Part 1: A review of Anne with an E and how SOGI is being promoted to children; Part 2: The Impacts of Gender Politics on Healthcare

[0:00] So, to begin, who here has read Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables? Okay, how many are at least familiar with it? So, yeah, okay.

[0:12] So how many of you have watched the Anne with an E yet? Two, okay. May I ask, how much of it did you get through? I'm in season two, so I'm at the part where it looks like you're going to be talking about it because I didn't realize it until I got into the series of what was going on.

[0:30] Right, right. And then when I saw the talk, I said I have to come. Great, excellent. So that is disturbing. Yeah. Are you still in season one? Yeah. Okay, yeah. Well, there's other stuff ahead.

[0:41] So how many of you have children or grandchildren who will have watched this or would be likely to watch this? Not too many, okay.

[0:52] Okay. Mention of Anne of Green Gables usually conjures up images of a simpler era in which a red-headed snippet of a girl, once an orphan, now daughter to a spinster and bachelor, gets into scrapes and finds her place in life, with beautiful rural Prince Edward Island of the early 20th century as a backdrop.

[1:10] The ethos for this coming-of-age story is not exactly evangelical Christian, but it does have a Christian culture in its presuppositions and values as its foundation.

[1:26] After all, author Lucy Maud Montgomery, though somewhat progressive for her time... Now, are you going to do this, dear, or do you want me to do it? So I guess I have to do this, right? Okay. So we want to get to Lucy Maud Montgomery.

[1:39] Though somewhat progressive for her time, eventually wed a Presbyterian minister. Her beloved and popular stories about Anne Shirley were written in 1905 and published in 1908, having enjoyed the next one, and that's her husband, and there we go.

[1:56] Having enjoyed Universal Appeal, being published in 36 languages with 50 million-plus copies, making it one of the best-selling books ever, and hence being read and re-read by children, girls in particular, not only in Canada but around the world, and it seems to be especially popular in Japan.

[2:13] I don't know if you're aware of that, but... Anne has been adapted to the stage and film numerous times, but perhaps the best and most iconic portrayal in the series was produced in 1985, starring Megan Follows, and was directed by Kevin Sullivan.

[2:28] This proved as popular as the stories on which its script was very closely based. How many of you have watched this series? There we go, and... Okay.

[2:40] And the next one. Here's a dubbed version in Japanese with a Japanese... No, back. Japanese remake of it. So... Anne has been...

[2:50] Oh, sorry. As is often the case with a popular literary moneymaker, each generation produces its own version. And two years ago... Now we can go to this. Yeah. CBC's Anne with an E, starring Amy Beth McNutty, appeared on Netflix.

[3:04] As you may have noticed, it has been widely and effectively promoted. Has anyone seen it promoted on billboards, for example? Yeah. Or on... I see bus stops and all that. It was really widely promoted. My 17-year-old daughter, Elisha, like me, an avid reader who always loved the Anne stories, was keen to watch the series, and it seemed a no-brainer to view it together for some mother-daughter bonding time, or for her to view it on her own as well.

[3:28] I mean, what possible concerns could there be with the content of a production of Anne of Green Gables? Here's a clip of the artistically appealing introductory sequence and musical theme.

[3:39] If you haven't seen it, this will just kind of give you a sense of... And this is the song by the Tragically Hip called... What's it called again? You're Ahead by a Century.

[3:50] You're Ahead by a Century, which is very apropos. So what he sings is, you're ahead by a century, ultimately. It's very poetic, very engaging, very warm and friendly.

[4:01] But she is a head by a century, isn't she? So I'm just going to keep talking because...

[4:11] You've got to keep moving. And you can listen to that. So Elisha and I were initially pleased to find the filmography strong, the sets and costumes authentic, the characters pretty engaging, plenty of comedic and sentimental moments, of course.

[4:27] The acting was pretty good for the most part, though McNuddy's portrayal of Anne is overly melodramatic at times, if that's possible for Anne. For a Canadian production, it seems to have had a pretty hefty budget.

[4:39] The dramatic mood is much darker and more intense overall than the 1985 production. The setting is a fair bit earthier and less idealized. So the next one...

[4:49] So the script has been described as a reimagining of the stories, though the early episodes seem to follow the basic narrative, themes and ethos of the original.

[5:03] However, it gradually becomes evident that this is not simply a retelling, but a complete rewriting of the stories about Anne. While there are still scenes more or less loosely based on the original, there are also whole new characters, situations, settings, themes and agendas.

[5:19] Even in the first episode, when Anne learns that Marilla and Matthew had expected a boy from the orphanage to help with outside chores, proto-feminist mouthpiece Anne exclaims, it doesn't make sense that girls aren't allowed to do farm work when girls can do anything a boy can.

[5:34] A clarion call here for challenging traditional roles of the sexes. A theme revisited time and time again in the series as it unfolds. Anne also asks another point, if children are so hard to raise, why do people have so many?

[5:47] A little hint here at the need for family planning, in other words, birth control. So far, you know, seems, well, not too serious here, right? Through flashbacks, we learn that Anne has been traumatized by abuse at the hands of toxic masculinity in homes with too many children.

[6:05] In one episode, The Berries, Diana's parents face marital tensions, and once again, traditional masculine and feminine roles are explored and challenged. It doesn't take a rocket science to realize pretty quickly that feminism versus the patriarchy is on the menu, but it does take a discernment that many, especially children and young teens, tend to lack.

[6:24] In another scene, Gilbert, to finance his future education, signs on to a merchant vessel, where he's befriended by Bash, a black young man in his 20s. They sail to Trinidad, where Gilbert witnesses glimpses of racism and slavery.

[6:37] Bash eventually accompanies him back to Evan Lee, and his storyline includes his spending time in a slum for colored people in Charlottetown, where he eventually marries a woman who had to hide the fact that she had a child out of wedlock to avoid society's scorn.

[6:50] So just showing again, trying to show all of the problems in society, and some of them are legitimate, of course, but it has to do with how you spin them.

[7:01] This is all well out of the scope of Montgomery's stories, but the SOGI agenda frequently ties itself to the atrocities of racism, slavery, and judgmentalism in order to champion acceptance and celebration of all human differences.

[7:13] It's soon clear that blooming teenage sexual identity and curiosity are to be explored from a variety of angles. Anne has a long, outraged meltdown about the unfairness of womanhood when she begins to menstruate.

