Hundreds of teenagers flooded into the streets of Chicago on Saturday night. In response to the chaos, hundreds of police officers were dispatched to the downtown area after there several cars were damaged by the teenagers. Around 8 p.m., the mob of teens attempted to storm into Millennium Park. However, people under 21 are not allowed access to the park without being accompanied by an adult.
The horde of teens forced police to escort tourists and locals back to their cars at the Millennium Park garage. Teens also reportedly attempted to force their way inside the Art Institute of Chicago in an attempted “teen takeover.”
Officers from the Chicago Police Department, Chicago Fire Department, EMS, and SWAT teams were dispatched to the area. Rowdy teens smashed the windows of several cars by jumping on the vehicles – including a police cruiser. Video shows a vehicle being set on fire.
A man sitting in the driver’s seat of his car was injured and taken to the Northwestern Memorial Hospital after a group of teens beat him as they smashed his vehicle.
Video shows teens standing and dancing on the roof of a Chicago Transit Authority bus. There were reports of bottles being thrown at CTA buses. The CTA said some public transportation was disrupted on Saturday night because of police activity.
Police noted that there were social media posts encouraging teens to fight in the Loop.
🚨#BREAKING: Chaotic Scene Unfolds in Downtown Chicago as Teenagers Vandalize Cars and Gunfire Erupts
📌#Chicago | #Illinois ⁰ There is currently a significant police response taking place in downtown Chicago due to a large group of teenagers causing chaos. They have been… pic.twitter.com/n7xhBpsTKs
WFLD reported that gunfire erupted near the crowds at the corner of Madison and Michigan. Two teenagers were shot. The teens, ages 16 and 17, were shot and rushed to the Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Both boys are said to be in fair condition with gunshot wounds.
A witness told WMAQ-TV, “It’s heartbreaking, kids fighting, chasing each other, some of them got guns. It’s really heartbreaking when one of them actually gets hurt, and that’s unfortunate, happened last night.”
CBS News reported that “multiple teens” were arrested – all were under the age of 18.
The Chicago Police Department said in a statement, “Last night, CPD monitored activity happening across the city and officers were in place to quickly respond to active incidents and large gatherings. We will continue to have sufficient resources in place as we work to strengthen safety in every neighborhood.”
This was the second night of a crowd of teens taking over Chicago. On Friday night, a mob of teenagers gathered at the 31st Street Beach on Friday night. A 14-year-old boy was shot near the crowds.
WLS-TV reported that at least 29 people had been shot, six fatally, in weekend violence in Chicago.
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Hundreds of teenagers flood into downtown Chicago, smashing car windows, prompting police response www.youtube.com
NIH is funding many studies premised upon how little research has been conducted on the long-term health risks of cross-sex hormones. Yet HHS is pushing for more transgender ‘care.’
As the Biden administration pushes the Department of Health and Human Services to make “gender-affirming health care” more widely available, HHS’s own National Institutes of Health is funding multiple studies premised upon how little research has been conducted on the long-term risks of taking cross-sex hormones and whether they improve mental health. The NIH research on transgender issues also emphasizes intersectionality and about half has been on HIV prevention.
The NIH Reporter database, which lists active federally funded research projects, shows 74 with “transgender” in the title, totaling more than $26 million of taxpayers’ money annually. Several NIH-funded studies examine specific health risks of cross-sex hormone treatment — such as associated bone loss and possible increased risk of thrombosis, drug overdose, heart attack, and stroke.
Onlyafew studies evaluate the risk of infertility, even though “the impact of long-term cross-sex hormone therapy on reproductive health is largely unknown,” as one such project states and experts have warned. In contrast, seven studies examine stigma and disparities in health care for transgender people, in response to NIH’s Notice of Special Interest in understanding the role of alleged intersectional stigmas and how they harm health.
Manystudiesaddresshigherincidence of sexually transmitted infections in transgender people, and whether hormone therapy might increase that risk. About half of all NIH-funded research on transgender health, including that which has been completed, relates to HIV prevention among the transgender population, totaling approximately $80 million since 1985.
Transgender males “have some of the highest concentrated HIV epidemics in the world, with a pooled global prevalence of 19% and a 49-fold higher odds ratio of acquiring HIV than non-transgender adults,” according to one project summary. Behavioral factors contribute, another project says, but the role of sex hormones needs further study, since they “are known to modulate the immune response, resulting in changes in host susceptibility to pathogens, vaccine efficacy and drug metabolism.”
Many Ongoing Projects Highlight Lack of Research
While suicide prevention is often cited as a major reason to give dysphoric children puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, only one of the current studies is focused specifically on suicide risk, although several emphasize the lack of long-term studies of cross-sex hormones administered to children and their relation to mental health.
Medical professionals “say more specific research is needed to determine whether medically transitioning as a minor reduces suicidal thoughts and suicides compared with those who socially transition or wait before starting treatment,” according to Reuters.
One NIH-funded project summary acknowledges that the long-term effect of puberty suppression on mental health needs further study and will evaluate children already taking puberty blockers.
During puberty, hormones change the structure and organization of the brain. Puberty blockers “may also disrupt puberty-signaled neural maturation in ways that can undermine mental health gains over time and impact quality of life in other ways,” the Nationwide Children’s Hospital project summary says. “The overall impacts” of puberty blockers “have not been systematically studied,” the summary says.
