Bigotry And A Bitter Comedian Target Trans People

Doug Berger 0:58
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Doug Berger 2:21
I’ve talked on several occasions about the supermajority that we have in the statehouse down in Columbus and how they’re using that supermajority to basically pass their extreme agenda, usually based in extremist Christian nationalist terms. You know, they continue to pass laws to try to block abortions. They’re trying to regulate abortion clinics out of out of the out of the state. And one of the byproducts of that is we just have some very religiously extreme conservative members of the legislators, legislatures, who have no obvious connection to the constituents, the all the constituents in their in their districts or in the state. And they just pass whatever it is that other extremist groups want them to pass. And you know, for example, just last week, two of our extreme members of the Ohio House introduced House Bill 454, which has the ridiculous name of Save Adolescents From Experimentation or SAFE Act. Essentially, this bill is meant to prevent teenagers, people that are under the age of 18, from receiving health treatments as they want to transition to another gender. Let’s say you have someone who’s biologically a male wants to transition to be a female. Usually what they do is they go to a doctor, they get checked out they go to a psychologist and get checked out and then they’re given what are called puberty blockers, puberty, puberty blockers and other hormones to start to transition. Well, this bill House Bill 454 is meant to totally prohibit anybody under the age of 18 from receiving any of that that kind of treatment in the state of Ohio. Even if you’re even if your parents are gender affirming and support you as you make your transition or as you want to make your transition. You they still will not be able to get that treatment for their son or daughter. In the state of Ohio, if this bill passes, what it does is it punishes doctors who provide transition help to teens. Basically, it attempts to take their license away. They call it unprofessional conduct, you know, which is odd because what doctors are meant to do is to provide comfort to people and to treat them for their, for their illnesses or for their maladies. And gender dysphoria is a malady. And so this bill would totally prevent that and punish the doctors who provide it. Hospitals would lose public funding, if they provide any transition care for teens. Any. And of course, they make a

Doug Berger 5:57
boilerplate exception for life or death issues, you know, or infections or things like that. But that’s not what they’re talking about that they’re they’re doing like they do this out of the playbook, the abortion regulations, the they over regulate abortion clinics as they threaten to take money away. Then the other thing that this bill would do, is it would compel public schools. I believe it just says public schools, such as guidance counselors, administrators, school nurses, would be required to tell parents if they were told by the kid that they are transgender. So a school would be forced to out a child to their parents, whether the child wanted them to or not. Now most people are like, well, what’s the problem with that? Well, most of the time, a parent is not going to be affirming of their gender choice. They bring up this in the article in the cleveland.com website brings up an incident back in 2018, where a teenager went to court to be awarded custody to their grandparents because the parents refused to get them gender transgender health care. In fact, they even sent the kid away to listen to Bible readings, or an obsessively long time, you know, kind of kind of similar to sending kids for trying to get the get changed their homosexuality, trying to make them straight, by reading the Bible’s something similar to that. And then the courts found that what the parents were doing were was abusive. And they did agree to award custody to the grandparents, and that child ended up getting the treatment that they wanted. And so this is just and this is a ridiculous bill. I mean, the title Save Adolescents From Experimentation. That’s it’s pretty much focused on extreme religious belief of what transgender is. You know, just like they don’t believe in homosexuality. They don’t believe that kids can be transgendered. And in fact, they think it’s a danger to kids. And a lot of this bill will show you and I wanted to show some clips from this bill. Some of the language because I read the bill. The first thing that you notice in this bill is it goes on for five or six pages, giving scientific evidence as to why this bill was needed. It doesn’t cite any of it sources, it just says it basically does the model of some people say, which is not a good thing. But anyway, so let me just share some of these clips here. For this, just, and we’ll take a look at this first one. And this one says “studies consistently demonstrate that the vast majority of children who are gender non conforming, are experienced distressed at identifying with their biological sex, come to identify with their biological sex and adolescence or adulthood, thereby rendering most medical health care intervention unnecessary.” Yeah, take that in for a moment. So basically, the people that wrote this bill, and I’ll get to that in a minute. Assume that for most kids, they’re flirtation with transgender is a phase that they’re going through. You know, again, that’s coming from the same mindset that we saw was how they treated homosexuality. You know, they just believe that kids are just just going through a phase, you know, they’ll they’ll snap out of it. So let’s continue. Here’s another one. I think it’s just the next segment. Alright, so this quote says “scientific studies show that individuals struggling with distress and identifying with their biological sex, often already experienced cite psychopathology, which indicates these individuals should be encouraged to seek mental health service care services, before undertaking any hormonal or suicide or surgical intervention.

