You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist

183. Elspeth Cypher
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[00:00:00] Speaker: There's no recognition of the female prisoners, and that's what we're complaining about. They've never had a voice in this. All anybody's worried about is what's gonna happen to these men when they go to the male prison. However, the briefs that the government has put together, which the Trump administration did bidens, would not include these numbers, I'm sure, show that there are at least 1500 if not more, trans identifying prisoners then who don't want to move out of the male prison.

And the rape statistics are low in the male prisons now 'cause they've done [00:00:30] so much work It, what my friend Rhonda tells me is they like being in the men's prison, they're not abused and they have boyfriends. So you get the gay ones staying in the male prison, but you get the heterosexual ones wanting to go to the women's prison.

And then you can see that they have committed crimes in prison against women.

[00:00:49] Speaker 2: You must be some kind of therapist

[00:00:55] Speaker 3: today. My guest is Elspeth Cipher. She is a retired judge. [00:01:00] And the board Secretary for the Women's Liberation Front, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization dedicated to restoring, protecting and advocating for the rights of women and girls using legal argument, policy advocacy, and public education. She's also a member of the nonpartisan Gender Critical Law Society.

Today we're gonna talk about what she's doing with these organizations to stand up for women and girls. El Beth, welcome. Great to have you.

[00:01:26] Speaker: Thank you very much. It's terrific to be here. I've listened to [00:01:30] almost all of your podcasts, I think. Oh wow. It's really, I think I still have a few in the back, you know?

Well,

[00:01:36] Speaker 3: I didn't know that. I, yeah, like

[00:01:38] Speaker: I love your, I love your show, so,

[00:01:40] Speaker 3: oh, thanks so much. Yeah. So for, for listeners context, I've known Elba for a little while 'cause she's a friend of Derek Jensen. And asked for an introduction and has, has been really helpful to me just as a personal friend. So I'm glad to have you on the podcast today and your wealth of wisdom about the legal system.

Thank you.

[00:01:58] Speaker: So what do you wanna know?

[00:01:59] Speaker 3: [00:02:00] Well, so we're gonna talk about what you're doing with Wolf. We were just having a little chat behind the scenes about what Wolf is currently working on and what you would be working on if you didn't have to spend so much time working on those things. But I will say, to kind of frame up the issue that I have not gotten around to addressing the issue of men and women's prisons, if you can believe that like after 170 something episodes of this podcast somehow have not gotten around to that issue.

I talk about all things related to the gender wars on this [00:02:30] podcast, so that's kind of surprising. It's just kind of worked out that way. So I'm, I'm glad to have you talking about that. Is at least part of what you're doing with Wolf. Maybe we should start off though, by just understanding what, what Wolf is and its its mission.

[00:02:43] Speaker: Sure. So Wolf was founded about 14 years ago by Lear Keith when she saw that there was a severe need. For women, a women's organization that would focus on women. The major legacy organizations such as [00:03:00] now and the A CLU have all turned away from women and not prioritized or centered them or even many times admitting they, they might not even admit they know what one is.

So seeing that she did found this organization, and as I said, we're nonpartisan. We do not go with the left. We do not go with the right, we don't even necessarily go with the center. We are focused on the issues that we believe affect women the most. And [00:03:30] it is called radical feminism, which scares away a lot of people.

And I distinguish it from what we have now in charge, which is liberal feminism, which is, has helped bring us the, the transgender complexities. And because we're radical just means going to the root. And so we believe that at the root of women's problems, it is a biological issue. It's a [00:04:00] material world issue.

And that basically because of our biology, which includes our capacity to reproduce our availability for sex or not availability for sex women, you know, rape gets, can be there too. And the fact that men are stronger, bigger, and that we're at a disadvantage, a severe disadvantage in terms of taking care of ourselves and our children in the world.

And we've seen [00:04:30] lately a lot of women's ranks that women thought they had secured go away. So we're working on that from a radical feminist perspective. And I don't think that people should be scared of that word, because really it's the kind of feminism that I think we need now because we're moving into such a different kind of world where everything seems really focused on what's internal in your head and in cyberspace.

But women, you [00:05:00] know, we are, we are grounded in material reality. We can't help it. And so I think it's, I think it's very important for that reason. The debt, the, we have been focusing a lot lately on gender identity because that is the issue of the day and it is the one that is giving women and girls the most problems in many different areas.

And it is also I think an existential threat to woman because if you can [00:05:30] define woman as anybody. Who feels like one or has had certain operations, then the class of women is gone. That no, it's already erased. And if you study women's history, you see that women were very much erased. Not they were silenced, they couldn't own property.

We can go on and on with that, but so because of that, we, we have been focusing on that issue. So if we don't win that [00:06:00] issue, if we don't win our sex class, then we don't, we don't exist in any special way or in any way we need to or legally anyway. And so if we weren't focusing on that, we would be focusing on women's reproductive rights.

We would be focusing on women's sovereignty as a being that is fully capable of making her own decisions. We would be focused on anything that would use a woman's body as a [00:06:30] commodity. Such as prostitution or rape as well as some of the commercial surrogacy activities where, where women are basically bought and not with, and, and we're not even talking at this point about what, what effect it has on children.

So we're very much grounded in the material world and rights were women. And recently what, well, recently, I mean, I joined Wolf in 2024 after I retired from the [00:07:00] court. And we've been writing amicus briefs to, and a lot to the Supreme Court, which, which is new for us. We wrote an amicus brief in Tennessee versus Retti, or Retti versus Tennessee, whichever way it goes.

And we wrote a, an amicus brief in, a case involving governor Paxton where he was, they had passed age verification laws for computer pornography, so that if you wanted to watch pornography on a computer, you had to prove your age because so many children [00:07:30] are able to get into these sites. And we, you know, there's a joke that, you know, today's pornography is not your grandfather or your father's pornography.

And that is really true. I, I think we would believe that at certain points you are actually watching a crime being committed and watching it for entertainment at that point, people are making money on it. So yeah, we would be working on that. And so we did do that. We worked on that. We also filed a, an a, a brief in the [00:08:00] Mahmud case, which was about some parents who wanted to opt out on the grounds of religion from having their child taught about gender identity as a fact.

You know, this is. Just something. And then it starts. The books were offensive in many ways, and it gets portrayed as banning books, but it's not, they're not banned. They end up segregated or you or parent has to give permission to see them. But it just [00:08:30] is so destabilizing to a young person to be told that they can change their gender or they, they were born in the wrong body.

And the born in the wrong body resonates a lot with many religious, many different religions because they don't believe that's possible. You're, you're, you are your body, you're connected, and God doesn't make mistakes. So how could this be? And, and the feminists say, and [00:09:00] everything that you think is a gen is gender identity.

Our just stereotypes that we were trying to get rid of. For the last 40 years. So that, so there's a real it's, it's, it's, it, se to me it feels like fraud being perpetuated. And that's, I think it's hurting children a lot. Then we also filed a brief in ch Childs Versus Salazar, which is a counseling case where a Christian counselor wanted to wanted to provide Christian counseling.

But as [00:09:30] you know, all the counseling areas have been tied up with, you have to affirm, you have to immediately affirm. So she's worried that if she doesn't immediately affirm, she will have her license, lose her license. So, so we wrote on that in support of letting a therapist be a therapist. In this area.

[00:09:50] Speaker 3: Can you tell me more about that case? I know, I know you've shared a lot just now and, and, and there's so many places we could go, but Sure. I didn't realize we were gonna talk about anything related to you, pertaining to you to the counseling [00:10:00] field. And I really wanna know more about this case 'cause I hadn't heard of this before.

Is this a case where the therapist is suing the state? Yes.

[00:10:09] Speaker: The therapist is suing the state and Salazar is the name of either the governor or the Attorney General, or whoever's on the other side from Chiles. And this woman is a, is a member of a Christian counseling process. And, but yet the state has a law [00:10:30] against conversion therapy.

And that conversion therapy law stems from historically when, when they tried to eliminate a pers stop a person from being gay or lesbian. The conversion therapy tactics were often very brutal, and the conversion therapy tactics usually didn't work at all. So there's a big prohibition against [00:11:00] using convert, what was called conversion therapy against somebody who might come in and say, you know, teenager, I am wondering if I'm gay, or I'm wondering if I'm a lesbian.