One of the larger NIH-funded transgender studies, funded at $743,000 annually, is at Boston Children’s Hospital. It notes, “Little is known [emphasis added] about how pubertal blockade, the first step in the medical management of a young transgender adolescent, affects bone health and psychological well-being. … In an exploratory aim, we will also consider the effect of pubertal blockade on anxiety, depression, and health-related quality of life.”
Another research project, “Psychological consequences of medical transition in transgender youth,” begun last year at Princeton University and anticipated to end in 2025, notes the lack of quality research in this area:
Five studies to date have longitudinally examined the relationship between one or both of these interventions [puberty suppression and hormone therapy] and mental health in transgender youth. However, these studies have had relatively small samples, none have been able to isolate the effects of endocrine interventions, none have included a cisgender [non-transgender] comparison group, and none have examined the mechanisms by which endocrine interventions might improve mental health.
A longitudinal study that began in 2015 and will run through at least 2026 acknowledges, “Transgender children and adolescents are a poorly understood and a distinctly understudied population in the United States. … Continuing our current research is imperative to expand the scant evidence-base currently guiding the clinical care of TGD [transgender and gender diverse] youth and thus, is of considerable public health significance.”
As the summary of one ongoing NIH-funded research project on sex hormones’ effects on the developing brain says, “There is little to no empirical data guiding clinical practices” of cross-sex hormone therapy in early pubertal adolescents, “highlighting the need for further research to address the critical knowledge gap.” The research, funded at $3 million so far to Stanford University, “will provide a much-needed foundation for understanding the longitudinal impact of treatments that are already being used [emphasis added] in clinical settings.”
The project will elucidate “how sex hormone therapy alters sex-specific risk for disease … and [its] impact on neural networks implicated in psychiatric disorders.” The research proposed “has never been conducted in early pubertal adolescents,” the summary reads.
NIH Acknowledges Limited Evidence, FDA Hasn’t Approved
The NIH, the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world, told Reuters that “the evidence is limited on whether these treatments pose short- or long-term health risks for transgender and other gender-diverse adolescents.” Additionally, the Food and Drug Administration has not approved puberty blockers and sex hormones for children’s transgender medical interventions. As Reuters reported:
No clinical trials have established their safety for such off-label use. The drugs’ long-term effects on fertility and sexual function remain unclear. And in 2016, the FDA ordered makers of puberty blockers to add a warning about psychiatric problems to the drugs’ label after the agency received several reports of suicidal thoughts in children who were taking them. More broadly, no large-scale studies have tracked people who received gender-related medical care as children to determine how many remained satisfied with their treatment as they aged and how many eventually regretted transitioning.
Countries such as Finland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom have begun to limit children’s access to transgender health interventions. Early, foundational research from 2011 on transgender medical interventions has been criticized as failing to meet basic research standards.
Before 2012, “there was no scientific literature on girls ages eleven to twenty-one ever having developed gender dysphoria at all,” according to Abigail Shrier’s book “Irreversible Damage.” Studies show most children grow out of gender dysphoria, Shrier says.“There are no good long-term studies indicating that either gender dysphoria or suicidality diminishes after medical transition,” according to Shrier.
Meanwhile, despite all the possible health risks, President Joe Biden has issued executiveorders charging “HHS to work with states to promote expanded access to gender-affirming care.” The administration has issued directives that federal health insurance benefits must “provide comprehensive gender-affirming care.” The administration also opposes “conversion therapy — efforts to suppress or change an individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.”
Taxpayers are already paying for transgender procedures, as they are covered by some insurers and Medicaid in some states.
I’ll ask again. WHY ARE THESE MENTAL PATIENT LEFTEST SO HYPER ABOUT MUTILATING AMERICA’S CONFUSED CHILDREN? WHAT IS THEIR END GAME?
HHS’s Office of Population Affairs, which is overseen by transgender Dr. Rachel Levine, states there’s no debate: “Research demonstrates that gender-affirming care improves the mental health and overall well-being of gender diverse children and adolescents.” Other proponents acknowledge a lack of research on these hormones’ effect on brain development, but say the pros outweigh the cons.
Growing Transgender Identification
The number of transgender adults in the U.S. is estimated at 1.4 million to 2 million, with an estimated 150,000 to 300,000 transgender children. The number of American children who started on puberty blockers or hormones totaled 17,683 from 2017 to 2021 and has been increasing, according to Reuters.
From 2019 to 2021, at least 56 patients ages 13 to 17 had genital surgeries, and from 2019 to 2021, at least 776 children that age had mastectomies, not including procedures that weren’t covered by insurance, according to Reuters.
The transgender surgery industry grosses more than $2 billion annually and expects to double that by 2030.
Debate Among Medication Providers
“Puberty delay medications are safe and effective,”according to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), a pro-transgender organization that sets standards for trans medical interventions. “Every person, including every TGD person, deserves an opportunity to be their true selves and has the right to access medically-necessary affirming care to enable this opportunity,” WPATH says.
When WPATH recently updated its guidance, authors “were acutely aware that any unknowns that the working group acknowledged — any uncertainties in the research — could be read as undermining the field’s credibility and feed the right-wing effort to outlaw gender-related care,” The New York Times reported. The newspaper is in the midst of an internal fight about its coverage of transgender issues, with some saying it has been too critical of transgender medical interventions.