[7:28] Trying to fit in with... I mean, again, not the sort of thing you would have found in Montgomery, but trying to fit in with and impress the other girls at school, she describes that they're urging her experience of overhearing intimate relations in the next room where she'd worked in a dysfunctional, abusive home.

[7:43] But she takes it too far. Her giggling audience is ultimately shocked at her candidness. It's clear that she actually has very little real understanding of what she'd overheard, but the prudish, judgmental, conservative Christian parents of her school chums conclude she's simply not fit for their company for a time.

[7:59] Does any of this sound like the Anne of Green Gables you remember reading as a young child? Of course, none of these scenes I've described are drawn from Montgomery's writings. Being backed by the CBC, the fact that the series forays into literary and historical revisionism, anachronism, and the promotion of modern agendas can come as no great surprise.

[8:18] And we've all grown accustomed to writers playing fast and loose with works of fiction, not to mention with actual history. However, the mature themes addressed in this script are definitely not what I would consider appropriate for the target audience, that stories of Anne will inevitably draw, which are families with young children and teens.

[8:35] But as we all know, standards and values concerning what is age-appropriate viewing have radically shifted in recent years. Well, I guess over the past 30, 40 years. Still, as levels of period drama, Elisha and I began the second season to see where it would take us.

[8:52] The theme in Montgomery's tale of teasing, exclusion, and rivalry at school is magnified into outright and aggressive bullying of anyone who is different. 22. Yeah. By episode 4, another new character is introduced.

[9:05] Cole is a sensitive, artistic young man who feels different from others, who doesn't seem to fit in with either the boys or the girls at school. He is, of course, befriended and defended by Anne, who knows what it feels like to be an outsider, to feel like you don't belong, like you're a misfit.

[9:20] When the bullying teacher sees Cole helping Anne style her hair, he says, Since you seem to have such feminine proclivities, you can sit with the girls. His hatred and humiliation of Cole is motivated by unconscious self-loathing due to his own repressed impulses as a crypto-closet homosexual, repressed, of course, due to societal taboos and legal repercussions at the time.

[9:41] The school children decide to play a spin-the-bottle kissing game. There is Mr. Phillips. Okay, we'll stop here.

[9:51] They decide to play a spin-the-bottle kissing game. Once again, something Montgomery would never put into a story, and I looked it up. It is an anachronism. Spin-the-bottle probably appeared maybe in the 20s, and it didn't include kissing even.

[10:08] Josie Pye instructs everyone to sit in a circle, alternating boys and girls. Where does that leave Cole? Snickers a bully. Josie later offers to kiss Cole herself, and when he declines, she exclaims angrily, What's wrong with you?

[10:20] Don't you like girls? And loudly proclaims him a freak. And of course, this is bullying that's being portrayed. Another day, the game resumes, and it's Anne's turn to spin, but the boy to whom the bottle points protests that he will not kiss that ugly orphan.

[10:33] Cole comes to her rescue, declaring, I'll kiss Anne. Many of the children chant, Kiss, freaks, kiss! Yes, again, sounds like 1905 to you, doesn't it? Until Anne dips Cole into a role reversal and kisses his cheek.

[10:48] In the next episode, number 27, when Anne comes to school with all her hair cut off because it had turned green, the conflicted teacher mockingly comments, It appears we have a new boy in class.

[10:59] Later, playing dress-up at Green Gables, Cole dons a gown and a tiara. And with her short hair, Anne goes into town dressed as a boy to see what it's like to be on the other side of the sexes or the genders.

[11:13] There is a community drama, actually a Christmas pageant, minus the Christmas elements, in which there's a cross-dressing Anne playing a boy while the minister is costuming in outlandish drag.

[11:23] So you can see, here's Anne, and here's the minister over here. Again, well, okay, sometimes in drama, we have that. I directed a drama in which we had to, because of how many boys we had and how many girls we had, it was a Shakespeare, and of course Shakespeare didn't have enough women, characters, so we sort of had to do a little bit of cross-dressing, right?

[11:42] Episode 7 opens with Anne, with Diana and Cole, concocting a plan to deceive each of their parents into allowing the three of them to attend a party at Diana's rich aunt Josephine's mansion in the city.

[11:53] What follows is nothing short of a flag-waving, pulpit-pounding sermon on the modern SOGI agenda. When Anne asks Aunt Josephine for advice on how to behave at the Morals party, she assures her, you need not be anyone, but simply yourself.

[12:07] Anne laments, I have a history of doing just that. Next one, please. Thank you. And getting it all wrong and not fitting in. Aunt Josephine declares, then you've come to the correct party. And her comments are pregnant with meaning.

[12:21] I'm just going to call her AJ now, because her name's long. AJ goes on to speak, sadly, of her deceased companion, Gertrude. Suddenly realizing the nature of their relationship, Anne tenderly taking her by the hand, observes, that's what you meant earlier by in your way you were married.

[12:36] The next day, Aunt Jo's home is centrously decorated for the party. An accomplished pianist performs on the grand. A very artsy and edgy group is assembled. Many of the guests are in outlandish fancy dress.

[12:47] Some are in ethnic peril, with various ethnicities represented. A few women sport unmistakably masculine attire. Some men are clothed foppishly and effeminately, with rouge cheeks and, while others are in outright drag.

[13:04] A small group approaches Cole, and declaring that he's not appropriately dressed for a summer soiree, they adorn him with bright scarves and a long string of beads, so that he too now has a foppish, effeminate look.

[13:15] For some reason, I couldn't find many images from the party, which apparently the scriptwriters themselves referred to as the queer soiree, which would have, because of legalities at the time, would not have happened, but certainly, again, it's just an injection of anachronism, really.

[13:34] Anne comments to Diana, Isn't this the most amazing group of people? Beginning to recognize that something's amiss, Diane replies doubtfully, I don't know what to think.

[13:45] It's clear that Diana's character serves to represent the ignorant, close-minded, bigoted, phobic, traditional Christian views on sexual orientation and gender identity, while Anne represents childlike, open-mindedness, non-discriminating acceptance, and celebration of inclusive, progressive views and lifestyles.

[14:03] Aunt Jo reminisces on her relationship with Gertrude in a public address, and the crowd, who clearly understands, all respond approvingly. A cross-dressed woman raises a toast, to the most wonderful couple, my romantic ideal, Gertie and Joe.