You know, conversion therapy would not be appropriate Now with the transgender issue it shouldn't be considered conversion therapy in either case to ask someone Why do you feel that way? And can you tell me more about your life and let's examine [00:11:30] this in detail and think about things because we certainly don't wanna rush into anything that's permanent.

And so, but. The activists on the trans side have been compiling any kind of inquisitor therapy or any kind of cognitive therapy or just what we know as talk therapy. They've just considered that conversion therapy, and so, you know [00:12:00] practitioners are afraid of losing their license. They're afraid of being sued just by asking the question, why do you think that?

And tell me more about your life.

[00:12:10] Speaker 3: Well, and let's pause here just to get listeners caught up to speak. 'cause you know this, Seth, 'cause you've listened to most of my podcasts. But this is like, this is my whole claim to fame, right? This is, I forgot about that. You know, it is, yeah. Like this is what happened to me that I talked about in episode 11 in my podcast.

And now we're in the a hundred and seventies, maybe a hundred and eighties over here. You know, this is right. This is, [00:12:30] I, I emerged on the scene, you know, little Stephanie coming out of her hole and opening up into the world and wanting intellectual community. And then the trans rights activists immediately accused me of conversion therapy and Right.

You know, hauled me in front of my licensing board. All this happened remotely. So it wasn't really that climactic. I didn't get to sit and look anyone in the eyes during this process. But, you know, I was accused of conversion therapy simply for expressing on the internet. What to speak of to a patient that that there's a problem with any of this.

And so it's, it's been a [00:13:00] huge issue. And I've talked to so many therapists, many on this podcast, but many more not on this podcast, behind the scenes who are very concerned about this issue because it created a really chilling climate for therapists. And so I'm, I'm surprised that I haven't heard about this, this person sooner.

Yeah. But you know, that, that's the whole thing, right? Is that these laws that were originally designed to prevent gay and lesbian people from being subjected to psychological torture ha have been hijacked by these activists because it was, because it was redefined in law from [00:13:30] sexual orientation change efforts to sexual orientation and gender identity, that efforts, so gender identity got thrown in there.

And a lot of, I, I just wanna catch people up to speed on this because there's, there's some nuance here where. I've, I've had therapists push back and, and tell me they don't like how I'm talking about this issue because they say, well, it's not actually enshrined into law that you must affirm. That's not exactly how it is.

It's like, okay. But the point is that the ways the laws are written and the culture has developed around this, it does create a very chilling climate because of [00:14:00] the fear of conversion. There's nothing in law that said, that says therapists must affirm identity. But there is the fear that if you run into.

You know, particularly litigious or cluster B type patient, and you're trying to help them the way that you see ethically suitable that you could be at risk and the process is the punishment. You know, I, I made it through what lots of people do, but, so this is actually the first time I'm hearing that there's a therapist who proactively, rather than reactively like me, right, where I'm, I'm [00:14:30] being called out and asked to defend myself to my board, someone proactively confronting a board.

I, I love that. So just have to add that little bit of context first. Yeah.

[00:14:39] Speaker: I'll, and I will have to pull up the brief that we filed and I'll send you a copy of it. We'll double check, make sure I got the procedure right, because we did do it a, we wrote it a while ago. The case has not been argued yet before the Supreme Court.

And when it is argue, oh, it's going

[00:14:53] Speaker 3: to Supreme Court. It's

[00:14:54] Speaker: going to the Supreme Court

[00:14:55] Speaker 3: of the United States.

[00:14:56] Speaker: Of the United States. Whoa. And it's, it's [00:15:00] going on a, it's going up on religion, but. We don't go up on religion, we support religious freedom. So if that is something that's mentioned or is an issue, we will support that.

But we go on more broader topics, which we can do as an amicus, you know, we, we can say things that the parties can't say sometimes. So we can Yeah, go ahead.

[00:15:27] Speaker 3: So it went from the state of, you think [00:15:30] Colorado? Yeah. Let me

[00:15:31] Speaker: see if I can pull it up on my computer.

[00:15:33] Speaker 3: So let's recap from the beginning. Childs versus Salazar, which started in Colorado and is going to the Supreme Court.

Yes.

[00:15:43] Speaker: So there's a case now that we just filed, we filed a brief on this year called Charles V. Salazar, which is going to the Supreme Court, and it will be heard on August, October 7th. And in this case the Supreme Court will be [00:16:00] hearing arguments about a Colorado ban on. Conversion therapy. And this is important, I think very important because as you know, historically, conversion therapy was what was tried with gay and lesbians to, to make them straight and it didn't work.

And many of the tactics were terrible. And constituted psychological torture. So nobody, no therapist ever wants to be [00:16:30] accused of conversion therapy. However, what has happened is the law against conversion therapy in some states has added or gender identity to it. And now gender identity is at, we know a very different thing than homosexuality.

And you can argue about it, it's cause, but that's irrelevant for this point. So what was happening is we have this therapist named Charles. [00:17:00] Her last name is Charles, and she is nervous about, she wants to, to practice her therapy. She's a Christian therapist and so she wants to be able to talk to her client.

But the attitude among so many, so many people advocating for trans rights and so many therapists listening to what the American Psychological Association tells them, you know, the rule is you have to affirm them at all costs, affirm them because otherwise they'll just kill themselves again. That statistic has [00:17:30] been turned on its head and it's not true.

And we know that now, but that message has gotten out so far. So this case will address whether she can do that kind of counseling. And I would think they will say yes because not just for religious reasons, but just on basic, basic. Thinking about therapy and thinking about this idea of gender identity, which is, is an idea, it's a construct, it's something [00:18:00] conceptual.

And so when young people are going in to see a therapist and the therapist feels constrained to only say, oh, you feel like a boy? Yes, okay, you're a boy. Or you're, you know, you're a girl. When really what should be happening for that child? And what many parents thought would be happening when they sent their child to therapy is that the child would go in and the therapist would say, so why do you think that?

Oh, that's [00:18:30] interesting. Where, you know, where did you learn that? How long have you felt this way? What else is going on in your life right now? And after a therapeutic relationship develops, you know, it takes some time. A child will eventually probably expose that, you know, they've got some issues.

They've been depressed or highly anxious, or they have had a, a history of sexual abuse somewhere in their life. Or they have a, you know, borderline or some kind of mental [00:19:00] illness that they aren't capable of dealing with. Or there's just stress at home or stress in school. And, and it's because this has been such an affirmative, you must affirm where they'll kill themselves and you must affirm and, oh, it's wonderful.

You, you are, you're transgender. And it's so celebrated among their peers and they get so much positive feedback for it. The other issues get buried and they don't get discussed. Then what happens is after the [00:19:30] child goes, I would say this for an adult too, goes through the process and to whatever extent they medicalize, because even social transition can be harmful.

But there's social transition and they medicalize in some way, either maybe stopping puberty through puberty blockers, which is a dangerous thing to do because puberty brings a lot of other changes rather than, it's not just about sex, it's about your brain development and gland development that regulates other kinds of things [00:20:00] other than, other than sexual desire.

So it's, it's a very, very risky thing to do. And, and really should only be done for serious medical phase. But stop the puberty. Put one cross-sex, suppress the natural hormone. Add cross-sex hormones. And then the girls may go to have a, a talk of a radical mastectomy which is a double ra radical mastectomy.

Everything's removed. They may have their, they [00:20:30] may have gen genital surgery, which for girls would be called a folio plasty. And this is cosmetic surgery, basically. So, you know how you used to hear plastic surgery? Well, soap fallow plasty. And for the boys would be having their genitals removed.

They'd be castrated, essentially. And then they would construct a what they call a neo vagina or a vaginoplasty. And so once the child is through all that, 'cause they, you know, there's a lot of the next step that I [00:21:00] go through. The next thing is gonna make everything okay. I'll really feel right after I have this done.

After I have that done. Oh, I need my face feminized. That'll make me feel better. 'cause then I can pass. They still have the same problems they had when they went into therapy and were affirmed. And then the, you know, usually the, that's it for the failure. They just get affirmed and then they're onto the medical pro process.