A draft of the WPATH chapter for adolescents included minimum recommended ages for hormone treatments and breast removal or augmentation, but after criticism from providers and transgender activists, “it was determined that the specific ages would be removed to ensure greater access to care for more people,” WPATH said.
The final guidelines also walked back a recommendation that preteens and teenagers should provide evidence of several years of persistently identifying as transgender, to differentiate from kids whose change in identification is recent, and changed it to a vaguer “sustained” gender incongruence. “In the end, the chapter sided with the trans advocates who didn’t want kids to have to wait through potentially painful years of physical development,” according to the Times.
The final guidelines acknowledged that because of the limited long-term research, treatment without a comprehensive diagnostic assessment “has no empirical support and therefore carries the risk that the decision to start gender-affirming medical interventions may not be in the long-term best interest of the young person at that time.”
Reuters found that gender facilities across the country are not conducting recommended months-long assessments before administering hormones to children. Parents of 28 of 39 minors who had sought transgender interventions told Reuters they “felt pressured or rushed to proceed with treatment.” Gender-care professionals also said some of their peers are “pushing too many families to pursue treatment for their children before they undergo the comprehensive assessments recommended in professional guidelines.”
Studying Causes of Gender Dysphoria
Some of the taxpayer-funded studies may bring clarity to the issue of gender dysphoria by examining its causes. One study will examine social media’s influence on children becoming transgender. A second will study “the life history calendar to examine young transgender women’s trajectories of violence, mental health, and protective processes.”
Another government-funded study will help determine how chromosomes, sexual organs, and hormones combine to create sex differences. Another will “uncover genetic underpinnings of female sexual orientation.”
This byline marks several different individuals, granted anonymity in cases where publishing an article on The Federalist would credibly threaten close personal relationships, their safety, or their jobs. We verify the identities of those who publish anonymously with The Federalist.
About a year and a half ago, I noticed that my son — let’s call him Andy — was putting rainbow stickers on his phone. And a friend alerted me that Andy rebuked her daughter in a group chat for being “so cisgender.” I did some delicate digging, and it became clear: My child, then 13, was flirting with going “trans.”
He’s not alone. The number of transgender-identifying kids is up 20 to 40 times since a decade ago, to 1.5 percent of all teens. And the gender facilities that say they are the experts have been unmasked. Videos and statements have revealed that doctors in these so-called clinics are willing to give 15-year-old girls double mastectomies and call it treatment.
I wasn’t about to send my son off for experimental medical interventions that didn’t treat any underlying psychological issues. In this, I think I’m representative of the silent (and bullied) majority. Still, what could I do?
The first thing I had to do was to realize that the gender cult is powerful, and I can’t control the choices and feelings of my kid. I had to accept my limits, but that didn’t mean I was helpless. Parents are still the most important influence on their kids.
Finding a New School
I was lucky: My son was at a private school that did not push kids, behind their parents’ backs, into exploring alternate sexualities and getting “treated” by lifetime medicalization. If my son had been at a trans-affirming school — which means just about any public school — I would have been undermined at every turn.
At this school, however, he did have a cohort of “rebel” friends who all seemed to identify themselves as gender-questioning. And the school itself was not academically challenging enough for Andy. So I focused on academics, and we looked for a new school that would be a better fit on that score — and still supportive of my values. Finding one gave him a fresh start and a new peer group.
Building Real Identity
Next, I decided I would not provoke Andy by debating gender and trans issues. Maria Keffler in her book “Desist, Detrans, and Detox” reminds parents that transgenderism in adolescents is less about sex and more about identity, identity, and identity. A few decades ago, Andy probably would have worked through his teenage crises by going goth or arguing with me about religion. These days, becoming one of the letters in LGTB is the shortcut to being interesting, not “basic.”
Well, I didn’t want to make gender-bending the way he was going to differentiate himself from his parents. If he had been openly claiming a different so-called gender identity, maybe I would have been more confrontational about it. But since he was just flirting with being trans, not yet eloping, I decided not to make the topic of the sexes even more important than it already was. Instead, I focused on helping him build an identity in a healthy way.
I made it a priority to compliment him, every day, praising him for all the good things he is. Every time I “caught him” being funny, smart, helpful, generous, thoughtful, or kind, I noted it out loud. Every day, multiple times a day. I tried to help him see that these things are more important to his identity than some exotic “gender.” I also tried to help him feel more at home in his skin. He was given lessons in a sport he enjoys, so he could experience his body being strong and agile. Whatever reduced his alienation from his body, I encouraged.
Open-Ended Questioning
Next, I focused on building our relationship. I asked a lot of open-ended questions, and I made goofy jokes. We laughed a lot. I learned about him and signaled that I was interested in learning more. De-escalating tension and increasing the joy between us was key.
If Andy wanted to wear a vintage shirt that looked like it belonged on a French aristocrat from a few centuries ago, I just shrugged and let it pass. As long as what he chose was somewhere within the boundaries of socially acceptable male clothing, I didn’t make a fuss. After all, being a man (or a woman) is large enough to encompass differences in style, personality, and interest. It’s the trans movement that stereotypes the sexes, telling us that a sensitive, artistic boy must actually be a girl. Nonsense! My son could be a man and wear pastels.
