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[Music] [Applause] thank you it’s wonderful to be here to see so many uh good friends so I want to start with a uh a story about Elon Musk so as you know he’s a man known for his boldness and his entrepreneurial genius last week Elon abruptly announced that he was moving his businesses out of California to Texas and in an interview with psychologist Jordan Peterson he explained why he said that when California governor Gavin Nome signed into law a new bill prohibiting schools from telling parents when their own child was identified as transgender it
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was the last straw musk it turns out had previously warned Nome and said if you sign legislation that puts children in danger I will move my companies out of California and now he’s making good on that promise the most he’s a man of action but the most powerful moment in this interview came a few moments later when musk spoke from the heart not as a billionaire businessman but as a father in deep pain Peterson asked musk why he had become such an outspoken foe of so-called gender affirming care and musk
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immediately countered and he said gender affirming care is a quote terrible euphemism it’s really child mutilation and sterilization and musk went on he said it’s very possible for adults to manipulate children who are having a natural identity crisis and manipulate them into believing they’re the wrong gender and they need to be the other gender and that will solve their problems and then they give them sterilizing drugs called puberty blockers sterilizing drugs so they never have children it’s maab it’s evil those were his words
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but then pain just etched on his face it it was tremendously moving he said it happened to one of my older boys I was essentially tricked into signing documents giving permission for puberty blockers and hormones into signing documents for one of my older boys Xavier I was told Xavier might commit suicide he repeated again it’s incredibly evil but then he continued and speaking softly kind of haltingly you know the way a person in pain speaks when they’re just holding it all together and he said I lost my son essentially they call it dead naming for a reason it’s called Dead naming because
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your son is dead my son Xavier is dead he was killed by the woke mind virus woke mind virus it’s an AP description of the transgender Revolution which is pure Insanity the transgender Revolution reveals a culture that has lost its grip on reality Elon musk’s suffering unfortunately is not rare the families I know who have gone through the exact same experience will tell you that the pain of watching a child self-destruct cheered on by gender evangelists who sometimes are in your own family is searing it’s raw and it’s Relentless and the anger also runs deep
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anyone with a heart is certain to feel great compassion for Elon Musk for his son for anyone else who experiences such pain loss or alienation because of a child’s so-called transition but let’s let’s zoom out from this personal tragedy for a minute and look at this story through a wider lens and ask some questions first what’s at the heart of the problem here if we take our cues from legislation and public policy we might think that these contested questions of sex and identity are merely medical questions kind of the types of disputes that we need to turn to experts
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for remember Matt Walsh’s documentary and his famous question what is a woman well isn’t it a question of biology question of evidence well 25 States so far have indeed sized up the issue of gender transition from a biological and medical perspective they’ve passed laws that in varying degrees ban medical or surgical interventions in minors for J gender transition purposes now these laws are based on the state’s police power the government’s Duty to protect its citizens particularly children from harm so the laws tackle limited identifiable issues informed consent uh the immaturity of minors they assess the
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adequacy of of the evidence base and ask is it really sufficient to justify these experimental procedures that have such lifelong consequences for minors and these are really valid concerns everyone knows that teenagers are too young young to make life-altering decisions with permanent consequences the Mantra of gender affirming care however is let the child lead it’s pure nonsense every if you’re a parent you know that it’s very it’s it’s pure nonsense every parent knows this intuitively unless ideology overrides that parental Instinct and musk himself pointed out the contradiction of prohibiting teenagers
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from getting a tattoo but permitting them to seek life-altering hormones and surgery deferring to a child’s every want and desire is the very definition of poor parenting except apparently when it comes to sex and identity so I’m grateful for these laws and for the courage of medical professionals who expose the harm of medicalized gender transitions for the lawyers who write the legislation or or defend them in court but even so these laws are not the answer they can only contain the damage they can’t reverse the tide because the heart of the problem is much deeper it’s anthropological when a teenage boy
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identifies as a woman our objection cannot be that he’s simply too young and impressionable to decide for himself whether he’s a man or a woman it’s simply not true that if he just Waits a few more years until he’s more mature then that then if he still claims a female identity we can relax and we can say you know he must be right when an adolescent girl seeks a double mastectomy because she’s convinced herself that she quote feels like a man and she hates her female body because it doesn’t match her feelings our best answer cannot be honey the evidence is just not there right now let’s wait