So they still have those problems, but now they're enhanced with [00:21:30] a whole, whole change of their body. And they may wake, I'm sure you've listened to some detransition. I've met some and talked to some, and when they wake up from that, it, it's a very, very painful experience and dangerous, I think, for them without, without proper counseling.

[00:21:49] Speaker 3: If I'm following your train of thought correctly, I think part of the reason you're sharing all of this is that we're talking about what's at stake, wh when therapy is [00:22:00] regulated, when therapists are put in this climate where it's. Such a chilling atmosphere to explore the roots of things and come from a holistic, systemic perspective, right?

You're saying this is what could happen if therapists just affirm, and if no one feels that it's within their scope to say to these kids that there could be anything else going on here or a different way [00:22:30] to solve their problems. And so hence the context of Child versus Salazar which you were just explaining is going to the Supreme Court in October, which might honestly be around the time that this episode comes out anyway, so it could and I'm just, I'm shocked that I hadn't heard of this before.

I guess I've just been that busy, but this is super topical for me as someone who was targeted myself by these conversion therapy bands that have been refused, right?

[00:22:58] Speaker: I'm not surprised that you [00:23:00] haven't seen it. Because there is so much news going on right now that you know anything that's not involving an immediate intervention with, with tariffs or ice or something like that.

People aren't thinking about it when they're covering, covering this. And but it's, it's coming up. And what we said in our brief, the first point we wanted to make is that gender sexual orientation and gender identity are distinct and need to be addressed separately [00:23:30] In medicine, mental health law and public policy, they're distinct.

But people just, a lot of people here, sexual orientation, gender identity, and just think of sexual orientation. Oh yeah, yeah. That's resolved. You know, so this is just another version of it. The other thing we mentioned was that we argued was that many underlying conditions can cause a minor to experience what's known as gender dysphoria.

Therefore exploratory therapy is critical to their mi, to their mental and physical health. So this [00:24:00] case will deal with minors and it is coming from a religious per perspective in terms of her doing her doing Christian counseling. But I think that it can apply and should apply in a secular way also, or to other religions, but also secular therapy, secular therapists who don't just wanna affirm, should be, should be able to, if anything comes outta this case, use it.

The final thing we argued was that gender identity erases women and same sex attracted people from law and [00:24:30] policy and jeopardizes their mental health. So that, that's the angle they were taking. And I think the angle that the, it was her name was Kayla, Kayla Chiles in Colorado. They're taking they have the therapist, you know, the therapist approach for sure.

In their brief, they were focused more on they focused on how she's inspired by her faith and love for others and helps her clients achieve their goals through counseling conversations that gender ident ident [00:25:00] identity and sexual orientation consist of various mutable features including expression, identity, behavior, and feelings states have not historically censored counseling speech.

So the kind of viewing this as a speech case too, which is a very attractive at times to the Supreme Court right now, especially if you can combine it, you know, with religion like the the Mahmud case was. And that col Colorado's counseling restrictions, broadly censors [00:25:30] counseling conversations that pursue forbidden changes and that evidence doesn't support applying this restriction to voluntary professional counsel.

That it inflicts harms on young people, families, counselors, and in this case chiles, Kayla Chiles. 'cause she feels inhibited.

[00:25:50] Speaker 3: So my burning question on this is sure. If Kayla Chiles wins chiles versus [00:26:00] Salazar at the US Supreme Court, what will this mean? Not only for Colorado, but for all of the states?

Because it's my understanding that every state has its own slightly different legislation on how they interpret. The, well actually, let me back up a second. So, and you can tell me if I'm wrong on any of this because I am not good with legal stuff, but it's my understanding that during Obama's presidency.

That's [00:26:30] when at the nationwide level, the acronym was changed from sexual orientation change efforts to sexual orientation and gender identity and expression change efforts. So that's actually the full thing. I always forget the expression part. Yeah. But it's S-O-G-I-E-C-E. Sexual orientation and gender identity and expression change efforts.

Right. So that was changed sometime in the 2010s. I don't remember when exactly. Yeah. And then every state has their own [00:27:00] laws in and, and how they regulate the counseling profession. So what will this mean for Colorado? 'cause it seems like she's saying, well, this is unconstitutional, but will this have an effect on other states as well?

[00:27:11] Speaker: It might. I think it would it a lot is going to depend on how the court writes the decision. Whether there, you know, what, what the ma I would expect the majority would be similar to the majority that there was in Mahmud versus Taylor, which was the, the Muslim family not wanting their [00:27:30] child to be educated in this topic.

And they just wanted an opt-out provision in the school is taking it away. So I think, you know, they've got a, a strong First Amendment claim for freedom of religion and expression. And as you know, I think yeah, a strong it'll, if it's goes that way as that a First Amendment claim based on freedom of expression and, and religion and or religion, then it will affect other states because this will [00:28:00] be you know, the court saying that the First Amendment protects counselors and counseling somebody was exploratory.

Therapy is not conversion therapy. So it would affect other states. To what extent that depends on how bad their laws are, what good their laws are.

[00:28:22] Speaker 3: Many of you listening to this show are concerned about an adolescent or young adult you care about who's caught up in the gender insanity and therefore at [00:28:30] risk of medical self-destruction.

I developed ROGD repair as a resource for parents just like you. It's a self-paced online course and community that will teach you the psychology concept and communication tools. The families I've consulted with have found most helpful in understanding and getting through to their children even when they're adults.

Visit r gd repair.com to learn more about the program and use promo code some therapist [00:29:00] 2025 at checkout to take 50% off your first month. That's ROGD repair.com. I guess I, what makes me wonder, because I know so little about the legal process, so I'm just kind of. Extrapolating from what I know about other things.

Would the sort of series of events from there look more like that this success then emboldens a different therapist or maybe a group of [00:29:30] therapists in another state to also make a legal objection that their state's laws are also unconstitutional. And, and then also would it, would it have to go to the Supreme Court?

Would it be easier in that case? I mean, how, how does, it

[00:29:43] Speaker: would be much easier Okay. To make that argument. And I think they would be able to make that argument in their state court or in the federal district court of their area because it would be a SA Supreme Court opinion that they would be resting on and using.

And so yes, it, [00:30:00] it would provide a real legal boost to any of those organizations or people who want to get out from under the sphere that if they don't affirm. They'll lose their license Originally, the fear started, if you don't affirm, they'll commit suicide. But we know those statistics were not. Right.

And that has been admitted as much by chase Gio at the Retti argument in the, in oral argument in front of the Supreme Court. So

[00:30:29] Speaker 3: and, and this is [00:30:30] huge by the way, for, for listeners who lack this context. Chase. Chase Strange is a trans identified activist and lawyer, right? So, right. So the fact that Chase Strange admitted that those statistics were fabricated, I mean, that's why else thought this

[00:30:49] Speaker: didn't, she didn't say fabricated, but okay.

No longer showing. It does not actually show ideation or executed. I, you know completed [00:31:00] ideation. So. However it was framed out. I can get you the language from that.

[00:31:04] Speaker 3: Yeah. And for anyone, there are a few

[00:31:05] Speaker: other things,

[00:31:06] Speaker 3: just for anyone who doesn't have this information what we know is actually that, that is the opposite of the truth, right?

We know that tragically suicide rates actually go up following gender identity, medicalization not down. And that is one very strong case in Charles's favor and in the favor of anyone on arguing our side of the issue. That is, if it is [00:31:30] our responsibility as mental health professionals to prevent suicide, then we need accurate information.

And if, if the data tells us that people who have so-called gender transition surgeries and procedures. That the population, average levels of suicide are higher rather than lower. Following those procedures compared to people who didn't medicalize, then that's incredibly important information for the counseling profession.

I just had to throw that in there.

[00:31:54] Speaker: Oh, throw in whatever you want. 'cause I'm not a counselor and you know, I was working on the legal parts of [00:32:00] this. And, you know, what kind of arguments Wolf could make that would help us further along our advocacy for women and children. And I think this, this case is a good one for that because, you know, if trials is successful it will be a big win.

A really, a really big win.

[00:32:20] Speaker 3: And I know the legal system tends to, you know, drag things out. Would that, if, if it's starting in October, does that mean the win would come in October? Or would that win come like two years down the line, or,

[00:32:29] Speaker: [00:32:30] no, not two years. They, the Supreme Court tries to resolve all of its cases by the end of June or early July, so it would certainly take months.