When opportunities arose in everyday life, I pointed out the differences between men and women. In talking about school athletics, I would casually observe, “Oh, in high school, the athletic teams are divided by sex, because by puberty, boys develop more muscles and have more lung capacity than girls.” I never made these into arguments, just objective remarks.
In fact, we didn’t talk about so-called gender much, although I was prepared to. I coached myself on how to respond with neutrality and interest. I was determined only to ask questions. “I’m not clear how, if gender is socially constructed, that it is also an infallible identity deep inside the person?” “Help me understand. If gender is fluid and changeable, why should people get surgeries to alter their bodies permanently?” Books and essays pointing out transgenderism’s inconsistencies helped me clarify my thoughts. Still, I vowed I would only provide my own answers when Andy asked me a question — only, that is, when he was truly curious about my thinking.
I did take Andy to one talk on gender by a speaker who was calm and sympathetic but still supportive of my values. When he asked why he had to go, I simply said, “It’s an important topic, and this point of view is not well-represented in the culture.” Afterward, when I asked him what he thought, he said, “It was fine,” in a tone of voice that indicated the opposite. I dropped it; the talk still gave him a lot to chew on, even if he didn’t want to admit it.
Limiting Technology
One other piece was key: technology. Much trans proselytizing happens online, with anonymous adults love-bombing vulnerable kids. These adults sell the idea that acceptance can be found only in their new trans family and not in their real home. Some parents need to take drastic steps regarding their kids’ online presence. Fortunately, the screen problem was one I had been addressing for a long time, so I could be more moderate.
Andy did not have a smartphone, although even flip phones these days have internet browsers. I gave him a new phone designed for kids, one that had some carefully curated apps but no internet browser. For computer time, he was limited to an hour a day, and I trusted the internet filters I managed on his computer to keep him off the porn sites and the sexually explicit forums that cater to trans-questioning kids. All that limited (but didn’t eliminate) his exposure to pro-trans pressure. As a bonus, I got a much more cheerful kid at home who wasn’t always in front of a screen.
The point of all of this was threefold: to be the good guy, to distract him from all gender talk all the time, and to provide other identity options than the trans one.
Upping My Parenting
Lastly, I played the long game. Even when I didn’t believe it, I kept repeating to myself that the universe wouldn’t give me a kid that I couldn’t care for. That I had his best interests at heart — and online trans gurus didn’t — and I could wait this out with patience. I prioritized him when we had downtime in the evenings, not my phone. And I did the things I needed to, like sleeping enough and getting my own support system, so I could be available to him. Should I have been doing all of this all along as a parent? Well, of course, and in fact, it’s not like I had to do a total 180 when this emergency happened. Some of these things I was already doing, sort of. But I still needed to level up my parenting.
This summer, when he decorated a new phone, there were no rainbow stickers on it.
I wouldn’t say we are out of the woods, but he seems uninterested in the whole gender question. His wardrobe choices are less outrageous, and he’s not anxious, angry, and approval-seeking. Instead, he’s engaged and happy at school and at home, and he doesn’t need to be “different” according to the trans script. He’s happier being different just as himself. That makes me one happy parent.
This byline marks several different individuals, granted anonymity in cases where publishing an article on The Federalist would credibly threaten close personal relationships, their safety, or their jobs. We verify the identities of those who publish anonymously with The Federalist.
There’s plenty of blame to go around for the disappointing results of the last week’s election: the current post-Covid rules (or lack thereof) for voting, mismanaged ballot collection and counting, Republican leadership, and American voters. Naturally, all of these factors played a role in helping a party that has failed on multiple fronts to stay securely in power.
However, one major reason for Democrats winning was Gen Z voters coming out in large numbers to vote for them — though this was not quite as big a reason as Democrats believe. This cohort was responsible for electing cognitively impaired man-child John Fetterman and incompetent shrew Kathy Hochul as well as reelecting Covid tyrant Gretchen Whitmer. Less unsurprisingly, they’re also responsible for supporting the legalization of marijuana and expanding abortion.
Why did these young people feel motivated enough to go and vote against their interests and keep the country on a downward trajectory? Do they like rising crime, high inflation, mass illegal immigration, homeless encampments, high gas prices, and a shrinking economy? Did they really think Biden would pay off their student loans? Are they just brainwashed zombies who comply with the narratives of TikTok?
Based on my extensive experience as an English teacher, I would say that yes, the average Gen Z American is largely indifferent to important issues that affect the country, even ones that affect their general quality of life. Every day, I witness their lack of reasoning skills and personal drive.This in turn causes them to be disturbingly introverted and handle most of their interactions with people through social media. Many have no real community or deep-seated beliefs and act more on feelings than principle.
Instead, they spend most of their waking life on the internet, consuming mindless content and dreaming up fake personas for themselves. And as a result, they are largely immature, lonely, and neurotic.
This much is argued by writer and former English professor Mark Bauerlein, who writes that Gen Z, “will be the most conformist cohort in American history, already favoring cancellation more than any other age group, and politics will be a primary mode of grouping.” This generation is told what to think by various online influencers, and they passively comply.Because of screen addiction, they will never learn to think or act for themselves, nor will they ever really want to.