Doug Berger 10:55
Suicide rates, psychiatric morbidities, and mortality rates remain markedly elevated above the background population, after inpatient gender reassignment procedures have been performed.” What I want to point out, is that surgical reassignment surgery is rarely if ever done on children. That isn’t, you know, that’s the end, the end goal for people that want to transition. That’s their, where they’re going to how they start is with puberty blockers and hormone therapy first, the only type of surgical interventions that are done on children at this time point may be that for females that want to transition to male, their, their breasts are removed, that’s about it. Anything else any changing of genitals, or, or whatnot, that is not ever done until they’ve taken these these hormones for a few years. And that they go through, it’s a process, they got to go through this process. And then they find a practitioner that will do the change. And usually that’s done after they’re over the age of 18. And when they’re adults, it’s the other thing, too, is the claim about suicidal rates and about mental health care. If you actually talk to people who have struggles with their gender, they are far more likely to commit suicide, when their choice or their need to change is not affirmed or treated. It’s not the other way around. It’s not the fact that they get treated, and they start to transition that that that they then kill themselves. So that does, the only time that that actually happens is when they’re being bullied or not supported at home, in their transition, or that they meet. You know, there’s quite a few stories in the media, about transgendered women who are being murdered. And these are adult women that are out out in public, living their lives, and they’re being murdered simply because they are transgendered women. And so this whole idea that if a kid starts going through training, starts taking these blockers and hormones that they’re going to want to commit. That’s just ludicrous. It’s not based on any of the science that’s available at this point. And then the next quote, of course, is it says, “No physician or other medical health care professional shall provide gender transition procedures to any person under 18 years of age. No physician, mental health provider or other medical health care professional shall refer any person under 18 years of age to any medical doctor for gender transition procedures.” So in the state of Ohio, you would not be able to get transition services and the doctor could not refer you to someone to do it. And so they try to address that concern I had with you about reassignment surgery very rarely happening with children. And they say “genital and non genital reassignment surgeries are generally not recommended for children, although evidence indicates referrals for children to have such surgeries are becoming more frequent.” The thing is, you know, the these medical professionals, they still have a procedure they work out the people that that work with transgendered youth. They work out a process, it’s an entire process. You have to be evaluated. You just can’t come in off the street and say, hey, I want to be a woman and start taking pills. And, and then next week, you know, they give you a vagina. Now, it doesn’t work like that. It’s never worked like that. But that’s what these extremists these Christian extremists, they just ignore. They ignored their unscientific look at this, you know, these are people that you’re dealing with, these are real people that you’re dealing with. And you’re trying to keep them from being the true self that they are simply because it doesn’t agree with your bigotry. You know, it has nothing to do with your religion, your religion, you get that’s a cop out.