But they have experience now in, in this kind of issue because of Clemetti and Mahmud and that are getting two more cases soon on sports one's called BPJ and one is called Peacock. And so they're getting more adept at the information and they've had tons of briefing in all of these [00:33:00] cases.

So I, at least, at least three or four months would be the minimum.

[00:33:06] Speaker 3: And it covered Retti with Diana Lutfi. That was episode number. And 38 for those who, who want that context. But let's actually, I mean, as much as we could talk all day, as far as I'm interested, we could talk all day about conversion therapy bans and this new Supreme Court case you just told me about.

Tell me about these other cases that they're going to hear regarding, what is it men and women's sports that they're

[00:33:28] Speaker: They are one is called [00:33:30] BPJ and I forget who it's verse is. And the other one is called cocks and I, they're, they were con going up at the same time and one involved puberty blockers, that's BPJ and the other one involved just a, I think a trans-identified male who was, it was not a puberty blocker case.

What's interesting about that case, we're, we're working on our amicus brief right now is that peacock, the athlete, [00:34:00] the male athlete has once out of the case. And so. He's saying, you know, it's, it's not where he's at right now in terms of it's not good for him to keep doing this litigation. So they filed a motion, the A CLU filed a motion I think that's who his lawyers are in the lower court to dismiss the case.

But they did that as moot. They wanna say it's moot now 'cause we don't have a plaintiff, but [00:34:30] I don't think they can do that because the Supreme Court had jurisdiction over the case at that moment. So it'd be this up to the Supreme Court to say whether it's moot or not. And when something is moot, meaning it no longer matters, there's still another test you look at.

And I say, well, is this an issue that will likely reoccur and will always evade review because your plaintiff will age out. And I, so I think there's a very good argument, this is not a moot case. So we'll wait to see what the Supreme Court does with [00:35:00] Peacock. But BPJ. Still going on, you know, and, and briefs are coming in and, and all that.

So they'll probably won't get onto argument till December, January.

[00:35:09] Speaker 3: The plaintiff who tried to exit the case was a male arguing for his right to participate in female sports. Right. What's the backstory there?

[00:35:18] Speaker: I don't remember the backstory on that. I'd have to look at that more completely. But basically it's high school athletics, I think.

And so he's passed puberty and so it's, it [00:35:30] was, you know, he wanted, he wants the right to it's what it was brought that a transgender identifying male who they would call a trans woman who they really wanna just call a woman should be allowed to participate in women and girls sports. Yeah. We know from, there's been some very good research exposed that's always been there, but, but there's a, a doctor, I forget PhD.

I'm forgetting I, you think he's in Nebraska? He's done an excellent video on [00:36:00] the bio, biological differences between men and women and how it applies in sports. So there's a lot of information on that. So I think that will,

[00:36:09] Speaker 3: and you said there's one more case that this Supreme Court is gonna hear? Yeah.

[00:36:13] Speaker: Well, I don't know if they're going to hear it, but I think they will. This is a case that I just worked like crazy on, along with a couple other people from Wolf. Right now it's called Doe versus Bondi. And also Mug Gruder who's [00:36:30] or who's the board of Prisoners, chief of the Chief of the Bureau of Prisons and Trump.

And in that case one thing that is, is not often discussed and I think needs a lot of discussion and recognition is males in women's prison facilities. And Doy Bonde is a consolidation of three other cases. And Wolf learned about the three cases in January [00:37:00] right after Trump issued the executive order saying, no men and women's sports, no boys and women's in girls sports.

The right away, the Bureau of Prisons started to work on initiating the fulfillment of that by trans starting to transfer some of the trans identifying men into male prisons. Before they could do that, though, they were stopped by advocates for the, for the transgender side of this. Saying that, [00:37:30] and I think, I'm trying to remember who they all were saying that.

This, if you transfer this, the, this is gonna be devastating to them. They'll be abused in male prisons. The, you know, it'll be terrible, terrible, terrible for them. So let's get a preliminary injunction. And the courts gave them a preliminary injunction, meaning we'll stop the executive order from going into effect.

But they consolidated the cases. So they put this, those three cases together. Now [00:38:00] what, what we had a hard time with as an advocacy organization is that when you, when when the A CLU or GLAD or any of the other, the National Women's, our Lesbian Foundation used to be called, that it's changing its name, whenever they are going in to protect a trans identified prisoner male, they seek to have the case sealed or as much of the record sealed as they can.[00:38:30]

They changed the name. You know, they ask for a pseudonym and everything is redacted that would identify who this prisoner is. So you get Mary Mo, you get Jane Doe, you get Jones. So you know, Susan Jones. And, and these names are just whole placeholders. So at that point we can't tell where this prisoner was, what, what prison were they in?

So we don't know which district to go [00:39:00] to to look for it. And if you put in DOE versus Bondi in the, in the federal court PACER system, which is the record system, get thousands of cases because there's so many against, against this. The administration right now, especially some of the immigration cases, it's hundreds of those with DOE versus, and, and so we couldn't identify where the case was.

The way I found out where the case was. Was through a woman I'm in contact with regularly [00:39:30] who's in prison in Texas at a place called Carswell. Her name is Rhonda Fleming and she is not afraid to talk and she is not afraid to, to put her name on things. So I feel comfortable using her name. She told me that a male in her unit had just told her that he was one of the plaintiffs in the case, and it was gonna be heard on September 5th.

So that was two weeks ago, or right, two weeks before September 5th. So that was how we found out where the case [00:40:00] was. 'cause she said, you know, this is who it is. And she gave me the case number so we could find it. And we found it was in the, in the federal district, the US Court of Appeals for the DC circuit.

And it includes more than the original three cases. Now it's got more people in any event. So we rushed to write an amicus brief. Knowing we'd have to file a motion to file late because we were past any [00:40:30] deadline. And so we did get our MCUs in and we listened to the oral argument. And I, I have to tell you, it's heartbreaking to listen to it because there's no recognition of the female prisoners.

And that's what we're complaining about is they've never had a voice in this. And that all anybody's worried about is what's gonna happen to these men when they go to the male prison. However, the briefs by that the [00:41:00] government has put together, which the Trump administration did Biden's, would not include these numbers.

I'm sure were show that there are at least 1500 if not more, trans identifying prisoners, men who don't want to move out of the male prison. The rape statistics are low in the male prisons now because they've done so much worth it. But my, my friend Rhonda tells me is they like being in the men's prison, they're not abused and they have [00:41:30] boyfriends.

So you get the gay ones going to the prison saying in the male prison, but you get the heterosexual ones wanting to go to the women's prison. And then each state states have different laws. And usually to, as you know, to ident you, you just have to say, I feel like, and in California, that's what they do.

The, the prisoner, just as I feel like a woman, ugh, that they get transferred with no concern about viol, what the [00:42:00] crimes were. No concern about whether they're dangerous, says in the legislation. You can't consider that. But I think in the federal side you can, so this three judge panel is going to hear that although they, I have to say they were surprised when they learned that of the 19 people, 19 males, that the the trans, trans lawyers were representing, only six of them did the, did they lawyers say they felt could pass as female in a male [00:42:30] prison.

And so that tells you a bit about, and you can look online. I, I submitted the brief and we have an appendix in the brief. And if you look in the appendix, you can click on a name of an inmate who's a transgender male, I mean a male identifying as a trans woman. And you can see that they have committed crimes in prison against women.

They've been raped, they've been impregnated. One in recently just in Rikers, [00:43:00] had her head bashed into the floor and her hand fingers broken. So they commit crimes against the women. But the women say that when they complain, they don't. They, they're found unsub non not substantiated, which is not the same thing as saying it's unfounded.

They believe the woman, but they don't have any corroborating evidence. So they, the complaints go nowhere. And the someone has posited that the prison system is not interested in adding to their [00:43:30] violence and their rape statistics by counting them in the first place. And then in any event it would matter because it'd still look like they were women because they changed their sex re their sex identifier in the board of Prison prison registry system.