The propagandizing effect of heavy social media usage cannot be overstated. For young people, nearly every narrative and social phenomenon now originate from the internet. This means that it’s the dumb and disturbed “influencers” online, not parents or teachers, informing this next generation about politics, economics, and culture. And the algorithms of popular social media sites are designed to curate and amplify this same defective messaging a million times over. The subversive effect on people with still-developing frontal cortexes is not all that different from the “Ludivico technique” in “A Clockwork Orange” in which criminals are forcibly bombarded with images and music in order to condition them against misconduct.
Why is Gen Z so glued to their screens? Two friends and fellow teacher-writers Jeremy Adams and Shane Trotter have examined this question in depth. In his book “Hollowed Out,” Adams argues how the breakdown of family, schools, and the culture at large has left today’s young people morally and intellectually adrift: Not working? Not supporting oneself? Playing video games all day on somebody else’s dime? Not feeling a crumb of shame about it — even describing such a state as happy? That is hollowness.
The many norms and standards (these things that would “fill in” a person) that used to be reinforced by their parents, pastors, teachers, politicians, entertainers, and artists simply aren’t anymore. Should it surprise people that the kids carelessly withdraw from the world and play on their phones?
In Trotter’s book “Setting the Bar,” he attributes the failures of Gen Z to low standards and a permissive parenting culture that coddles kids:
The typical modern youth experience — from the school environment, to the parenting norms, to the broader cultural value structure — is ingraining limiting beliefs and destructive habits that leave our kids ill-equipped for the challenges that lie ahead of them.
No one challenges the kids, so they grow up soft and slow, making them the perfect sheep to be manipulated en masse.
Adams and Trotter demonstrate how circumstances have turned many Zoomers into sad, confused individuals doomed to have an impoverished adulthood. Instead of receiving lessons on independence, critical thinking, and disciplined living, too many of them are protected from all forms of adversity and given an iPad to keep them pacified. This treatment insulates them so much from reality that they never come to know themselves and are bored to the point of despair.
Ironically, understanding this dark reality may be the key to generational reform. True, it might be easy to agree with Bauerlein that Gen Z is hopeless and will probably bring the rest of the nation down with them, but this theory assumes that the Gen Z lifestyle is actually sustainable. The students in my classes all share a natural desire to be better people. I do what I can to offer them a way out; that is, I talk to them and push them to do more. At first, they resist and resort to their phone for comfort but this attitude changes when they feel the profound joy of actually learning and accomplishing something.
Conservatives can shake their heads at today’s young adults refusing to grow up, or they can actually try to reach these kids. It’s not like they want to be lonely, ignorant, or “neurodivergent.” And most, if they’re being honest, don’t want to be slaves to their smartphones. Rather, like everyone else, they want goodness, beauty, and truth. They want loving relationships, authentic experiences, and some degree of mastery over their emotions and impulses. Above all, they want meaning.
If they have those things, then they will stop voting for corrupt mediocrities and suicidal social policies. More importantly, they will stop wasting away their lives on frivolity and enjoy a fruitful and fulfilling adulthood. Although election results are technically a political matter, what they reveal about voters is a cultural and moral one. We should treat this midterm as the Gen Z cry for help. It’s time for us to go out and save them.
Auguste Meyrat is an English teacher in the Dallas area. He holds an MA in humanities and an MEd in educational leadership. He is the senior editor of The Everyman and has written essays for The Federalist, The American Conservative, and The Imaginative Conservative, as well as the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture. Follow him on Twitter.
The same party that wants to raise the legal age for rifle purchases to 21 is also pushing to let minors kill preborn babies and mutilate their own genitals. American adults aged 18-20 already aren’t allowed to purchase handguns (and many states don’t allow them to obtain a concealed carry permit), more or less blocking them from practicing the basic self-defense precaution of stowing a defensive weapon to stop a bad guy with a gun. Now, Second Amendment deniers also want to bar these Americans from owning a rifle, a popular choice for home defense.
But while Democrats want to punish millions of law-abiding, prospective young gun owners for the evil, disturbed actions of a few of their peers, they’re also demanding that kids far younger be allowed to commit infanticide and mutilate their own bodies.
Letting Teens Commit Baby Murder
The radical abortion bill that Democrats renewed after the leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade sought to virtually eliminate any restrictions on abortion up to the point of birth. Minors are already allowed to obtain abortions, but the legislation would also nuke state laws mandating parental notification for such young girls. Lest you think this is an incidental inclusion, Democrats have specifically attacked state parental notification laws.
Planned Parenthood’s website doesn’t even try not to sound like a pervert offering kids candy: “If you’re under 18, you may or may not have to tell a parent in order to get an abortion,” it teases.
The ACLU estimates that 350,000 girls younger than 18 get pregnant in America every year, and that 31 percent (or roughly 108,500) of them choose to terminate their babies’ lives. There were 652,639 abortions reported to the Centers for Disease Control in 2014; in the same year, the Guttmacher Institute found that 0.2 percent of abortions — or roughly 1,300 — were executed on girls 14 years old or younger.
Fighting for these young, impressionable girls to get abortions doesn’t just push them into the commission of murder, with the likely accompaniment of lifelong guilt, it also subjects them to trauma themselves. Sarah Eubanks, a former abortion facility employee, described one 12-year-old girl whose grandmother brought her in for an abortion:
I remember that look on her face that she just didn’t understand what was going on. She didn’t want to be there. She started moving around and the doctor said, ‘You need to hold her down.’ I did put my hands on her and said ‘You have to settle down, you gotta be still, you’re gonna hurt yourself. You have to be still.’ And within an instant, she pushed her feet out of the stirrups and started running down the hall with the speculum in her vagina with blood running down her legs. The doctor said, ‘I’m not touching this.’ She was that upset. She just didn’t want to be there. She was screaming.