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until there’s more research until we can see there’s a lasting emotional benefit to getting your Healthy breasts amputated it’s simply not true that a sound study showing some sort of psychological benefit to removing the healthy breasts of a troubled teenager would somehow make it all okay this isn’t an age or a maturity problem or even an Evidence problem it’s a deeper problem young people like Xavier have been seduced by an anthropology a belief system that’s premised on the oldest lie known to man and that is you decide you decide what’s true for yourself you decide who you are
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you decide what’s good or evil you decide what to do with your body in fact my body my choice that abortion slogan is now used routinely by the G gender activists and they they have common cause Planned Parenthood is now the second largest provider of cross- seex hormones for transition purposes so that message you decide you get to judge what will make you happy and the whispered backdrop kind of the unstated premise of this refrain is really you know better than God does what’s good for you what’s right for you so go ahead disregard his moral precepts his design for your body for relationships you can even deny his
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existence because you are the master of your Universe you get to decide many of you are familiar with the gender unicorn or the gender bred person these are images very colorful and and kind of cutesy that are used to sell children on this false anthropology to convince them that there is no truth there’s no coherence to their creation as male or female or to the design of their bodies that what’s most important is that they choose they decide who they are these images present the human person as a bundle of disconnected Dimensions with very little meaning except for their feelings and their
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choice of identity the individual gets to decide who their authentic self really is regardless of the fact of their male or female body if you think about it that’s a pretty heavy burden to lay on a child or a teen imagine waking up every morning taking your emotional temperature and trying to figure out if you feel more like a boy today or more like a girl I’ve actually seen videos of parents who are all into this putting their children through this day after day just this this continuous shifting and and and instability imagine doing this if you’re only 5 years old because this is down to
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the preschool and kindergarten level a more recent image of this false anthropology is the gender Galaxy kind of magnifies the lie so children are told that gender is this amazing world it’s theirs to imagine a place to Fashion themselves in the world around them after their own desires they are Masters of the Universe they can name name themselves like the stars in the sky they can choose their identity they can set embodiment goals and change their bodies accordingly it’s magical thinking but children believe it so I decide the refrain the theme song The Narrative if
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you will of man’s Rebellion against sex Insanity his Rebellion against God himself so how do we get here and what do we do I think one of the seeming uh conundrums really of the transgender issue is why so many parents mature well-educated thinking adults why do so many parents reflexively acques or even endorse the claims of the transgender Revolution why is a child’s claim to be born in the wrong body to quote be trans even plausible why didn’t we hear over the the past decade as we’ve seen this tremendous spike in the number of young people who are identifying as
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transgender why didn’t we hear this massive Collective outcry across the land of parents saying No this is insane yes there were some parents but more often there have been thousands of parents teachers counselors and Physicians who simply accept the precepts of gender ideology as true until two years ago most Americans six out of 10 passively supported gender ideology as well in response to poll questions they would say that they believed a person’s identity was not fixed at Birth we know it’s set a conception but the question was birth versus whether you can just decide it
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later and six out of 10 two years ago said yeah people can decide they can choose for themselves that has shifted now it’s six out of 10 who are understanding reality who are on team reality the same is true of self-described Catholics used to be about 5050 and now we’re in positive territory but I wonder why isn’t it higher why isn’t it higher consider the claims of gender ideology and I’ll just Blitz through this um because you know this but Christian anthropology is rooted in the truth that we’re created by a loving God created for relationship with him
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created for eternal life with him gender ideology says no you are a self-c Creator that’s the the descriptive term that that the pioneering gender doc at Boston Children’s used he sort of marveled at watching as he said children creating themselves as they went on the puberty blockers and the cross- seex hormones so a different vision of who the Creator is your identity in Christianity is is as a son or daughter of the lord it’s relational according to gender ideology your identity is self-defined you are whoever you say you are your dignity as a Christian is
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inherent it comes from being created in the image and likeness of God gender ideology says no your dignity is contingent you need validation you need legal recognition or you your dignity is erased we know we have a Destiny for eternal life for because gender ideology is at heart atheistic it’s all about the Here and Now Christianity understands we’re a Unity of body and soul gender ideology says no we’re we’re dualistic what matters is your mind your feelings your body is merely a tool or a canvas for personal expression and if the body has