[14:17] Gertie had passed away, apparently, a couple years before, and all heartily exclaimed, to Gertie and Joe. Diana later asks Anne what the toaster had meant by romantic ideal. Oh, well, they were in love, Anne explains, clearly delighted at the thought.

[14:32] Diana, however, is shocked and mortified. She'd never had any previous idea that Aunt Gertrude was Aunt Jo's lover. They can't. They weren't, she protests. But moments later, she discovers a romantic photo of them with Gertrude in male clothing, and the truth hits home.

[14:45] So there she's looking worried. And, there we go. Okay. Now here's a clip from the episode, in which a woman in masculine attire preaches to Cole and Anne.

[15:00] And so we'll look at that, and we'll go right through to a following scene as well, and just kind of give you a flavor for things. Like, whenever I made it, I truly understand sorrow.

[15:15] I suppose I do. This is yours? It's wonderful. The gracefulness of the composition... Well, if our young farm boy isn't an artist.

[15:25] Was... broken. I can't control the pencil. I can't draw the way I used to. It was...

[15:36] it was everything to you. That's the sublime thing about art. One gets to take moments of hardship and heartbreak and channel them into something that makes a sad boy feel less alone at a party.

[15:50] Art, the ability to make it, gives meaning to sadness in a way that many aren't able to experience. Cole! Have you seen Diana? We were dancing and she disappeared.

[16:01] What I'm saying is, there is no straight path in art or life. Sometimes there's no path at all, and one must break down walls and machete their way through the woods to get to where they need to go.

[16:12] Oh my. Have you ever heard a thing said for the first time, yet it made such magnificent sense? It's as if you've been waiting to hear it all your life. A, with an E?

[16:25] Yes, with an E. You have a beautiful connection to words. Know them. Do something with it. Go where your passion leads you. Try clay.

[16:40] Cole the artist. It'll strengthen your wrist. And who knows, you may fall in love. Your art isn't lost. It never will be. I'm going to trade my puffs to these for your top hat, or maybe I'll wear them together, because...

[17:03] Maybe that is me. I think it might be. Oh, Diana. Cecile Chaminade. Would you inspire me to play and play and play some more? I just think if your lifestyle is secret, my parents certainly don't know.

[17:18] That must mean it's wrong. To me, my Gertrude.

[17:31] Someone will remember us, I say. Even in another time. Forever you have my heart. Joe. Two women could never have children.

[17:44] It doesn't make sense. How can you say that when such beautiful words were written from one to another? It's unnatural, Anne. If your aunt lived her life feeling something was wrong with her, that she was broken, defective, or unnatural, then one day she met someone that made her realize that it wasn't true.

[18:11] There was nothing wrong with her, and she was fine. Shouldn't we be happy for her? I think it's spectacular. Okay, so much more possibility.

[18:25] So much more possibility. Well, is this the Anne you remember? So, I don't need to go over all those words and the significance of what's being said, but I think it's worth considering the images that are used.

[18:48] One must break down walls and machete their way through the woods to get where they need to go. And these are really violent images that are suited to revolutionary activism, right? Whatever it takes to break down societal barriers to get us where we need to go, that's what we need to do.

[19:04] Okay, so Cole, having learned to his relief that alternative lifestyles are to be embraced and celebrated, confesses the next morning to Aunt Jo, I think I'm like you and Gertrude.

[19:19] Aunt Jo sighs empathetically. You have a life of joy before you, though not without hardship and bumps in the road. Anne later describes this party to Marilla. Marilla, it was a dream.

[19:31] Everyone was so smart and interesting, felt as though you could be any way in the world and there might be a place for you. Marilla replies, sounds lovely. This, of course, is ironic because she, even as characterized in this series, would not have found it at all lovely, but shocking and appalling.

[19:47] Anne croons, oh, you would have adored it. More irony here. Anne continues, I think I learnt some things about love, too. It doesn't look the same for everyone. It can come in so many forms.

[19:58] And how can there be anything wrong with a life if it's spent with the person you love? Marilla, not really understanding the context of Anne's words, plus weak and uncharacteristically gentle and vulnerable following a bad migraine, replies, well, I don't think I can argue with that.

[20:14] And if stern, austere, conservative, traditional Christian Marilla can't argue with it, how could anyone else possibly do so? Of course, Marilla's determination to teach Anne about life, manners, morals, propriety, and God are being superseded by the lessons she is learning from this precocious and progressive child, or rather from the writers who are putting words and ideas into the character's mouth.

[20:36] Of one thing you can be certain, the oft-repeated lessons embedded in media plant and confirm the new values in viewers' hearts and minds, both consciously and unconsciously. And just in case anyone missed a point or two, in episode eight of season two, Anne opines to Matthew on the topic of marriage.

[20:54] Remember when I said I wanted to be a bride but not a wife? I think I need to reimagine the whole marriage wedding thing. I'm not going to give myself over to someone and be a prettyish piece of property without a voice or ambition.

[21:07] We will be equals and partners, not just husband and wife, and neither one should have to abandon their heart's desires. I've come up with a new name for both parties together because I believe that they should be named the same.

[21:19] Life mate. Instead of a marriage, I shall call it a love bond, and any two people can have one. To life mates, she toasts as they sit to dinner. In empathetic, kindred spirit, Matthew responds, I'll drink to that.

[21:30] No subtlety here. Anne's character serves as the writer's mouthpiece to preach that there is to be no difference of roles between the two individuals who come together in a marriage, whether they be man and woman, two of one or the other, or somewhere in between.

[21:44] The biblical covenant and terms are to be dispensed with in favor of ones created by human beings. How very forward-thinking of Anne. Seems she is about a century ahead of her time. It's beyond dispute that the beloved Canadian classic Anne of Green Gables has been hijacked here to serve simply as a vehicle for the agenda, for the propagation of modern SOGI ideology on matters including this list behind me.

[22:10] And then, I know you can see there, other mature topics explored in Anne include sexual intimacy, marital conflict, attempted slash contemplated suicide, self-harm, bullying, violence, child abuse, alcohol thievery, gossip, and of course misjudgment, intolerance, prejudice, discrimination, racism, homophobia.

[22:28] So how has Anne with an E been received by the public? Parent reviews I found for Anne with an E include the following. Love it. It's hard to find a show that the whole family can watch.

[22:40] We love this show. It's funny and very emotional. There were plenty of these, and for some reason they were all at the beginning of the list I found. The concerned reviews were pushed down lower.