The hundreds of thousands of preborn babies’ lives lost to the abortionist’s scalpel every year haven’t dampened Democrats’ desires to let adolescent girls (or any women) make the decision to take a human life. But at the same time, the left will throw gun death numbers in your face to push their anti-gun agenda, even when firearm-related homicides are a fraction of abortion numbers, and are far outpaced by defensive gun use. Pew reported 19,384 murders involving a firearm in 2020, compared to up to 3 million “defensive gun uses by victims” per year, according to a CDC study.
Not only do Democrats want to let children kill their babies, they want to let children make damaging and irreversible changes to their own bodies.
Letting Children Sterilize Themselves
A report from Florida Medicaid found that “Available medical literature provides insufficient evidence that sex reassignment through medical intervention is a safe and effective treatment for gender dysphoria,” and “the available evidence demonstrates that these treatments cause irreversible physical changes and side effects that can affect long-term health.” As a result, Florida Medicaid found that experimental procedures like cross-sex hormones or surgeries were insufficiently safe for coverage.
The report also listed the irreversible or potentially irreversible effects of cross-sex hormones, including facial and body hair growth, male pattern baldness, a deepening voice, and an enlarged clitoris for females taking male hormones, and breast growth, infertility, and sexual dysfunction for males taking female hormones. The irreversible effects of surgical interventions, such as elective mastectomies or genital amputations, are obviously far higher.
But those concerning effects didn’t stop the Biden administration’s Justice Department from sending an ominous memo to state attorneys general, threatening legal violations for states that don’t offer various damaging interventions to children.
“A ban on gender-affirming procedures, therapy, or medication may be a form of discrimination against transgender persons,” the memo stated. It also had the arrogance to claim that “it is well established within the medical community that gender-affirming care for transgender youth is not only appropriate but often necessary for their physical and mental health.”
The Biden Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Population Affairs further spelled out just what is meant by “gender-affirming care,”including social treatment of a child as the opposite sex, puberty blockers, artificial pumps of hormones like testosterone or estrogen, or surgeries like elective mastectomies and amputation of reproductive body parts. OPA recommends“social affirmation” for“any age,” puberty blockers at any time during puberty, hormones beginning in early adolescence, and surgeries for adults or “case-by-case in adolescence.” Some parents try to claim their children “came out as trans” as toddlers.
But No Guns for Law-Abiding Young Adults!
These procedures threaten lifelong damage to children who undergo them, yet the Biden administration and other Democrats want unfettered access to them and punishments for health professionals and parents who question them. They also celebrate the idea of teenage girls taking the lives of their preborn babies, with no parental consent and with no consideration of whether a child has the mental maturity to make such a decision — never mind the fact that it’s an act of murder.
But Democrats are all too happy to further erode Americans’ Second Amendment rights by arbitrarily raising the minimum purchase age for a rifle from one adult age to another. Unlike committing an abortion or pumping your child full of hormones, the legal purchase or ownership of a gun does not cause anyone harm. On the contrary, it often protects against it.
Yet Democrats support letting pubescent children abuse themselves and adolescents kill their children, while insisting that an 18-year-old who passes a federal background check can be denied the constitutional right to self-defense. Are 18-year-olds too immature for constitutional rights? Are children and teenagers old enough for a concocted right to harm themselves and others? I would argue it’s neither — but it can’t be both.
Elle Reynolds is an assistant editor at The Federalist and received her B.A. in government from Patrick Henry College with a minor in journalism. You can follow her work on Twitter at @_etreynolds.
A recent photo posted to Facebook has sparked some rage after a group of kids were captured praying for their prom dinner.
The kids were eating at a local Longhorn Steakhouse before their prom. One of the teen’s mothers decided to send the photo of the kids praying at dinner to a journalist in Oakland California, named Frank Somerville. Somerville shared the photo with his followers on Facebook with a note attached from the mother explaining how she wanted to share a picture of her daughter on her prom night. Now the picture is gaining headlines as many have decided to get upset over what they saw the kids doing. The debate about the photo is that people just assumed they were good people because they were spotted saying grace.
A photo featuring a group of teenagers praying over their dinner before heading to the prom is going viral — but it’s not garnering the positive reaction one might expect. KTVU journalist Frank Sommerville shared the heartwarming picture on social media after the mother of one of the teens sent it to him, saying, “Now with the stories today about teenagers and tide pods and condoms gathering headlines—this picture speaks for itself.”
The woman, identified as Noelle Smith, added that she was “so impressed with these young people on their prom date at Longhorn. They all said Grace before eating and were all well behaved.”
Sommerville appeared to agree, posting the photo on Facebook and writing, “Coupled with the post I did yesterday about the kids playing basketball who kneeled when a funeral procession went by, it says a lot about young people these days. It’s REALLY nice to see.”
However, the picture quickly sparked outrage on social media with people furiously debating whether the group of teens were “nice kids”simply because they were captured in prayer.
“Saying grace over your food says nothing of your moral compass, integrity or character … Behaving well at a restaurant while in your late teens, and being considerate to people, should not be Facebook praise worthy,” one commenter wrote.