Doug Berger 15:41
But I wanted to show you here, the people that wrote this, the two House members to introduce the bill is Gary Glick. Click sorry, Gary Click, who is a pastor, obviously, of a Baptist church in Fremont. And Diane Grendell, who is well known in this, this podcast, because she has had some ridiculously weird ideas about medicine, during a hearing about vaccine was a massive, yeah, I was masked mandates during a committee hearing about a proposed law to undo mask mandates and Pandemic public health orders. She said. And this is a quote, she said, “The Amish in our community, they don’t wear masks, she continued. They refuse to because they believe in God. They have, they have that faith in God. Initially, I think seven Amish died, and many of them were older and they have other problems. But now they don’t have it anymore. They’ve culled the herd so to speak.” So that’s what she said about the Amish. Now, what she said about the Amish and dealing with the the pandemic. Totally wrong, totally incorrect. The public health officials in the counties that have large Amish communities have said that they wear masks, they take care of dealing with the pandemic, based on the recommendations from the public health departments. You know, this is a Christian, a Christian extremist, making it up as she goes along. And she’s married to a judge. I don’t have his first name here. His last name is also Grendell. That used to also be in the State House, who wanted to order a contempt charge against a mother who had her son given a COVID shot. I’m sorry, COVID-19 testing. He told her not to do it. He said then it says from this this article, in the Ohio capital Journal says “Then on October 2, Grendell made an order that legal experts call and heard of, and medical experts say could cause harm. The judge banned two parents who were wrangling over custody of their young boys from having the children undergo COVID-19 testing without his approval.” And one of the boys had to go and get the medical treatment at a children’s hospital. And at the time, they did testing. And so they had the boy tested. And when Grendell found out he threatened to find the mother in contempt of court for getting her son medical treatment. But that’s the Grendell’s and they are not somebody who’s out to protect people’s health. Let’s put it that way. The other people that helped write this bill is the Family Research Council. They are labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. They are anti LGBTQ. And now I’ll show you a quote from one of their one of their members. says “People with gender dysphoria or transgender identities are more likely than the general public to engage in high risk behaviors, which may result from or contribute to psychological disorders or both. High rates of suicide exists even among those who have already received gender reassignment surgery, which suggests that suicidal tendencies result from an underlying pathology.” And that was from the Family Research Council senior fellow Peter Sprigg in a pamphlet called how to respond to the LGBT movement. So the Family Research Council, they’re also not looking to protect children’s health. They are looking to discriminate against LGBT people. And they are attempting to do it with unscientific facts. Another group that is helping write this bill is based in Cincinnati, and they’ve had a long history of religious extremism and trying to force people into their beliefs. And it’s the Center for Christian virtue. And it used to be called the

Doug Berger 20:45
citizens for community values. And back in the early 90s, there was a art exhibit of photos from Roger, Robert Mapplethorpe, and this group got the the Hamilton County prosecutor to indict the museum, and the museum director that was showing these pictures on obscenity charges and went to trial. They did a campaign a long campaign to to get the this exhibition, removed from city, Cincinnati, the museum and the director eventually won on First Amendment round rounds. And that’s the thing these Christian extremists are big on their own First Amendment, but they would rather trample on your first amendment rights in order to do it. And then this group, the Center for Christian Virtue is led by a man named Aaron Baer. I think I’m pronouncing that right. I really don’t care. And he had this to say about House Bill 454. “Aaron Baer, president of the senate Center for Christian virtue, and Christian conservative policy organization, formerly known as citizens for community values, said that his group has championed the bill in Ohio and helped draft HB 454. It contains the same provisions as the Arkansas bill, which the Family Research Council and the Alliance Defending Freedom helped author.” So the group that’s not championing this bill that’s fighting against this bill is Equality Ohio, and their public policy director Maria Bruno had this to say, “Maria Bruno Equality Ohio’s public policy director, said it’s appalling to see Ohio children being used as political pawns by lawmakers seeking reelection. This bill attempts to ban evidence based medical treatment that is supported by medical professionals including but not limited to the American Academy of Pediatricians, the Endocrine society, and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the American Psychiatric Association.” So basically, what you have is you have a bunch of Christian extremists that are trying to force their particular belief. And, and to put in perspective, they are trying to prevent other parents are making the choice to support and affirm their transgender child. Because if this law goes into effect, other parents who don’t have a problem with their child getting treatment would not will not be able to. And is that really fair? Is it fair for this, these Christian extremists to make it so that other parents cannot take care of their children in the way they see fit? That’s something to think about.

Doug Berger 23:57
For more information about any of the topics covered in this episode, check out our show notes at secularleft.us.