[00:43:45] Speaker 3: So I have a question about the anonymity piece. 'cause you said that they're listed as Jane Doe, this or that. Right. And one of the many, I think, well-founded objections to men and women's Prisons [00:44:00] is this, sort of fraud regarding their identity in this the way that the name change and changing the sex listed on their birth certificate, which is, you know, in my opinion, historical document falsification.

But you know, that, that this conceals aspects of their past and makes it harder to find their criminal records. So when you, I mean, I'm hearing that it's hard even for you, a seasoned legal expert to find relevant [00:44:30] information on who these people even are, what their crimes were, right? Mm-hmm. So, I mean, when you were able to do some digging, did you find anything about the nature of their crimes?

I didn't find

[00:44:44] Speaker: anything about these particular plaintiffs except our prisoners, except for the one who told Rhonda. But I did not use that him. Because I did not want to [00:45:00] file a brief that would in any way violate any of their court orders. But what I was able to do is just if you Google transgender male prisoner female violence, they start to come up redux.

The website, REDU XX info, I think has just tons of information on it. And what we find when we look in there, we find that [00:45:30] 57%, by the way, of all trans identifying males in prison have been sexual offenders. So that's who's ending up in with the women for the most part. It's not some nonviolent somebody who passed a bad check.

It's things like violent armed robbery and carjacking. And they don't have to be on hormones. They don't have to have any sexual surgeries. They can [00:46:00] go in as a fully intact male identifying as female changing their name getting their sex marker changed in prison. And then they're given some things that the women consider to be privileges that the women cannot get.

For example, they can get special underwear that is prettier than the regular woman's prison underwear than can get scented hand lotion that the women can't get. They can get better looking [00:46:30] bras than the prison bra, if that's appropriate. And so there's this resentment and hurt that, like you're just saying, they're so much more important than we are.

And I don't know if you've spent time studying. Women in prison population, psychologically, most of them are coming from a trauma history. Most of them have had abuse, sexual abuse, some kind of physical violence at the hands of men, whether it's their fathers, [00:47:00] their boyfriends, or whether they've been forced into prostitution, whatever it has been.

And so they come in traumatized and this retraumatizes them. So they live in a state of chronic stress when there are males like that in their, in their units. In fact, the one of the women, well she was, she really, you know, they, they, they really need counseling and they need the men outta there is what they [00:47:30] need.

Because it's, it's not even that the guy has to be. Aggressively trying to rape them. Although they do it's the way they look at them or the cracks they make or the fact that they can see them in the shower. There's a harassment level that goes on. And before they were introduced into this environment, it's all, you had an all female environment, and this is where Orange is.

The New Black did us no good with this lovely actor I forget the [00:48:00] name, but who played the transgender prisoner in. It was just so sweet, nice and female. Like, but most of 'em were not like that. In any event the studies have shown that them being the women being in an all female environment where they can, they tend to make a community and they tend to make a family and they trust each other and they become friends.

But when the male is introduced. Male, the male patriarchal dynamic is introduced and now they [00:48:30] may compete with each other. Now they're afraid. Now they can't talk because they don't know what's gonna get back to this guy. It changes the whole rehabilitative effect that being in a women's prison can have on the women.

[00:48:42] Speaker 3: You know, I've talked to so many people who have expressed in one way or another that they kept thinking that at some threshold or another there would be this mass public awakening. And that it's, it's just shocking to find ourselves the, the frog and the metaphorical boiling pot [00:49:00] with all, all these egregious things.

Right. When you say that 57% of the men who are incarcerated with women because they identify as women are guilty of sexual crimes, that is the majority of these men, and you said some of the rest, it's, it's violent crimes and that it's particularly. The heterosexual men that wanna be in there. Yeah. No duh.

Right. Of course, the, the, the heterosexual criminals [00:49:30] do what they need to do to be around the females and meanwhile, they're their gay counterparts are perfectly content to be homosexual transsexuals in a, in a male rich environment. I mean, it's just utterly astounding that this goes on. And the level of gaslighting of these women, it's not at all surprising too that, how it changes the entire social dynamic.

Of course it does. How did, do you, do you have any opinions on how things got to this point? Because you, you're [00:50:00] a retired judge, you've been around a long time. You've seen this whole shift in society. How did it even get here?

[00:50:06] Speaker: Well you know, I grew up in the sixties, seventies, late seventies. I was in college in Boston.

There were transsexuals then, and I went to bars with my friends and we would go to gay bars or lesbian bars and or mix gay and lesbian bars and there would be transsexuals. But that didn't bother anybody [00:50:30] because they weren't hitting on the women. They weren't, they were just wanted to go out, you know, they, it wasn't like, oh, let me try to, you know, hit on this lesbian so I can really, they weren't doing that.

And it was a small, small, small, small population. And then I remember I was watching some legislation passed in Massachusetts as if it was the hugest deal in the world. It was for transgender rights and it was things like not [00:51:00] being discriminated against employment or housing. And that's how it starts.

It was big celebration, I'm think. Boy, I didn't realize there were that many that it was a problem, you know, didn't think there were a lot. Then what happens is attendant to that comes along in-house training. And that's been sponsored a lot by groups such as The Trevor Project or this national Sex Education Standards Group or any kind of [00:51:30] sensitivity or inclusion training.

[00:51:32] Speaker 3: And let me just pause you there to tell our audience. Yes. I know that there is a Trevor Project warning label on this video on YouTube because anytime I talk about so-called conversion therapy on this podcast, the Trevor Project is in cahoots with YouTube. 'cause they need to dominate the narrative and they need to put that little label.

And thank you for your comments because comments help the algorithm direct more people to my show. But no, there's nothing I can do about it. [00:52:00] So anyway, that's the Trevor Project. That's how much influence they have. Please continue your story.

[00:52:04] Speaker: Sure. So. So then I was in the, on the verge of moving from this appeals court in Massachusetts to the Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts.

That I, I was an appellate judge and I, I saw all of a sudden the bathrooms on the appeals court were becoming gender neutral. And that didn't affect the judges because they had their own bathrooms. [00:52:30] But it has certainly affected the staff. And many of the women were just outraged, not because the guy would go in and use the bathroom 'cause they were single bathrooms 'cause of the way they said, men leave bathrooms the way, the condition, you know, we have to go in and there's pee on the seat or pee on the floor and, you know, it's just, so that was what was enraging them then.

But when I got up to the Superior Judicial court and I realized everybody's been trained in [00:53:00] this. You know, taught that this is a real thing. It's not to be debated because if you debate it, it's very dangerous for people. And you have to affirm everybody, and you should use your pronouns and put your pronouns up on your screen and or on your stationary or your email.

And a lot of judges did it and a lot of judges didn't do it.

[00:53:19] Speaker 3: When, when did that start, by the way?

[00:53:20] Speaker: I would say around 2016. But that was when it hit the, you know, and, and so all around the country, judges get trained, just [00:53:30] like school teachers got trained, just like any corporation got trained.

And the training they did, those corporations, you know, that we would get an award or a sticker that they complied with whatever was wanted for the gay and lesbian and transgender training program. So there was a lot of incentive, corporate incentive for corporations to look tolerant. And accepting and affirming.

So you get the training, we give you the good mark. [00:54:00] So our whole country has been affected by this in the various police officers have received this training, nurses, doctors. And it astounds me that this as taught in medical school I'm, it's just astounding. And, and I think what everybody was, you know, when you thought about it at first you think, oh, you know, you're thinking of some young, thin, feminine [00:54:30] boy who's not gonna hurt anybody in the world.

That's that who shows up is who shows up. In most people's minds, not a lot when they think about this, someone harmless. But that's, that's not the majority of the problem because the problem is where transgender rights are being set up to trump sex, so that if you have. A trans male wanting to be on a female sports team or in a female prison, or in a female locker room, or in the female Y side [00:55:00] of the Y.

Then they'll say, well, gender identity, you know, but it's so that sex becomes irrelevant. And it's him. It's the male claiming, I am a female. I'm a woman. And that's where that crash of rights is. But it's not. But they would say, it's not a clash of rights. You're trying to take trans rights away. 'cause we're really women after all.

So just it, it blows my mind that it got so far, so fast and all over the world. [00:55:30] This is not just our country. This is England. This is Ireland, Scotland, New Zealand, Australia, Europe, the western world. Has all been affected by this,

[00:55:43] Speaker 3: what is it about 2016 in particular? Because that year comes up again and again as like some kind of tipping point when the propaganda was really being shoved down everyone's throats.