“Let’s be clear though, kids who don’t say grace are also good kids,”another added. “Just because you aren’t Christian doesn’t make you a bad person.”
While the post was soon flooded with negative comments, Sommerville eventually addressed the criticism:
I’m honestly surprised by some of these comments.. I wasn’t trying to imply that you have to be a Christian to be a good person.. what I see from these kids is that they are respectful… that they are humbled… and that they are appreciative for what they have. … I could care less whether they are religious…. but by saying grace it shows me that they have those qualities.. and those are the qualities… regardless of whether you believe in god … that I admire.
A woman claiming to be the grandmother of one of the teens also came to their defense, writing, “These kids were raised to respect their elders and to be the best that they could be.”
We’ve all seen the teenagers after the horrible shooting in Parkland Florida. Our hearts break: that shooting was premeditated evil. Absolutely wrong.
But then those teens, still grieving, are being used as shills by the Lefty gun-grabbers whose ultimate goal is disarming the American people so the Enlightened Elitists can control the unwashed masses. These very Second Amendment haters have no problem when innocent babies are killed day after day via excruciatingly painful abortion procedures. But let a deranged person with a rifle kills kids and it’s time to overhaul the Constitution.
Isn’t it interesting that the same radical Lefties who pushed and finagled their way before the Supreme Court with Roe v. Wade, arguing that the right to privacy included the right to kill one’s unborn baby. They triumphed as the U.S. Supreme Court voted to strike down the Texas law which held abortion, for any reason other than rape or incest, to be illegal.
And voilà! The Burger Court found in favor of Jane Doe, creating a right to kill the unborn out of fairy dust. Or something. Because it sure as heck was not precedence and the Constitution.
Now those Lefties want to take a real right out of the Constitution that allows for the protection of life and liberty. And they have the perfect foils for their actions in the grief-stricken Florida teenagers.
Progressives have been instructing kids and they are primed to be center stage demanding an AR-15 ban. But that would just be the beginning. The real end game is the Second Amendment and you better believe America’s rampaging socialists would love nothing better that to take that Amendment out!
But what those sorrowful young people have not been taught is that the gun is an amoral, inanimate object. It is the heart, the will, of the shooter where bad intentions begin and take root.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
Why would he say such a thing? Because John Adams understood the intrinsic value of principles that informed the heart. Things like the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule and more. Adams knew that a faith which ruled the heart would temper the actions. But, without those inner moral constraints government would need outer constraints and by necessity grow more and more strong and intrusive.
Well, we’ve taken away the Founders’ worldview, we’ve scourged government schools of every vestige of faith, we’ve told these kids they’re the random accident of nature, and concurrently made them believe the world revolves around them and their tender wittle feelings. Poor snowflakes.
Educators have done anything but educate for too many decades.Thanks to the mostly despotic control of education by radical Lefties, kiddies have been indoctrinated in all things radical, New Age, and perverse. They’ve been taught to distrust their parents and grandparents, but trust implicitly any teacher or professor.
Congratulations Progressives! You’ve raised a self-centered generation or three devoid of the very transcendent principles that prohibit both killing unborn babies and born children. Millennials, Gen-Xers, and Gen-Zers, for the most part, have no common sense or critical thinking skills. Now we find ourselves living among young Americans who don’t know the Constitution, don’t know our history. Young men and women who blame drunk drivers for driving while intoxicated, and not the car. But who, in the next breath, blame the GUN and not the evil shooter for shootings.
Welcome to the new America, where down is up and up is down, good is evil and evil is good. Has a familiar ring to it…I bet Billy Graham would know!
One thing you can be sure of, The Left is relishing this opportunity to use the mis-taught, tearful youth to do their gun grabbing.
This video is a poetic, and slightly disturbing, critique of the ideas that are spoon-fed to young adults daily in popular culture across the developed world.
Many music videos, movies, advertisements, etc. targeting teens and twenty-somethings have a common theme: life is short, don’t waste your time working hard, relax, enjoy yourself, #YOLO.
Everything in this video, from the overly attractive actors to the modern folk music, is exactly as it is presented to us millennials.
The poetic aspect of this satirical video is the result of slacking off for the kids. The video illustrates, perhaps a bit too graphically, that taking it easy and ignoring the rules can often have disastrous repercussions.
If the goal in your life is always instant gratification, despite all the warning signs put up by your elders, things may just blow up in your face at the end.
And let’s be honest; who isn’t sick of the whole hipster, acoustic guitar, folksy duet routine anyway?
Author’s Note: The following column is based on a real life conversation.
Teenager: Dr. Adams, may I have a few minutes to speak with you?
Me: Sure. What is your name? (Gives name).
Teen: I enjoyed listening to your talk on abortion just a few minutes ago. Your points were solid. But I have just one problem. It’s with the rape exception. Can you honestly tell me that you could look a rape victim in the eye and tell her that she could not have an abortion – that she must take the rapist’s baby to term?
Me: (pulls out phone). Yes. Give me the number of any pregnant rape victim you know and I will call her right now and talk to her. I can’t look her in the eye but I will talk to her.
Teen: (Laughing nervously). I don’t know any pregnant rape victims.
Me: Well, before I put my phone up, can I ask a favor of you?