Doug Berger 24:12
We found out earlier this month that Dave Chappelle had another comedy special come out on Netflix. It was the fifth of six or six. He’s done quite a few specials on Netflix recently. He had a falling out with them a year or so ago when he refused to let them run his old show. And then they worked it out and he had some men he did some specials. The last couple specials though. Dave has not been very funny. In fact, he’s had kind of a thin skin about criticism he’s taken for people that he’s made fun of people that he joked against that include LGBT people, trans people, things like that. And so he decided to take the opportunity to, in this special to address his critics, which is never good for a comedian, it really isn’t. Because you’re not going to, you’re not going to change any, any minds. And you’re going to it’s like the Streisand effect, you’re going to draw attention to the stuff that that that you did. And so basically, in general, he’s gotten a lot of pushback on this special than particular, one, because it was transphobic. He talked, did a lot of negative jokes about transgender people. And an LGBT as well. He just rehashed some right wing talking points. He seemed more concerned by critics instead of the, the, by his critics than he had by the trans folk that also criticized him. And he used the classic, I can’t be x because I have a friend who is x argument to justify his jokes against the LGBT community. And he said that he could not be transphobic, because a friend of his somebody that been on tour with him before and open for him one time and was good friends with him, transgendered woman, they were good friends, and he’s like, I can’t be transphobic, because I have this friend. Of course, we he, and he mentioned this in a special, but his friend committed suicide not long ago. And in that is generally for transgender people, they tend to have higher rates of suicide, and also higher rates of violence done to them, etc. Because people will just have so much trouble with people wanting to be who they are. And so they had they have this problem, you know, they are more likely to commit suicide. So his friends committed suicide and in his special, he infers that the woke mob. That was not her tribe, as the words the kind of the words that he used caused this woman to commit suicide. And, and she did receive a lot of criticism for supporting Dave, in much the same way that, you know, black artists receive criticism for supporting white supremacy, by not criticizing somebody that they’re working for. It’s classic example. Now, there’s nothing there’s no evidence that, that she was bullied by other transgendered people. And that made her commit suicide. And there could have been other issues, but the fact that he inferred that it was people that were her tribe, it’s just ludicrous. It just ludicrous on the surface. Now, I am not going to play clips of his special one is, you know, I don’t want to amplify what he says. Also, I think there’s gonna be a copyright issue. So if I played a clip, it would probably be flagged by YouTube, you know, I put these videos up on YouTube. I don’t want to do that. So what I did was, I found a transcript. Now I watched the special and I thought about like, recording it and doing a transcription myself, but somebody did a transcript. And I verified that the transcript is pretty much spot on to what was on the screen.

Doug Berger 29:07
And I even went back and looked compared. There’s a couple couple clips that I want to share with you at this time.

Doug Berger 29:21
All right. And this one I’ll kind of read it. I won’t. I don’t do impressions. But I’ll just read it says “This is my last special because I have an objective tonight. I came here tonight because of this body of work that I’ve done on Netflix. I’m going to complete all the questions you might have had about all these jokes that I’ve said in the last few years I hope to answer tonight. And I would like to start by addressing the LBGTQ community correct. And I want every member of the community to know that I’ve come here tonight in peace, and I hope to negotiate the release of the DaBaby. Sad story to DaBaby was the number one streaming artist till about a couple of weeks ago, took a nasty spill on stage and said some said some wild stuff about the LGBTQ community during a concert in Florida. Now, you know, I go hard in the paint, but even I saw that shit was like god damn DaBaby. He pushed the button didn’t he. He pushed the button, punch the LGBT community right in the AIDS.” He was making a good point, talking about the DaBaby. And then he said punching the community right in the AIDS. That’s not funny. I don’t care who you are. That is not funny. It might have been funny when I was 12. Back when a lot of people thought AIDS was funny, and it was just a gay disease. It’s not funny now. And then, the other clip that I wanted to share. “And the dude was shocked that I said it. He said, huh, and when he did like this, I’ve seen all his fingernails is painted. And I realized like, oh, this fella is gay. Yeah, you know how I talk. I call everybody a bitch ass n-word. You know what I mean? But that is not a right thing to do. If you’re gay if they’re gay. You know what I mean? And now I was in trouble. Not only that, the motherfucker was huge. He stood up, he was towering over me must have been about six, five, a big white cornfed, Texas homosexual. This n-word was ready to fight. And he started barking at me. But I stood my ground. I wasn’t scared. How could I be scared this motherfucker shirt was tied up in a knot like this. Oh, fuck this guy. Let’s go. Let’s go. I thought we were going to come to blows I was ready. And then right? When you think we would fight guess what he did. He picked up his phone, and he called the police. And this, this thing that I’m describing is a major issue that I have with that community. Gay people are minorities until they need to be white again.” So essentially, he’s complaining that he almost got into a fight with a gay man. And that the gay man then called the police. And he tried to equate that with the, what is termed as the “Karens”, the that we’ve witnessed in the past few years, who’ve called the police on black people for being black. This isn’t exactly the same thing. But, you know, this is the inference that he’s making. And one of the criticisms that he got for saying that particular line was that he sort of ignored that there are black LGBT people. And so he’s just assuming that they’re white, because that’s the only people that he’s ever dealt with. So basically, you know, his special, he wasn’t funny. And as I said, Before, he was thin skinned, and that he was addressing he was addressing his detractors, rather than trying to make up point or whatever. And, and, of course, all the usual people, you know, came to his defense Bill Maher, and what in his recent episode was bitching about, cancel culture and Dave wasn’t cancelled. There’s been a lot of criticism about his special and about him in general, and about his views towards the LGBT community. But he hasn’t been canceled. You know, I like he said, when he had his little dust up with Netflix over the rights to his show. He had already had been paid for those shows. Yeah, so it wasn’t doing him any It wasn’t bad for him not to have those shows on the network. The thing with the specials, you know, yeah, we could want Netflix to pull the specials, but Dave’s been paid.