[22:52] I don't know if they specifically did that, I guess. I found the next one significant, though. It started out as a wholesome family movie first season, but second season, and she went on.

[23:05] Which just goes to illustrate the fact that some people would not catch some of the subtleties in the first season. There were already plenty of things there. It's just that it was a little more subtle, and of course second season.

[23:17] And this is what happens time and again with these kinds of productions. They start out, they draw people in with sympathetic characters and storylines, and people get involved. And then they kind of begin to weave it in, and then they hit you full force.

[23:31] You know, second season is usually when. So, the next one, sorry. Okay, so here are some negative reviews, which you can just read over yourself.

[23:44] But clearly not everybody missed what was going on, and some were very concerned. Even reviewer Heather Hogan, on the queer website Autostraddle, pens the series Observing.

[23:57] The remake hammers the soul and spirit out of Lucy Maud Montgomery's beloved town and characters, and mangles their tried and true storyline in the name of grit and edginess. There is, however, canonical gayness in Netflix's reboot, and even more in season two.

[24:12] I like canonical gayness. I mean, it's not that she has a problem with it in and of itself. But she goes on to explain why she doesn't like it here, because even she can see that it's simply out of place. Anne with an E continues to use characters shoehorned in from 2018 to explain race and gender and sexuality to people on Prince Edward Island in 1908 as a way of explaining those things to people watching television in 2018.

[24:35] It's clunky and weird and sometimes embarrassing. The dialogue at times feels like it was written in an alien language and run through Google Translator. The drama is so overwrought, it's ridiculous. And it is, and you've seen some of it.

[24:48] Certainly, there have been children and adults throughout history who have questioned and struggled with their sexuality, at varying levels. And no doubt there have been misinterpretations and abuses of the biblical teaching of male headship.

[24:59] Without question, reforms to the societal status of women were needed. But the effect of children watching Anne with an E will be just what the writers are aiming for. By subtly and not so subtly preaching and teaching, minds will be indoctrinated.

[25:11] And by means of noble and sympathetic characters like Aunt Jo, Cole, and Anne, hearts will be shaped. Anne with an E is doing its part to plant and fertilize seeds of questioning and adapt.

[25:22] And doubt in a generation of young and old hearts and minds by promoting the new ideology on gender, sexuality, marriage, and even the parent-child relationship. Because more concerning, even than the catechism of modern sexual mores, Anne, is the theme of children acting justifiably disobedient and disrespectful toward their parents, teachers, elders, and being rewarded for it and affirmed in it by sympathetic characters.

[25:47] A general cynicism of and rebellion against authority by children is presented in a positive light in this series. As I mentioned before, Anne, Diana, and Cole all lied to their parents to gain permission to go into the city the first time to visit Aunt Jo.

[26:02] By the end of season two, we see Anne leading an even larger group into the city. When they go to recruit Cole, he hesitates, saying, I'm already in enough trouble. Miss Stacy, the new schoolteacher, had unwittingly alerted Cole's mother to the fact that he hadn't been attending school due to bullying.

[26:16] Well, she didn't tell the mother that, but that he had been deceiving her. Instead, he'd spent his days sculpting clay figures at a shack in the woods, pursuing his passions, as he'd been urged by that taxed woman.

[26:33] From now on, however, he would have to work on the family's farm, which he hated. So he's easily convinced to join the group of teenagers who are going to hop a train into Charlottetown. In other words, ride illegally without paying fare by hiding in a freight car without their parents' knowledge.

[26:48] It's all for a good cause, of course, as Anne has a plan to prevent the progressive new teacher, Miss Stacy, from being fired. Long story short, Aunt Josephine saves the day by donating the items they need.

[26:58] Diana asks if Aunt Jo will tell her parents about their illicit trip to the city, but of course she replies, And reduce your opportunities for other enriching adventures? Never! Diana then apologizes to her for having disapproved of what she'd learned about her and Aunt Gertrude.

[27:13] She says, At the time, I didn't know how much I didn't know. I'm sorry. My thinking, as passed on to me by my ignorant, bigoted Christian parents, was narrow.

[27:25] I understand so much more now. Pathos, tenderness, and embraces ensue. Aunt Jo provides train fare home for the children, but Cole announces to Anne that he will be staying to live with Aunt Jo at her invitation.

[27:37] He is, by the way, a 15-year-old boy, the oldest in a poor farming family. He simply decides not to return home without consulting or even informing his parents, because I can be free here, myself.

[27:48] I need to be who I am. By which he means, in this case, specifically a homosexual and an artist. Anne with an E season three is already streaming, and is apparently, not surprisingly, more of same.

[28:03] Promotion of the Soji ideology is now entirely pervasive in the media. Anne with an E is just one example out of hundreds we could look at, but a particularly significant one being yet another landmark phenomena, like The Danish Girl or After the Ball or these various media productions that have come out at rates throughout the last century.

[28:22] And I'll mention quickly here another series I started watching that I heard about from my older daughter, and I thought, you know, this seems quite fine and family-friendly overall.

[28:35] And it's, anyway, there's a boy who's seven and turning eight, and he has a friend, a little girl who's in a wheelchair, cute as a button, just really good acting.

[28:46] And they, anyway, second season, or sorry, no, where is it? Anyway, as you go along, suddenly you find out his aunt is gay, and there's a fairly intimate scene between her and her partner.

[29:02] And so you've got, this is what often happens, sort of the adult storyline, the child storyline, you put them together so families will watch this together. It seems innocuous at the beginning, and then wham, it hits you, you know, all of a sudden, your child is viewing something that really they don't need to be seeing.

[29:21] So, at this point, I'd like to share some highlights from an article written by Jonathan Van Maran, entitled, Atheists Sound the Alarm, Decline of Christianity is Seriously Hurting Society.

[29:34] It was in LifeSite News just about a week ago. Van Maran points out a shift in the perspective of some antithetism's most vocal proponents.

[29:46] Just a few years ago, outspoken fundamentalist atheists like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins were crusaders leading the charge against religion, and especially the last vestiges of Christian faith in the West.

[29:59] Their ultimate goal? To eradicate it. Religion was considered by such as these much worse than a mere mockable crutch for the weak. The late Hitchens called it a poison, viewing it as humanity's harmful and failed attempt to solve questions about origins, ethics, and the meaning of life.