[00:55:56] Speaker: I'm not sure. I'm really not it might, oh, sure. I [00:56:00] I might know it might be Bostock came out U Us versus Bostock was a or Colorado versus Bostock was a Supreme Court case interpreting Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Claim that it, it's a statute that includes race, ethnicity, religion.

You can't discriminate on the basis of those things. And it includes sex, and sex was tossed in as a way to try to defeat it, [00:56:30] but fooled everybody and it got passed. So what happened in Bostock is you had three consolidated cases, but the majority opinion only focused on one really. And this was a, a male who had been working in a funeral home, who a while.

And then one day he said, I'm coming in tomorrow as you know, Jane Doe and I'm transitioning and you know, call me [00:57:00] she, and I'm gonna be wearing dresses. And the funeral director said, no, you're fired. Because I cannot have that around. People who are grieving who look at who will know you're not a woman.

You just, you just, this is not appropriate for a funeral home and it's my small business. So it ends up going all the way up to the Supreme Court and they, they were, they also seemed to assume these things ha were real. And they referred to transgender status and said, you cannot discriminate [00:57:30] in employment on the basis of transgender status.

And that was for, and they said in the opinion, this is only for Title vii, but it didn't stay in Title VI Obama's administration. We wrote the regulations and the guidance for Title IX and brought over all of the language from Bostock about Title vii. So you had that expansion of transgender status being recognized by the Supreme Court [00:58:00] and the language that was used.

I remember reading the decision saying, boy, whoever wrote this is very sophisticated in their knowledge of the transgender identity issue because they used all the right language. And it just felt. To me that it was, it was an, you know how they had done training everybody, you know, the law clerks are trained.

There were law clerks who do a lot of writing and help judges. They come in very in tune with [00:58:30] this. So I think that might be, be where it got the boost.

[00:58:33] Speaker 3: So that's, it's like one of the legal stepping stones to where we are currently. Right, right. I wonder too culturally if the shift in power, if with 2016, like if, if liberals, because I remember like the, you know, 'cause it felt really like, oh my God, we can't believe [00:59:00] that Trump got elected.

And it felt like it kind of heightened this fearfulness that. Pushes people to extremes. And then I saw that go to another level in 2020 with the pandemic and the, the intensity and, and I mean, there's brain science behind why the social isolation and the reminders of contamination those factors serve to actually make us more rigid and more paranoid.

But I wonder if, [00:59:30] if like that that environment of fear, alarmism, extremism, polarization, if it like fueled the lack of discernment and that, you know, especially on the left, that we should be skeptical of this in any way. Right.

[00:59:51] Speaker: I think that it did, and I think that I think that's a good analysis. I think also what we see [01:00:00] in this last election, what we've watched.

Is the, the liberal side, the far left, which has its grips over the policy decisions of the Democratic party that they have doubled down in some of their states to, you know, you're gonna tell us, you know, not to medicalize children, while we're gonna make it easier, well, we'll take, you know, like, or, or in California saying you could send your children here.

I mean, [01:00:30] we'll take runaways. Who it just, so there was a doubling down on the left, I think, to really make sure that some of these principles, what they had fought, think they could, they wanted. Would be safe from Trump. And of course everybody's run into the courts to to fight these battles. So there's a lot of court cases.

They're just a ton of them all over the country at lower levels.

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Alright, now back to the show. Back to the subject of Men and Women's Prisons. You know, I think part of how we zoomed out and had this part of the conversation is just how appalling it is when you, when you look at the fact that these are violent criminals who have raped and beaten and in some cases murdered women.

Just being allowed. I, I mean, they're like a kid in a candy shop. You [01:02:00] put 'em in a place where they have a bunch of captive women. I mean, it's, it's just absolutely insane and that's why I felt the need to remark on that. But back to the subject, I mean, from a legal perspective, what can be done? What are you guys working on?

[01:02:12] Speaker: Well, we have a lawsuit pending in California called Chandler versus CDR. And that is has been pending a long time because for some reason the court is very slow to answer a [01:02:30] question in that case the first time it was filed, it was dismissed. But they gave us permission to refile it corrected.

So we did that and we've hired outside counsel to handle it now because we're just, we do, we can't be in California watching the case. And so they filed a motion. The other side, the A CLU filed a motion. I always call it the ACL U. It could be lamb illegal, it could Bela, but the, you know, I just feel so abandoned.

Like you were supposed to fight for women too, [01:03:00] right? So right now there is pending in California another motion to dismiss. And the women are, we're trying to, to bring it on, you know, you need to bring it usually on grounds of, of cruel and unusual punishment or violation of civil rights. And so we're waiting for the judge to rule.

It's in the federal district court, a federal district court in Northern California. And we're just waiting. So it's just waiting, ready to find out does it live as a, as a lawsuit or does it die? And then we would appeal it. So [01:03:30] we, we don't know yet, but it's kind of been on hold for a long time and I don't quite understand why.

[01:03:34] Speaker 3: And in the meanwhile, these incarcerated women, they're being raped. They're being beaten. Right. They're being impregnated.

[01:03:42] Speaker: Right? There is one of the one of the women that we are in contact with through that had there was a man transferred in named Tremaine Carol. He, he didn't ne he didn't even change his name.

And he had been transferred into the female [01:04:00] prison in California from another female prison because he had raped two women there and they were pregnant. So he's got a trial coming up in California on these rape charges. So once those rape charges were lodged, he was moved again. I'm not sure where he is.

He's, he's a strong, large man and at his rape trial it hasn't happened yet, but the preliminary [01:04:30] motions. His lawyer made a motion that Tremaine Carroll should be referred to by the pronouns he chooses, which are female. So the judge and the lawyers have all been referring to Tremaine Carroll as she and what we don't know is we, we've, you know, the DA's office objected, you know, to this, but got nowhere.

What we don't know is whether the victims are gonna have to call him. She [01:05:00] such as, and she raped me with her penis. It's,

[01:05:03] Speaker 3: it's the Ricky Dravet joke brought to life again.

[01:05:08] Speaker: I don't know that joke. What is it?

[01:05:09] Speaker 3: Oh, you never saw the Ricky Dravet stand? Oh, no. Oh, man, Ricky, you have to watch this. Okay. So, Ricky Dravet several years ago now did this standup special where he, nailed the trans issue. He it goes something like that. I, I mean, I, I halfway have it memorized, I'm gonna butcher it, but he goes something like, oh, women, [01:05:30] you know, the old fashioned women, the, he says, I love the new women. You know, the ones with beards and cocks. It's just the old fashioned women with their wombs, you know?

So he starts off like that and and then he starts saying like, fucking turf, dinosaur whore. And, and then and then, then he, he does like an, an imaginary argument where he is arguing from the woman's side and then from his like side that he's pretending to agree with. I will, I will definitely that.

So the woman goes oh, well what if he rapes me? What if [01:06:00] she rapes you? Like, so that's the moment that they all, like, that's the meme basically. Is the image of him going, what if she, you know, well, look, it's right there in his pro, her pronouns. It is just, it's, it's it's brilliant and he nails it.

And I've, I've seen a lot of that going around lately. When, when. We see these articles where men's crimes are attributed to women, you know, and it's like, hashtag not our crimes. And the comments that I've been posting when I see these things [01:06:30] on the internet is, wow. Gosh, isn't it so fascinating that the number of women committing sexual and violent crimes has just skyrocketed during the exact same time period that journalists started calling men, women whenever they wanted?

Wow. Isn't that interesting?

[01:06:47] Speaker: That, that is, is maddening. Because it's so distorting of what's really happening. So anytime now when I see woman charged with raping child, I stop and read the, read that [01:07:00] story very carefully and look for flus. And then usually in a few week, few days, you find out, yeah, that was really a guy.

Yeah. It's just, it's just mind-boggling. And I think it's a, it's also one of the best issues you could have to distract everybody from everything else. It's like, this becomes, well, at least for me, this becomes a big issue and for, for the women. But you're not going to be talking about we're [01:07:30] we're not gonna be fighting for better things for the women in prison right now.

We've gotta work on just getting the guys out.