Doug Berger 33:58
You know, and he’s gonna be okay. He’s got a comedy club set to open in Yellow Springs. Which is like the liberal Ultra liberal capital of Ohio. It’s where Antioch University I don’t know if they’re still in business or not, but Antioch college. That’s how Dave Chappelle became associated with Yellow Springs, his his parents worked at Antioch college or university. I forget what they call it now. So, so he’s gonna be okay. He’s not gonna. He’s not going to lose sleep. He’s gonna He’s gonna make the same tire jokes again. It’s it’s weird, because, you know, I like Dave. I liked his old show. I’m glad that still on Netflix. So, just, you know, flip that on and watch. Watch some actual comedy for once. Yeah, I just don’t like old older rich men. You know, complaining about people complaining about them. not being funny. I just, it’s just not entertainment for me. It was not entertaining watching this special. There was many times I wanted to get bail, but but then you get those detractors saying when you go to watch it, you could criticize if you haven’t watched it, which is true. Even though there’s been some people that have criticized the special who I trust, but I did I watched it. But, you know, when this whole thing happened, I wrote on Facebook, I just kind of want to read what I wrote on Facebook about this. I said, Okay, here’s my two cents about Dave’s special. He was being very transphobic and not funny at all. He sounded like a bitter old man who can’t call people names anymore. I like Dave’s comedy, but lately he has become mean and bitter to people who are marginalized in this world today. He even dead named Caitlyn Jenner. And I forgot I forgot to mention that. Yeah, he did dead name Caitlyn Jenner, who he considers a friend and saying you can’t be transphobic because you have a trans friend is the same lame excuse white people make when they say they can’t be racist because they have black friends. It even shows his ironic disconnect, because his trans friend committed suicide. But he was more concerned about the woke mob complaining about his jokes. And so it’s just very disappointing that a good comedian like Dave Chappelle, who’s who’s made some he’s done some, you know, edgy stuff in the past, that he would just do this tired trope of trying to pretend like he’s Joe Rogan. You know, I don’t know why he wants to do that. You know, it’s just seems like that, you know, that’s the other part of it is he like, thinks he has to be a man. He has to defend his manhood against these homosexuals. And that’s not funny. That’s not comedy. And it’s comedy for 12 year olds in elementary school, who don’t know any better. It’s not comedy for adults. So I’m just very disappointed in him. And I hope he does better in the future. I hope he, I hope he turns it around. And he doesn’t become like, well, Dennis Miller, actually as turned around, but Dennis Miller became a bitter old man and ended up on conservative television. So hopefully that doesn’t happen today, but probably won’t. But hopefully he’ll do better in the future.

Doug Berger 37:44
This is secular left.