[30:16] These optimistic yet intolerant evangelists of the humanistic gospel preached that Christianity must be dispensed with so that a new and truly enlightened, secularized, utopian society built on human reason could rise from the ashes.

[30:29] As Van Maran points out, these skeptics were skeptical about everything except the goodness of humanity, despite the fact that they had no metaphysical or even Darwinian basis for this easily disprovable assumption.

[30:41] In fact, sorry, in their view, God and scripture are entirely unnecessary for human morality and prosperity. A new, superior, more humane code of conduct is possible without it. Some atheists are now starting to suspect, however, that the Enlightenment may have only achieved success because it wielded influence on a Christian culture, and that in a truly secular society in which men and women live their lives between an empty heavens and expect to be recycled rather than resurrected, there is no solid moral foundation for good and evil.

[31:12] Some are begrudgingly starting to admit that faith in a higher being, whether they believe in it or not, may be necessary for humanity's survival and flourishing, that it prevents our descent into a brutal dog-eat-dog world.

[31:25] Douglas Murray, who has called himself a Christian atheist, sort of tongue-in-cheek, is skeptical about the future of our post-Christian society. Interviewed by Van Maran, he reiterated his belief that in the absence of the secularist's ability to hammer out ethics on fundamental issues such as the sanctity of life, we may be forced to recognize that returning to faith is the best option available to us.

[31:46] Murray admits the likelihood that our modern concept of human rights, based as it is on Judeo-Christian foundation, may only outlive Christianity by a few short years. Van Maran comments, cut off from the source, our conception of human rights may shrivel and die very quickly, leaving us fumbling about in thick and impenetrable darkness.

[32:06] We've already seen the results of things like the revolutionary France or communist Russia, which was, of course, genocide, the brutal death of millions. When the decision as to what is right and wrong is fully in the hands of human beings, everyone will do what is right in their own eyes on an individual level, but at a societal level, it is inevitably the strongest, most forceful group in power who will take power and will decide for everyone what is permissible and what is illegal.

[32:33] And as our current culture wars clearly illustrate, our civilization will tear itself apart before it regains consensus. Dawkins in The God Delusion, published in 2015, argued that children need to be protected from the religious views of their parents, that the rights of parents to educate their children and the tenets of the religious faith needed to be restricted for the good of child and society.

[32:57] Government, in his view, should actively side with the godless over those with faith. Yet, by 2018, he began warning that the benign Christian religion might be replaced by something, or with something decidedly less benign.

[33:11] As we know, evil loves a vacuum. Other atheists and agnostics have echoed Dawkins' sentiment. In fact, Dawkins has now clearly and firmly repudiated his previous belief that Christianity should be banished from society.

[33:24] He told the Times that ending religion, once his fervent goal, would be a terrible idea because it would give people a license to do really bad things. For a snapshot of what society would look like in the absence of God, you know, think of something like Lord of the Flies and multiply by six, right?

[33:39] Dawkins, that was choir boys from, you know, or like private school choir boys from a Christian society, right? Still. Dawkins concedes an outgrowing God.

[33:50] Whether irrational or not, it does unfortunately seem plausible that if somebody sincerely believes God is watching his every move, he might be more likely to be good. I must say that I hate the idea, he says.

[34:00] I want to believe that humans are better than that. But Dawkins knows it just ain't so. We all recognize the fact that even in a Christian society, no one is perfectly good and altruistic.

[34:11] Many are downright self-serving, and at least a few are brutal, murderous, inhumane, bestial, monstrous. Dawkins has come to realize that the affirmation of God's existence does in fact benefit society.

[34:23] So this is maybe a little good news on one level, but I'm going to give it over to Zoltan. I had a third section, but I don't want to... How much time do you need there? I need about 15 minutes.

[34:34] Okay, so I have five minutes. Okay, I'm going to press on for a little bit more then. So I'd like to share an interaction with you I recently had with an acquaintance. I'm just trying not...

[34:46] They don't live here, they live in another province, so... It helps to illustrate the fact that it is one thing for certain intellectuals to recognize the benefits of religion, but another thing entirely to turn the tide of public opinion that has now been poisoned against biblical Christianity and our freedom of speech and conscience.

[35:05] In response to an article I reposted on the cultural and political threats of Islam, this person wrote to me because, quote, I have decided to correct misinformation, stand up to bigotry and racism, and I am teaching my kids to do the same.

[35:18] I responded to her concerns at some length, to which she replied, I always ask myself, what would Jesus do? What would Jesus think? She attends a liberal united church in small town, Saskatchewan.

[35:28] I considered this an open door to share the faith in the midst of our discussion. As we texted back and forth, I decided to copy and send her another article on the topic of Islamic culture, but I somehow inadvertently pasted and sent a Christian news article that I had just sent to Zoltan related to the topic at hand.

[35:46] It's about former LGBTQ members who say their changed lives prove homosexuality isn't permanent. This, of course, opened a whole... Let's talk about gay rights, okay? I think I'm going to have to skip it because of time, so this opened a whole new topic for discussion, the text of which I'd like to share with you.

[36:02] I'd like to be able to show you that, but you're going to have to just take my word for it that it is not how she perceived it, and I think you would agree if I could show you. Maybe we can show it afterwards.

[36:13] Show maybe a minute. You want to show a minute? Okay. I'm sorry. When there's so much talk about gay rights and transgender rights and laws being passed to protect those rights, a whole other minority is getting ignored.

[36:26] Those who've come out of the gay community. Eighteen former gays, lesbians, and transgenders stood before the U.S. Capitol to proclaim they're real, despite a culture that denies such transformation as possible.

[36:38] We've experienced a change in our sexual orientation. Some small, some great. I mean, some of us don't experience same-sex attraction anymore. And yet, everywhere you go, you hear that's utterly impossible.

[36:50] not for this former homosexual, now father of four. I don't ever get sexually aroused by looking at a man. That hasn't happened in years. But House Bill 3570 says therapies similar to what helped Ken Williams, and many of these leave the lifestyle, can't do that.

[37:05] It proclaims there is no evidence that conversion therapy is effective, or that an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity can be changed by conversion therapy. Williams worries such a bill would forbid the counseling.

[37:17] he has saved his life by calling all of it conversion therapy. At 17 years old, I was suicidal. I started seeing a Christian counselor who I saw weekly for five years. And it changed my mind.