[01:07:35] Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, in, in some ways it's, it's such a red herring and there's such an opportunity cost too, to all the time that we spend on this issue. I mean, thinking of child versus Salazar, for example, thinking about all of the therapists who could have been providing counseling to kids, but who are.

Afraid to even work with minors now, and, [01:08:00] and I mean, we could be missing out on good therapists for minors who don't even have issues related to gender. I'm sure that's true. There's, there's so many of our best minds and our, our hard labor is going into just trying to stop the in insanity that it's like what all, what else is being lost here?

[01:08:26] Speaker: Yeah. It, it is very regressive. It's [01:08:30] very because, you know, like the UN and the Geneva Convention, it is a violation of human rights to put women in with males. And, you know, we Wolf has done some work with the, with the un, the special Rapporteur for women on this issue. And she's been supportive, but.

You need the US laws to change because we're not bound by those law, by the UN's laws or the Geneva Convention, although some [01:09:00] people think we are. We're not. And that's another, another thing, speaking of laws changing, it's another area where we've been very busy different side of the, of Wolf for tracking legislation and calling senators and reps and states following legislation that, that could hurt women or children or could you know, like supporting the Detransition bill that was passed extending the statute of limitations and trying to support PREA to get her case through that.

Her, [01:09:30] you know, so we've been, there've been so much legislation because the left is doubling down and the right is saying, well, here's a good opportunity to put in some other things we might like. So there's a ton of legislation affecting women right now in both directions and it's hard to keep up with it.

But we've been doing our best. We sent a group of volunteers and our executive director to Washington, DC to just to get, try to get to know, just to try to get to [01:10:00] know the, make a connection with them. Do you know only one or two Democrats would see us? And there was a John Oliver clip about it. I don't know if you've seen it, but we had we were, you know, there, there were all these appointments made with all these reps, Republican and Democratic.

And then the day before somebody said that we were meeting with all these Democrats and, and, and then all of a sudden all the appointments got canceled on the [01:10:30] Democratic side. So we found out it came from one of John, John, John Oliver's writers, and he was working up a bit. On this issue of, you know, this John Oliver is like, get over it.

It's trans, get over it. And so we managed to kind of turn it around on him to some extent that would get a lot of publicity for a letter we wrote that our executive director wrote. But he, he went forward with tons of misinformation anyway. [01:11:00] And it it's just so frustrating. So, so isn't that a good pitch for us to ask for volunteers out there in the world who wanna come join us?

Oh, yeah.

[01:11:12] Speaker 3: Well and so we'll, we'll get

[01:11:14] Speaker: to send us money. We need, we need a lot of money from, we need, we need our own JK rol thing.

[01:11:21] Speaker 3: Well, and, and we will definitely make sure to cover all that at the end and put it in the show notes as well. Any links where people can donate or if. [01:11:30] Anything you want to ask our audience to do.

But before I forget, before we started recording again on this subject of opportunity costs and what a incredible waste of resources it is to have to be fighting all these battles. You said that there are some other things that Wolf would be doing.

[01:11:49] Speaker: Oh, sure. You know, we would, we would be working on we would be working on women's sovereignty issues in terms of women having the right to control their body.

We would be [01:12:00] working on maternal health because I don't know if you've seen the statistics that the leading cause of death in well, that's a different issue. The leading cause of deaths for pregnant women is homicide by their significant other. Which is, I think that's just incredible. So we would be working on that.

We'd be working on, on maternal health in other ways. We would be working on reproductive rights. We would be working on trying to stop male violence against women. [01:12:30] If you ever see a headline where you'll see woman raped or woman abused, it doesn't ever say man raped woman. That's always left out.

So we'd be trying to work on that to, to name it, to get it named properly. We would be working on this surrogacy issue for sure. Any area that commercializes women's bodies, such as sex work as they call it, we don't call it that it's prostitution, and it should be totally illegal because [01:13:00] so many of these women.

They say, you know, and I've been told this by a couple students when I was teaching that, oh, well, only fans a spine. You're in control and you can do this or that. But actually what you're looking at in some of this hardcore pornography now is crimes, women being raped, killed on the screen or children.

So we would be working on pornography, prostitution surrogacy, anything that that makes our bodies a commodity.

[01:13:28] Speaker 3: Looking again, at the [01:13:30] intersection of these issues with my field, the counseling profession, I just recall the time that I was, you know, I received some newsletter, marketing email for therapist continuing education, and I always have to read between the lines in those because they use this coded newspeak language now.

And you know, there's like half of the trainings for therapists are on gender affirming practices rather than like actual issues that real people face. And [01:14:00] I saw an advertisement for a cultural competency training on so-called migrant sex workers, and I had to read between the lines to understand what that means.

They're talking about sex trafficking victims. They're talking about victims of sex trafficking. When you say migrant sex workers, that's what you're talking about. Human trafficking victims and, you know, many of them like underage and kidnapped and or [01:14:30] orphaned or, you know, products of the child welfare system.

And I, I just like, if you're so busy trying to be woke. By calling victims of human trafficking, migrant sex workers, and framing them as if they're doing this as an empowered choice, then you're utterly abandoning your, your basic duty and responsibility. I mean, the, the irony is that the [01:15:00] same people who would use a term like migrant sex workers are the people who see victimization where it doesn't exist, you know, and, and are easily manipulated by victim narratives, including, for example, the victim narratives that these men who are convicted rapists are somehow the victims in, in women's prisons.

You know, it's like they fall for that narrative, but they can't see [01:15:30] the actual victims like human trafficking victims, for example.

[01:15:33] Speaker: I think you're right. And. So much gets changed by the language. And I think that's one of the reasons this has been so insidious and so difficult because language, they went after the language.

I don't wanna say they, but there's, you know, in, in graduate schools and the series postmodernism and constructivism, that we create our own reality and all [01:16:00] this stuff that, you know, this thought process, that if we can change the language, we will change reality. And so therefore I'm gonna call you, he, I'm going to use him and her, him and his or, but, but what it failed to do in language was to pin down its own definitions of saints.

It like, so gender identity, it's very difficult to get a definition of that that is not circular, that you identify with [01:16:30] the, your, your gender is different than the gender of the sex. That you, that you are, you know, that you are. I mean, it's just very circular. So the, I think language is very important in society and how it's how we share meaning and shape meaning.

And if we are going to eliminate the reality of women, the real physical, physical reality of women and children being trafficked being, you [01:17:00] know, videotaped while they're doing it so they can make extra money, putting it up on some porn service, then we're losing a lot. And it's a very interesting time that we're living in because so much is changing.

And so much is, is moving toward AI and the internet and, and more of that ethereal. And people are getting less and less connected to their material circumstances in the material world. And that can't be good. We're just. [01:17:30] An an Earthling.

[01:17:32] Speaker 3: Hmm. And it's really such a primitive mental state to have this degree of wish wishful thinking that you can change reality through your, you know, sheer force of will and word choice.

Yeah. It's kind of hocus pocus.

[01:17:49] Speaker: It, it's, well, it is, it's like when you look at societal development, they was, I've seen them where it's been beige was the color sign just to survival. But if you're get a little beyond survival, you're in a [01:18:00] mythic mythmaking believing stage and then takes you through a, are you

[01:18:04] Speaker 3: talking about w talk thing called spiral dynamics?

That's, that's,

[01:18:06] Speaker: that's what I'm talking about. So, and Ken Wilbur added to it and moved it along too. But I, I, you know, I think that explains a lot. And we're reaching back into the, into the very low, low, like you said, primitive. I, I wouldn't even say primitive. Maybe pre primitive, I don't know. Mm. Or post primitive.

[01:18:28] Speaker 3: But yeah, I, I guess I mean, like [01:18:30] psychologically primitive, like Yes. Coming out from like a very young Exactly. Mental state. Yeah. I

[01:18:34] Speaker: get it.

[01:18:35] Speaker 3: Yeah.

[01:18:35] Speaker: Mm-hmm.

[01:18:36] Speaker 3: Yeah,

[01:18:36] Speaker: that

[01:18:36] Speaker 3: works. I mean, it, it reminds me of like for some reason it's always so bizarre what I remember about my childhood and when I don't. But like, I remember saying to my mom at some point like, well, if there's not enough money, why don't they just make more of it?