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no meaning well then the only the only purpose of of sex really is pleasure and sex becomes something that’s degraded into a solo act as opposed to the relational understanding the self-giving the unitive and procreative meanings that we understand through Christian anthropology marriage too in Christianity is the union of lifelong Union of a man or a woman and and the fruitfulness that comes from that as they build a family gender ideology says no marriage is about fulfilling adult desires and family is chosen it’s a collection by consent and then finally and importantly Christianity understands
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we’re all broken we’re all sinful we need Redemption we need Grace gender ideology says if something’s going wrong in your life it’s not your fault to figure out who the oppressor is and take him down so there you could not have a more direct Clash or conflict than between these two visions of the of the person between Christianity and gender ideology every significant truth Tru about the human person as understood by Christians is contradicted or undermined by gender ideology but gender ideology’s beliefs are at the core of the sexual Revolution this didn’t just sort of percolate up
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five years ago or 10 years ago these strands of thought and these beliefs have have been there now for decades with roots that go farther back a side note for anyone who’s interested in a deeper dive on understanding man and woman uh there’s going to be a fantastic FC conference at Franciscan October 24th through 26th called man and woman in the order of creation it’s the brainchild of Franciscan professor and tomisic Scholar Deborah Savage and it’s co-sponsored by the ethics and public policy Center so many of the speakers here will also be there so I apologize I can’t go into
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more detail but you can get it there that’s going to be live streamed too but when we look at our culture you know Manor Shay who wrote that terrific little book about uh from Christendom to apostol Mission pastoral strategies for the apostolic age he notes that every society has a set of assumptions ways of looking for things that are largely taken for granted that becomes a compelling Nar narrative that that shapes our decisions our choices sometimes even in a way that we’re not aware of it that used to be Christendom we’re not in Christendom any longer the implicit assumptions woven into today’s
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culture the compelling narrative that shap shapes people’s decisions and defines their purpose are no longer Christian the culture is being reshaped to make gender ideology the default narrative the understanding that’s that it just permeates our being our institutions about what it means to be happy and what it means to be a human person so gender ideology and the normalization of all its fruits from casual sex to masturbation to pornography contraception abortion homosexuality and now transgender identification is irreconcilable with the truth about the human person in
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truth gender ideology is a Preposterous belief system and it’s easy to understand why kids can be convinced of something that’s preposterous right their kids they don’t know anything and when a trusted adult comes along and and says you have the power to reimagine yourself to become someone new all you can leave behind your the body you don’t like your mental health struggles your insecurities and become someone new that’s a pretty attractive package it solves their problem and it puts them in charge I decide I decide who I am but children are children and the world is saturated with gender ideology so we can
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expect some confusion but again here’s the question worth asking why would a genius like Elon Musk consider it even plausible that his child would be happier if he follows his feel feelings and decides he’s a girl yes musk was manipulated by the false suicide threat but but why was it even plausible and not just musk I see this with many families even Catholic families who who somehow think it’s possible for someone to be born in the wrong body there must be something else besides male or female and God got it wrong here’s the answer the transgender deception becomes plausible when parents
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have already bought into its false premises in their own lives perhaps they’ve already accepted the lie that they can choose regardless of the moral law whatever they like that they can disregard the natural order the God has nothing to say of value about sex and relationships or family when you reject God his created order his moral laws and disregard even the logic of the body when you did when you reject the basic truth about the human person you’re making it up as you go along anything is plausible anything is possible given the technology and isn’t this the story of the sexual
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Revolution and the role of technology and supposedly freeing US 65 years ago the birth control pill won approval from the FDA the pill in my view was the very first widely accepted transgender in intervention why do I say that because it established the pr the premises its widespread use conditioned people to view God’s natural design for sex the complimentarity of male and female bodies the purpose and fruits of our Union as a barrier as an obstacle to the self-defined human happiness that we seek so married people and singles alike embraced Technology’s power to sever that link between sexual Union and