[37:28] I mean, that was the last day I felt suicidal. Pastor Jim Doman says similar counseling helped him go from gay guy to heterosexual husband and dad. So, I wrote, oops, not the link I was trying to send, but still worthwhile.

[37:42] No, it's not. It's also inciting hatred against a group of people. These reposts give people exactly the justification they want for hurting and killing people simply because they're different. How many of you heard anything condemning, phobic, hateful, violence inciting in that article?

[37:57] I asked, could you please tell me one thing in the report that is hateful or encourages violence? These people are simply asking for their own right to be recognized and make choices. Surely you don't think that I or any of those, I had to edit out a few things, but any of those I knew would ever be violent or unkind or rude to someone who is same-sex attracted.

[38:16] Much to the contrary, though I've experienced verbal abuse from those who disagree with me. There is nothing wrong with homosexuals. Any report or documentary or post, any that talks about converting homosexuals is about condemning homosexuals.

[38:30] I don't think you realize that these posts are used by people to justify their homophobic, racist beliefs and then embolden them to act on these beliefs. The post on homosexuals is about hatred of anyone different than ourself.

[38:41] That's how it's perceived. And this isn't, I think, that uncommon. We are all made in God's image. Homosexuality is from birth. This isn't even a debate. My cousin's viewpoints have, of course, been shaped by cultural influences around her, like that of Anne with an E.

[38:57] I assure you, she and her children would watch enraptured. In fact, they probably already have, though I didn't dare to ask her. I replied as follows. Civil discourse and open-mindedness require that we be open to discussing views other than our own.

[39:11] Are you incited to be phobic or violent or rude against me and those who share my views by viewing material that opposes our views? I believe better of you. There are unkind, rude, violent people on every side, wherever you go.

[39:23] Though I'd said, sorry, why are we, as a society, even debating homosexuality? You're judging it to be deviant, against God. That is my problem with you. Why are we, sorry, though I had said nothing of the kind, I assure you, she knows what biblical Christians believe and where those beliefs come from, God's word.

[39:41] Though she would prefer to believe that it stems from fear and bigotry. You seem to believe that I am fearful, hostile, or hateful. You keep trying to put words in my mouth. Still, if you're accusing me of believing the words of Jesus, of God's word, guilty as charged, it convicts me of my own sinfulness, brokenness, imperfection, and utter need for his incredible grace, forgiveness, and healing.

[40:00] And that includes every area of my life, including sexuality. Whatever our personal sense of sexual attraction or a gender identity, we need to acknowledge our need for the salvation that God has provided by Jesus taking our place on the cross.

[40:15] Her response, homosexuality is not a lifestyle. God is love, and judging someone's sexual orientation, posting videos of people who have reformed, is not love. I repeat for emphasis, it is dangerous, incites violence, and others who are less tolerant.

[40:28] Bear in mind that, although quite outspoken, my cousin's not, I'm sorry, I'm just going to have to say, not a radical activist. Although left-wing in a conservative province, she is a fairly average Canadian, and what's more, a churchgoer who considers herself a Christian, in her own way a believer in Jesus, though her ideas about him are not rooted in Scripture.

[40:47] Yet despite the foregoing, she doesn't believe there's even room for discussion of these issues, and that my reposting anything contrary to the new status quo is hatred, hate literature, hate speech, and violence inciting, and that the post itself is bigoted and dangerous.

[41:03] Though you saw for yourselves, it was nothing of the kind. Though she concedes I myself would not act aggressively, I am clearly naive and negligent in not recognizing the dangers of sharing such views with others.

[41:16] Thankfully, our dialogue did end cordially enough, and I'm going to stop there and hand you over to my husband. Okay, thank you, Tracy. Sorry, I'm just going to...

[41:26] Tracy, could you pull my sheets out of there, please? Oh, right. Sure. Sure. I'll try and do my own slides. I'm going to multitask here.

[41:39] Good morning. I wanted to give you an update. It kind of meshes a bit with what Tracy's already been talking about on some of the impacts that I'm noticing in healthcare when it comes to the transgender ideology.

[41:53] and I wanted to just give you guys a little bit of some background. I've covered this before, but essentially, you know, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health is considered the body that will decide what these guidelines are, treatment guidelines, and the medical profession has generally followed those guidelines.

[42:15] But it's important to note that this is made up of professionals that includes, as I've listed up there, people from various backgrounds, not just physicians. And a lot of these people are even activists.

[42:27] Non-professionals may join, but they don't have voting rights. But if you're a non-professional and you join, you do pay and you give money, and so that also has an influence. You may not be a voting member, but if you threaten, I'm going to get up and take all my money with me, that obviously has an impact.

[42:45] And just to show you how deep this goes, OHIP in Ontario and the PHSA in British Columbia require that the healthcare providers align with what WPATH is saying.

[42:57] And so this is how you're getting the WPATH standards of care being released on a relatively regular basis. They're working on version 8 now, but version 7 was out in 2012.

[43:09] I did a little research on this. There's an organization called the Emergency Care Research Institute. Now, they look at guidelines and medical literature and kind of give scores that are trying, it's like a trust scorecard to see whether this is considered reliable or not, what kind of evidence is this based on.

[43:28] And they found nothing of, the person who was doing this research found nothing from WPATH in there. In other words, it wasn't even included. And why was it included? Apparently because it was so bereft of actual clinical strength in its, in its conclusions that they didn't even put it in there.

[43:46] What they did put in there were some of the recommendations by the Endocrine Society clinical practice guidelines, but that was not even given a trust scorecard. And when asked specifically why, they said it was because quote, only a few of their recommendations were supported by the systematic review.

[44:00] The majority were not. And then the reason WPATH was not even included was they did not use a systematic review process. So why didn't they, what are some of the main problems with WPATH?

[44:13] A lot of it has to do with conflict of interest, right? Given, given bias, given fallen human nature, we need to have people who are trying to be at least objective when they're assessing this evidence.

[44:26] But when you look at the committee members that sit on WPATH and come up with these guidelines, every single one of them are compromised. Many of them, as I've listed here, they work at clinics or universities that receive funds from advocacy groups, foundations, pharmaceutical companies who heavily favor a certain treatment paradigm.

[44:44] they're all sitting on this board. They've received grants, they've published papers, and so this is their lifeblood, in other words. The majority of the members are from the U.S.

[44:55] six of them have affiliations with the same university, the University of Minnesota Program in Sexuality, and they receive funding from transgender advocacy organization called the Tawani Foundation.