Teen: Sure.
Me: I have a friend who was conceived in rape. Do you mind if I call her and give you the phone so you could explain why it would be permissible for her be killed just because she was conceived in rape? Her mother is still alive, by the way. I’m sure that her continued existence reminds her mother of the rape. My friend’s name is Laura.
Teen: No, I won’t do that. She shouldn’t be killed, now. That isn’t my position.
Me: Oh, I see. You think that there is some difference between the adult she is now and the embryo she once was that would have justified killing her at that earlier stage of development.
Teen: I see what you are doing. This is the SLED thing, isn’t it?
Me: Yes it is. Size, level of development, environment (whether she is inside or outside of the womb), and degree of dependency. These are the four differences people generally rely upon when they say you can kill the unborn but not the born. Which one is it?
Teen: Well, none of them, I guess. I see your point.
Me: Good. Now, let’s talk about who benefits when the child conceived in rape is aborted.
Teen: Ok.
Me: Would I, or any of the close friends of Laura, have benefited from her death at the hands of the hands of the abortion doctor? I mean, would it not have been a tragedy had her friends never known her?
Teen: Well, yes, I suppose it would have been a tragedy.
Me: Well, how about Laura? Would she have benefited from the abortion?
Teen: No, of course not.
Me: Ok, then who benefits?
Teen: Well, the rape victim benefits. Obviously.
Me: But is it really obvious?
Teen: I think it is.
Me: You know, if a woman becomes pregnant through consensual sex and has a crisis pregnancy it is a toss up as to whether she will have the abortion. But if she’s raped and becomes pregnant then the chances she’ll abort are much lower.
Teen: How much lower?
Me: The odds are about three to one that she won’t abort. It may seem counterintuitive but it really isn’t difficult to understand upon further consideration. She’s just been the victim of a violent crime. She identifies with the evil of violence and is reluctant to inflict it on another human being. So she usually decides to suffer evil rather than inflict it.
Teen: I’ll have to think about that one.
Me: Good. It will give me time to ask you another question.
Teen: Okay.
Me: You believe that the woman impregnated by a rapist will suffer great stress bringing the baby to term. You obviously believe that the abortion will reduce that stress. But your argument turns on the assertion that the stress saved by the abortion will actually outweigh any guilt she might experience over the memory of the abortion for the duration of her life. Is that a fair characterization of your reasoning?
Teen: Yes, that’s fair enough.
Me: Well, how did you arrive at that conclusion? Can you point me to some evidence?
Teen: No, I was just speculating.
Me: Well, you haven’t convinced me that the pregnant woman really benefits. The abortion doesn’t solve the problem. She suffers terribly regardless. But when those conceived in rape are aborted there are multiple tragedies. One human is deprived of life, one adoptive couple loses a child, and others are deprived of ever knowing the innocent child who would have had a long life and formed many friendships. I think that the weight of the evidence is against the abortion. I just cannot see who really benefits from the abortion.
Teen: Well maybe I just have some maturing to do as I think about this issue.
Me: I’m not sure it’s really a thinking problem.
Teen: What do you mean?
Me: You have a steady girlfriend, don’t you?
Teen: Yes, I do.
Me: Are you sleeping with her?
Teen: What? I’m not answering that question.
Me: Well, you don’t have to answer it. You just did. You’re sleeping with her.
Teen: Ok … what does that have to do with the discussion?
Me: Well, everything.
Teen: Please explain.
Me: Every time I am in a discussion of abortion that turns to the so called rape exception, there are two common denominators. First, it is always a guy. Second, he’s always sexually active. If he is sleeping with a lot of women he really supports unrestricted abortion. So he just feigns concern for the rape victim in order to preserve unrestricted abortion so he can have unrestricted sex. Then there are guys like you who are just sleeping with a girlfriend and want to preserve a tiny crack in the wall — a safety valve just in case you get into trouble. The idea of an absolute ban on abortion makes you nervous because you are taking risks you know you ought not to be taking.
Teen: I guess everything you are saying makes sense. Maybe I just need to grow up.
Me: No, not really. You pulled me aside and started this conversation because your conscience was bothering you. You weren’t really worried about the rape issue. You were worried about your own circumstances. That’s why it took courage to initiate the conversation. You knew I wasn’t going say things you wanted to hear. You were mature at the beginning of this conversation and you are even more mature now.
Teen: Thanks.
Me: Now it is time to stop treating you girlfriend like she’s already your wife. It will clear your mind and help you make better decisions on a whole range of moral issues. Remember that it is always better to decide what you believe and let your beliefs guide your behavior. When it’s the other way around, you become lost and you eventually lose your moral compass altogether. You eventually become a law unto yourself.
Teen: Well, how do I explain this to my girlfriend?
Me: Well, that should be easy. Tell her you are not yet ready to be a parent. Tell her that if she became pregnant it would be your child, too. Make sure you look her in the eye and firmly tell her that you could never allow her to abort your child. In other words, start living your life according to rules instead of clinging to exceptions.
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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disarming the American people so the Enlightened Elitists can control the unwashed masses. These very Second Amendment haters have no problem when innocent babies are killed day after day via excruciatingly painful abortion procedures. But let a deranged person with a rifle kills kids and it’s time to overhaul the Constitution.
By Mike S. Adams
Mike Adams is a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and author of 
What Did You Say? 
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