Doug Berger 37:53
There are three violations of the First Amendment that really bothered me. The first is if you have a Nativity scene on a courthouse lawn, or a 10 commandments monument, on the courthouse lawn or in schools, or Jesus portraits in school. That bothers me. The other one that bothers me is the National Day of Prayer, which is in May. So I don’t believe that the government should be sponsoring a day of prayer. The third one that’s even more prickly to me is the National Prayer Breakfast, which takes place usually in February. It’s supposed to be sponsored by a group called the Fellowship Foundation. And it’s part of what they call to Christian group called the Family made up of congressmen and senators that are relatively religiously conservative. One person that was part of the family was former Vice President Mike Pence. When he was in Congress. He was part of the family. Well, they’ve been having trouble with money for some reason. I don’t know why. But they needed funds to put on the prayer breakfast, I think usually, it’s because they couldn’t put it on in person. And they charge money for tickets. And so they needed help. So they had a secret benefactor secret in that they didn’t have a press conference or or hand out a press release. If you went into the IRS documentation for the groups, you would know that this person was the funder. So drumroll, please, . Franklin Graham of the Billy Graham Evangelical Association. And Samaritan’s Purse Samaritan’s Purse is a disaster recovery operation where they fly into places that have been messed up because of storms or fires or earthquakes or whatever, and they try to help people. And so they’ve massively funded the Prayer Breakfast. To the article that I saw that they he’s donated at least $100,000. And the documents that the Young Turks, they’re the ones that uncovered this show that Graham and his nonprofit organizations have been allowed to invite guests to the annual breakfast, which is billed as a convening of global leaders. Graham’s guests range from his family members, to an anti LGBTQ cause célèbre to lobbyists and fundraisers from his charities. And so, I mean, that’s the big thing is that the breakfast which purports to be run by Congress also discriminates against LGBTQ people, and largely excluding LGBTQ leaders and activists and serving as a hub and spawning ground for global right wing networks opposed to abortion and LGBTQ rights. Now, with the new administration, with Biden, in the administration, you would have thought that maybe this would be not focused on or he wouldn’t attend. Now. He attended this year. President Biden, it was a virtual, so he did it by video. And if that’s the case, because, you know, Biden is a flaming Catholic, I mean, he’s very devout. He used to be anti abortion. Now that he’s president, and he ran on progressive ideals, he’s less anti abortion, at least, publicly, I’m sure he doesn’t like it personally. But he’s not going to pass encourage laws be passed to stop women from to being able to choose. So Billy Billy Graham’s organization, Franklin Graham, it runs, you know, provides information, you know, provided funding for this. And while the some of our secular leadership such as Rachel Laser at Americans United and and in Annie Laurie Gaylor have been quick to

Doug Berger 42:22
look favorably on Biden, because he’s not as extreme and religiously extreme. They will are disappointed though, that he continued with the breakfast. And I have a quote here I wanted to share with you this is from Rob Boston, who’s a works for Americans United, and does a lot of their media stuff, and just kind of wanted to share this quote. So it says “As anticipated, secular groups continue to express concern over the religious rhetoric used during this years in NPB. With repeated calls to end this annual tradition that promotes and politicizes a version of Christianity. That’s the other thing is they exclude non Christian religions from this prayer breakfast. Meanwhile, the United States continues to become increasingly plural, plural pluralistic, with Nones representing the largest religious voting bloc in the United States.” And more than 22%, I believe, but at the current rate, “Rob Boston of Americans United for Separation of Church and State opines, while it was a relief this year not to see the breakfast descend into the kind of embarrassment it often was during the Trump years. That hardly means the event is worth saving this year ought to be its last.” And I definitely agree with Rob the, the government should not be sponsoring it, they shouldn’t be lending their name to something like a National Prayer Breakfast if If faith leaders want to have it. That’s fine. But politicians really need don’t need to show up. The President doesn’t need to give a speech. He doesn’t give a speech to Americans United their convention. And there was also the problem that that he’s less likely to mention non believers. Somebody that was doing the introductions mentioned non believers this year, but usually it doesn’t happen. So basically, I just want to bring this up that Franklin Graham’s group, bankrolled this breakfast, and his group is anti LGBT. And I just think it’s bad a bad optics for the president United States, who supposedly is a friend of secular Americans to be participating in something that is sponsored by a group that hates gay people. And so, you know, contact your elected officials and contact the president and let them know that he should not be participating in these things when when it has sponsors that are so that are so terrible.

Doug Berger 45:18
Thank you for listening to this episode. You can check out more information, including links to sources used in our show notes on our website at secularleft.us. Secular left is hosted, written and produced by Doug Berger, and he is solely responsible for the content. Send us your comments, either using the contact form on the website or by sending us a note at comments-at-secularleft.us Our theme music is “Dank and Nasty” composed using Ampify Studio See you next time