[45:08] Eli Coleman, the committee chair, is himself compromised. He himself actually receives funding through Tawani.

[45:18] So you can just see how the conflict of interest compiles, compiles in this group. Yet they come out and they make these statements and the governments are telling the medical profession, you have to follow what they're telling you to do.

[45:33] One of the statements that they made in 2020, as I'm writing here, is the expression of gender characteristics, including identities that are not stereotypically associated with one's assigned sex at birth, is a common and culturally diverse human phenomenon that should not be judged as inherently pathological or negative.

[45:50] So this is where the move is on to depathologize transgenderism, or transgender identity. And we see that this is progressing from there.

[46:03] Dr. Jack Dressler, who was on the APA subcommittee for the DSM-5, the DSM-5 is the diagnostic statistics manual that the psychiatrists use to define what mental, what, what, mental illness is, he said, quote, we know there is a whole community of people out there who are not seeking medical attention and live between the two binary categories.

[46:27] We wanted to send the message that the therapist's job isn't to pathologize. So there is an agenda, in other words, and it's not driven by science. It's not driven by the data.

[46:38] And that little clip that Tracy played a little bit of is, you know, is showing that these bills are trying to say there is no evidence to prove X, Y, Z, but this is where the evidence is actually coming from.

[46:52] So what we're seeing is there's a shift from what was once considered a mental health issue to, you know, putting the problems that they actually experience on society, right?

[47:04] So the cause of these comorbid mood and mental health problems is because they're not accepted. Another quote from the Standards of Care, in addition to prejudice and discrimination in society at large, stigma can contribute to abuse and neglect in one's relationships with peers and family members, which in turn can lead to psychological distress.

[47:23] However, these symptoms are socially induced and not inherent to being transsexual, transgender, or gender nonconforming. And yet, the people in this clip will tell you that's not in keeping with my experience.

[47:38] And you see case studies coming out that show that this is not the case. So how is this playing out?

[47:48] Well, we already have a couple of cases, if you are aware of these, we had the one case in BC, there was another case in Dallas. There's a little more known about the Dallas case because the publication ban came in late and the father in that case had put a lot of stuff out on social media prior, so there's more information there.

[48:05] But in a nutshell, the court here in BC said that transgender youth AB was allowed to proceed to receive pubertal blockade at the age of 14 against the wishes of father CD, and then there was a parental separation going on there.

[48:24] Whereas in the Dallas case, Georgilas versus Younger, the mother, Dr. Georgilas, is actually a pediatrician, and they had twin boys, and the one boy, James, she was calling him Luna and saying that he was identifying himself as a girl.

[48:42] And so you have the two James. That's what he's like when he's with his father, that's what he's like when he's with his mother. But what we're finding is that there's this one-sided narrative, right?

[48:54] That this is what the child wants, they're trying to make it sound like it's child centered. Now that might be the case to some degree in the BC case. It's a teenager, but there's evidence out there or there was things leaked out there that the mother and the medical profession have been suggesting these things.

[49:13] These are kids that are obviously coming from troubled backgrounds. You're dealing with a broken home. You're dealing with a lot of ugly family dynamics. So is the child making the choice?

[49:24] Or are other people suggesting that and kind of promoting that in the child? There was a video since taken down of the three-year-old little James saying, my mom says I'm a girl.

[49:35] Three years old, right? So I mean, a three-year-old isn't going to strongly identify one way or another, but that's what the mother was saying. Now she's a trained pediatrician. She knows how to perhaps direct in a certain area.

[49:50] So in the Dallas case, what ended up happening is that a jury granted sole custody to the mother, and then the judge overruled that and said, no, it's joint custody.

[50:02] And so the father had a lot of evidence that he had amassed. And by the way, I'm not trying to weigh in on their interpersonal relationships.

[50:12] I think he probably has his own issues. I'm just saying that he had released many things on social media showing how boyish James was when James was with him.

[50:23] And everybody talked about that. Skip over this. Yeah, so how boyish James was when he was with him.

[50:38] And now recently it has come out that James decided to go to school dressed as a boy, and he was perfectly fine when he was there. And the father received word from the school there was no distress, no problems.

[50:52] He decided for himself. But keep in mind, he's seven. So, the other thing just to keep in mind here is how much, again, I touched on this, of an impact the other adults and caregivers have in this on these youth.

[51:13] Like how are they actually being encouraged? the father claimed that, for example, the mother of James would only give him affection when he dressed as a girl or only tried to show positive affirmation.

[51:25] And whether this was true or not, this was what was released into the court, apparently. So, you know, and I have another colleague who told me, Zoltan, what do I do with this?

[51:37] I've got this mother coming in and there's a three-year-old boy and she dresses him like, and dresses and calls him she and calls him by a female name, not on the birth certificate. What do I do with that?

[51:47] That three-year-old didn't make a choice and say, I want to identify this way. And I said, well, he says, it seems to me like child abuse. And I said, I agree. You should let the ministry know, but I don't know what the ministry would do with that, given the agenda that's behind that.

[52:01] Will they do that? Right? So, this is being shifted from being a medical issue to being a human rights issue.

[52:11] Here's a quote from Rolling Stone magazine I just used, because they're saying this is a fight against transgender rights. And so, once you start defining this as a human right, this is something that's intrinsic to a person's identity, then the medical profession is being put into a difficult spot, because what do we do with somebody?

[52:30] It would be, what they're trying to do is say, I would want to make my children white. Right? Like, what kind of a despicable parent would I be? Right? We would all agree that that's wrong, but that's what they're trying to frame it as.

[52:45] And so, there's a whole push on now to ban conversion therapy. Now, what is conversion therapy? It's loosely defined in various areas, from Wikipedia, a pseudoscientific practice of trying to change an individual's sexual orientation, put in brackets, or gender identity, from homosexual or bisexual to heterosexual using psychological or spiritual interventions.

[53:07] This is starting to pick up across Canada. So, Ontario and Manitoba and Nova Scotia already have these bans in place. Vancouver also has a ban in place, but BC is going down that path as well.

[53:23] Andrew Weaver, the leader of the Green Party, has tabled legislation, a bill, to ban conversion therapy here in BC. BC. It's already gone through first reading.

[53:35] This came as news to me. Through a colleague, I was contacted. Are you aware of this? No. How many people, by the way, are aware that this was even tabled?