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procreation in pursuit of a social goal it met their subjective criteria for personal happiness it’s the same thing that happens in the transgender Revolution it’s a difference only in terms of magnitude not kind the pill implicitly taught women that their bodies and their fertility were also problems additional obstacles to Freedom there must be something wrong with God’s design and the solution is to exercise their power of choice to disregard God’s plan to do it their way women were persuaded that they needed the power to decide their Futures they could no longer trust God and his plan they
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needed to be able to have sex like a man sex without consequences all I can say is what a bad idea and and so many women there have been numerous books that have been published just in the past few years of women coming to this because of their own experiences but interestingly enough Jack turban who’s a Stanford psychiatrist and one of the most vocal champions of transitioning children of hormonal castration and gender surgeries for adolescents he recently defended the use of cross-sex hormones in adolescence by saying and I’m paraphrasing here it’s no different from putting these
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adolescents on birth control pills it’s probably safer the pill disables the body’s the healthy body’s natural function to achieve a social goal we’ve already accepted that now for what 60 you know 65 years why shouldn’t we accept puberty blockers that’s his logic which does the same thing it disrupts a natural process in a healthy child to achieve a social goal consider another aspect once that link between sex and procreation was broken by technological manipulation we as a people largely forgot what sex is for we forgot sex was about babies and the consequences were predictable if you’ve read human you
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know that but now when sex is only about pleasure there’s no natural argument or logical argument in a secular sense about why we should be against any sexual activity as long as it’s legal right there’s why not and in fact we’ve seen the activists bring pressure to bear on the psychiatric community so that now the the latest version of the ICD world the World Health organization’s classification of diseases has removed what used to be called paraphilias in other words fetishes perversions things like that and they said unless it’s a public health problem not our problem people
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are free to do what they want so where do we go from here well first a caution you know I one of the good things that’s come about in the past few years has been people waking up to what’s happening with transitioning children and so these laws are a good thing but My worry is this that in the short term we may win that battle against medicalized gender experiments in minors but lose the war against the bigger evil the social cultural and political Embrace of a false and degrading and dangerous vision of the human person the consequences of embedding a false anthropology not only in our cultural
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soil in our laws our language but in the human heart are far-reaching we end up with coerced participation in um morally impermissible uh transgender medicine the suppression of conscience rights restrictions on religious liberty of Catholic employers institutions the denial of free speech the normalization of dehumanized in transhumanist medical experiments medicine being transformed from a healing and restorative profession to something that’s simply about meeting and responding to Consumer desires the absolute decimation of parental rights and family integrity and
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the promotion of a sexualized ultimately misogynistic it always goes in that direction inhuman culture so as I stressed before it’s a good thing to fight the the uh the terrible things that are being inflicted on children but we have to keep our eyes on what the real issue is we have to recognize that the entire body of gender medicine rests on that false premise you can be whoever you want to be if the technolog is there and and there’s uh you give informed consent we can go for it today gender medicine uh which initially started with sort of a Christian gloss as a compassionate thing is now simply about
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granting human rights and and human autonomy so what should we do what can we do well first live with Integrity as Catholics we need to examine our lives are we fully surrendered in our own lives in our relationships with God spouse to his design for our bodies for our sexuality for our families second don’t be discouraged St Paul my power is made perfect and weak nness my grace is sufficient for you and Pope St John Paul II we are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures we are the sum of the Father’s love for us and our real capacity to become the image of his son third picking up on Andrea
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Bella’s talk be courageous be convinced there’s no daylight between truth and charity adhering to the truth is what is loving good so we can’t back off and apologize we need to be convinced invite don’t impose but be convinced that God truly knows what is right and good for us fourth be kind prudent and patient my husband once said I’ve never forgotten that the art of evangelization is the art of presenting the right to Truth at the right time in the right manner we don’t have to all send Elon Musk the catechism so he gets the rest of the story we can take it
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slow there are millions of people though like him for whom the truth is breaking through simply because of their own experience because it’s built into the human heart to yearn for it to look for it so we can encourage that we can be there we can we can be patient we can use this is my final Point use all the tools at our disposal prayer scripture Catholic teaching but also science personal experiences and general or Genuine friendship we need to walk with others with great patience and love towards sex and Sanity God style and there we will find the Peace of Christ