiar because it mimics the same type of herd mentality that whistleblower Jamie Reed observed (see Prevail or Fail in this issue).

Dr. Kaltiala dismisses claims by the pro-transition crowd that children who express gender confusion are more likely to commit suicide and therefore must be given treatment. Such claims are “purposeful disinformation,” she asserts, “and shouldn’t be spread.”

In fact, new studies conducted in both Finland and Sweden show that “the mental health among minors who received hormone treatments deteriorated following intervention” and that “suicide mortality” increased among adults who had subjected themselves to sex-change procedures.” [Emphasis added.]

Leor Sapir, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, used Kaltiala’s interview and the related European studies to highlight “how out of step the U.S. medical establishment is with its European counterparts on pediatric gender medicine. Doctors and medical groups in Finland have been willing and able to stand up to activists, including within their own ranks,” he said.

Pointing to these same studies, Phyllis Schlafly Eagles President Ed Martin stated the obvious in a press release: “Even a quick look at new research offers a scathing indictment of the American medical community,” Martin wrote. “They certainly aren't ‘following science,’ but instead are making up political and cultural answers for manufactured problems. It goes against the very core of our national values and the thousands-of-years-old Hippocratic traditions in medicine.

“Many of Dr. Kaltiala's conclusions are scathing indictments of the rampant gender ideology cult in America,” Martin continued. “She found that legal or social ‘interventions’ in the child's life to reinforce a supposed gender change cause an incredible amount of harm. Basically, she says, it becomes a case of the adults telling children ‘this is the right path for you.’ This resulted in major mental health problems for young people, far more than any problems that stemmed from the original gender dysphoric condition.”

Martin urges that America “Pump the brakes. We have to stop the stealing of our children by a radical gender ideology... The quacks pushing this on our nation are revolutionaries, bent on destroying our future generations. There are still honest researchers trying to catch up with the trail of devastation being forced on our kids, and they need all of us to help spread the word.”

UPDATE: On February 23, Matt Walsh tweeted that the Tennessee legislature “has now passed the bill banning child mutilation in the state. We’re fighting. We’re winning. And we aren’t even close to done.”

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