[53:47] Okay. So, very few, right? So, he said, well, what do you think of this just from a medical standpoint? Because that's not his background. And I'm going, this is horrible. Because when you read the text of it, and I'll get to that, it's dictating, essentially, politicians dictating to physicians and healthcare providers, what is the best care for your patient?

[54:06] And essentially, I'm going to be put into a position, or I could be put into a position where I would be forsworn. Because I took a Hippocratic oath that I would do first no harm, that I would do things in the best interest of my patients, and if that actually goes against my conscience, then I cannot be a healthcare provider in this province.

[54:24] And that's really where we're at. Because are healthcare providers automatons? Are we technicians? Am I just a mechanic, and you come in and say, I want my car to have synthetic oil, and I'm going to impose and say, no, it's got to be semi-synthetic for you.

[54:40] That's not what we're dealing with. We're dealing with me as a moral being saying, look, I want to do what is right for you, what I believe is in your best interest, and when you come to me and say, please amputate my leg because I believe that I'm an amputee, I'm going to say, I think that that is morally wrong, and I can't do that.

[54:54] But I do want to help you with your distress, and I want to provide that in a loving and caring environment. So, what are the key features of this bill?

[55:05] Well, they're defining conversion therapy as counseling, behavior modification techniques, or the administration, or prescription of medication, or any other practice, treatment, or service provided with the performative objective of changing a person's sexual orientation, or gender identity, or expression, but does not include services that provide acceptance, support, or understanding of a person, or that facilitate a person's coping, social support, or identity exploration, or development, or a gender-confirming surgery, or any related service.

[55:36] So, if you look at how widespread that, like, even counseling. So, we know that, for example, Dr. Kenneth Zucker in Toronto had very high desistance rates, people who would come to accept their biological sex, through 80 to 90 percent of them would come to accept that with proper counseling, and that was his goal, and that's why he got fired, because he wanted to make them come to a point where that was better for them health-wise, than to go down this path of taking cross-sex hormones, going through mutilative surgeries, et cetera.

[56:09] The bill is also prohibiting very explicitly the provision of conversion therapy to minors by health care professionals, or hospital services, the payment or reimbursement thereof, or the expenditure of public funds for that.

[56:22] Now, this is different than the Ontario bill. If you look at the Ontario bill, it says it allows, quote, treatment that seeks to change sexual orientation or gender identity if the minor is capable with respect to the treatment and consents to the provision of the treatment.

[56:38] That consent clause is not there in Andrew Weaver's bill. So, it's basically saying the child cannot even consent to say, what if the child comes and says, I think I might be a girl, but that distresses me.

[56:51] I still actually want to be a boy. Well, you can't give consent for that, and I can't counsel them for that. Do you see what I'm saying? So, they're trying to tie my hands behind my back and say, no, no, no, you can't even do that.

[57:02] Whereas the Ontario bill says, well, if they are old enough to consent to conversion therapy, whatever that is, then you can kind of allow that to happen. So, here are some other stipulations.

[57:14] I'm going to give you, by the way, if people are interested, there's a handout that has the websites where these things can be found, where a health professional giving you some of the more specifics in writing.

[57:29] I'm going to skip ahead a little bit here. But we've got, okay, what we have here is a situation where, with the SOGI agenda on one side promoting a certain way of being to the children in the schools, and then in the medical profession we're being hamstrung to actually try and turn the ship another way.

[57:53] It's kind of like a pincer movement. And so, I'm part of a group called Concerned Citizens of BC. We are a leaderless group by design.

[58:04] We don't want to attract attention, anybody to be a lightning rod. We are a group of physicians, lawyers, other professionals who have a website, www.concern.ca.

[58:18] And what we're trying to do is revise this bill to make it less, to make it more benign, let's put it that way. Because, let's be honest, we don't have the power to thwart this.

[58:30] There is going to be a ban to conversion therapy coming up in this province. We just, but we have tabled, or not tabled, but we have given recommendations to Andrew Weaver, who was apparently open to amendments.

[58:46] And you can look at the website, what we're trying to say here, but we're trying to introduce the possibility that a parent who is distressed, that their six-year-old perhaps being suggested, and I've had cases of this as well, where parents have come to me and they've said, oh, yeah, my son's teacher who says, you know, sees him playing with dolls, says, maybe you were meant to be a girl.

[59:11] And by the way, that teacher has a transgender child herself, right? So this could be happening in the schools. So what we're saying is if a parent comes to me and says, I don't think that that's true for my child, or if my child is identifying that way, starting to go down that path, what can I do to help them best?

[59:28] I'd like to be able to refer them to somebody like Dr. Ken Zucker with a clear conscience and not face persecution for that. If the bill that's in its current draft is actually passed, I don't think I'll be able to do that without getting into trouble.

[59:44] That's not to say I won't get in trouble. I will have to stand for what is right for my patients in my own mind. And there is no science here saying that this is actually the best path for them.

[59:54] That is politically driven. It's ideologically driven. So from the website, www.concern.bc, I just wanted to read this to you because you could check some of these things out for yourself.

[60:05] but it says, the BC bill as drafted can reasonably be interpreted as depriving not only minors but also various responsible adults of important freedoms. A person in a position of trust or authority in relation to a minor must not provide convergent therapy to the minor.

[60:20] On the face of it, this appears to forbid parents and other adults from responding to minors in ways that are not entirely affirming of their current perceptions concerning sexual orientation or gender identity.

[60:31] Especially against the background of the introduction of SOGI123 and BC schools, it is unfortunately all too easy to interpret the current situation in this way, that the province intends by way of SOGI123 to inform minors about the correct manner in which they think about sex and gender, and N with an E is part of that agenda, and by way of Bill M218 2019 to prevent even their parents or health care givers from teaching or counseling them otherwise.

[60:58] So we definitely need to pray, seek wisdom, we need to preach the gospel, and we need to be educated. So go to that website, read some of the literature there, I've got the handouts here, we can just leave them on the table for people who are interested, and we need to stand together in these things for truth because as I see it, I mean, science itself is becoming increasingly difficult.

[61:25] Science is predicated on the notion that there is an objective truth out there because God is an objective God who made a reasonable universe, and that people who want to do science should be devoted to truth, but once they become compromised and they're devoted to an agenda, then you're only getting part of the story, and that's what I think is happening here.

[61:46] Thank you. great. Thank you.