Oh, yeah. That'll solve everything. Thanks for the solution. 5-year-old. Too bad. Nobody thought of that before. I mean, it's, it's that same [01:19:00] level of naivete. Yeah. Well, so you mentioned that there are things that people can do to support Wolf. So o obviously money talks, you're saying donations. We'll be sure.

Yeah, we're looking.

[01:19:11] Speaker: I think maybe Malcolm Gladwell could make a donation in light of his recent Oh,

[01:19:15] Speaker 3: oh. Revelations, you know? Right. Well, he's getting, certainly he's a tipping point. He's getting a lot of I, oh, I mean, so I mean, I, I don't keep up with the no news enough to always know why [01:19:30] people are mad at each other.

And one great thing about the internet is when you see people arguing on the internet, you can always just pretend you didn't. It's actually one of my favorite coping mechanisms for seeing, like all the drama and infighting in the gender critical community is like, I can just pretend that I don't know this and nobody can say that.

I happened to be on Twitter Tuesday at 3:52 PM and saw that post about so and so. I, I can just be not even Switzerland here. I can just. Be on a, on a [01:20:00] desert island with no internet as far as I'm concerned. But, you know, I saw Malcolm Gladwell the news about him, like basically expressing some degree of regret for his previous stance on trans issues.

And in my mind that's like a good thing. But I'm also lacking the context of. How he used his power to make things worse for everyone on our side of the issue. So then I've seen him get a lot of flack for that. I don't know how much you know about this or where [01:20:30] you stand on the issue, but I like your approach here, which is, Hey buddy, if you're feeling a little remorseful about your past actions, here's something you can do to atone for your sins.

Just donate to our organization. I think that approach is probably gonna go over better with powerful millionaires, you know, the, the sweet like, Hey, how about a donation rather than the, like, you're not repenting hard enough. Sinner.

[01:20:56] Speaker: Yeah. And, and, and that, that is interesting too because what you [01:21:00] just said, repent and, and sinner, it's like, it does this illustrates that, illustrates how much this is almost its own religion or its own, I don't know what the other word would be, but.

Cult cult. Oh yeah, that one.

[01:21:17] Speaker 3: I mean, and to be fair, I was talking about the behavior of our own side, so to speak. Oh, I know. Our own side gets bad. Oh yeah. Like, yeah, yeah. Purity, spirals and all that. Yeah, I know.

[01:21:26] Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't get to, we try to not, [01:21:30] we, that tries not to get engaged in that. And you know, sometimes someone don't criticize us for something and, and we don't respond because we didn't see it just like you didn't.

[01:21:41] Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.

[01:21:43] Speaker: But yeah. We need we need volunteers, especially in the area of technical, technical work and social media work. We need volunteers who would be trained if they wanna help us track and follow and try to influence legislation. [01:22:00] We need lawyers who are willing to, to join our organization.

There's no fee to join and can become a member of our lawyer referral network, which is called WARN for the Wolf Attorney resource network. Or if they don't wanna be with a feminist group, if they're a lawyer, they can go over to Glenna Gold's Group Gender Critical legal Society where there's quite a mix of different kinds of people.

And it, it creates a very lively [01:22:30] discussion on some of these social media, you know, the internal social media you have. But so, so we need donate. We need money and we need volunteers. Because this is just, it's not going to go away. Even if we win, even if women win every single case from here until for 20 years, there's still going to be litigation.

From on in this issue in this area?

[01:22:52] Speaker 3: Well it sounds like you don't just accept donations, but there are all these different ways that people can contribute, including, and, and that's one thing [01:23:00] I love about doing this podcast and meeting all these people like I have been doing these past few years, is you just see that there's so many people with so many different skill sets that contribute their skill sets.

Like I've been talking a lot lately to Cynthia Brandy from the Paradox Institute. Her background is in medical animation and that's very different from my background, but we're coming together on a project 'cause I have a concept that could really benefit from some visuals to illustrate it. And I, [01:23:30] I just love how she uses her illustrations, tools to create content for the Paradox Institute, which if listeners aren't familiar, they're really great resource on, you know, education on biology versus myth.

So, you know, here you are giving an example of how someone with social media skills, maybe a, maybe a, a Gen Z type could come along and

[01:23:52] Speaker: help out. And we have quite an age range too, among our members. And we have male, male people, males who join our group because they see what's [01:24:00] happening. And, and male attorneys who, who just, you know, know it's wrong.

Well, that's

[01:24:04] Speaker 3: great. I mean, we, we need those men who, you know, not the, the slimy archetype of the the male feminist who's, you know, hiding behind that in order to exploit, which I think you see more of that in like the, as you would say, like the lib femme scene. Right. But these, we need strong men, right?

We do. To stand out for women like, like Graham Linnehan recently has been he's been great, [01:24:30] dragged through the ring over, over his stance.

[01:24:32] Speaker: I, it's so shocking to see that he was arrested getting off an airplane by five armed police officers.

[01:24:40] Speaker 3: I know I like, I mean this whole, like, just waking up every day.

Like, is this really the world we live in? I mean, what's happening in a, across the pond where they're not prosecuting actual criminals, they're not protecting actual crime victims, but they're using the police authority to [01:25:00] limit freedom of speech and create a chilling atmosphere. It's just so crazy over there.

It's,

[01:25:04] Speaker: it's remarkable. It really is. Again, moving away from the physical to the, to the mental or to the non-tangible world is where they're, they're arresting people rather than in the physical world.

[01:25:21] Speaker 3: Well, I've talked to plenty of British people on this podcast. I did get accused by some YouTube viewer of telling Maya Forter [01:25:30] that America was.

Better than England. I don't recall that being my stance. I think if anything I was trying to empathize with, like, I was trying to understand how Maya views, like British culture is different than America and like in what ways we have certain maybe like freedoms or cultural norms here that are a little bit more like supportive than some of the things that people have to deal with over there, like Right.

And someone interpreted that as me, like thinking our country's better than theirs. Well which is not [01:26:00] necessarily my perspective. I'm actually, I'd love, I'd love to go to the uk. I just, at this point, I mean with all of these horror stories about people. Being intimidated and even arrested over saying, oh, I, I saw one that someone was a arrested, or at least confronted by the police for calling someone a Muppet.

Like, I'm like, are you kidding?

[01:26:26] Speaker: Yeah. It's been very, very upsetting watching what some [01:26:30] of these women have gone through in this, you know, with these in encounters with police that one would never have here. And I'm not saying we're a better country than England either, but Right. Our First Amendment is very, very good to have and we need it.

[01:26:50] Speaker 3: Well, if anyone British wants to come on my show, I am not. I don't believe my country is better than yours. And I love your accents and I'd, I'd love your, your British perspective [01:27:00] on what the hell is going on over there. Pardon my language. Anyway else, Beth, before we go on too many tangents I will make sure to include any links you send me in the show notes for how people can contribute to Wolf.

And is there anything else that you wanted to say that, that you didn't get a chance to say? Oh,

[01:27:16] Speaker: no. I think we've covered a lot. I'm glad we took that detour on Charles. I should, I I can believe I disconnected those you in that idea.

[01:27:26] Speaker 3: Oh, I mean, I am kind of. [01:27:30] Frighteningly forgetful for my age. So the fact that you're doing all this heady work in your retirement, I'm nothing but respect.

And if you're occasionally forgetful, I think that's okay. Thank

[01:27:42] Speaker: you. I appreciate that. 'cause I sure feel sometimes feel that age. So

[01:27:48] Speaker 3: well, thank you so much for joining me, Al Spend. It's been a pleasure. It's been wonderful. Thank you for listening to you Must Be Some kind of Therapist. If you enjoyed this episode.

Kindly take a [01:28:00] moment to rate, review, share, or comment on it using your platform of choice. And of course, please remember, podcasts are not therapy and I'm not your therapist. Special thanks to Joey Rero for this awesome theme song, half Awake and to Pods by Nick for production. For help navigating the impact of the gender craze on your family, be sure to check out my program for parents, ROGD Repair.

[01:28:30] Any resource you heard mentioned on this show plus how to get in touch with me can all be found in the notes and links below Rain or shine. I hope you will step outside to breathe the air today in the words of Max Airman. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful [01:29:00] world.