Colorado bill would take kids away from parents who refuse to trans them

On this blog, I’ve talked about how pushy the Transgender Industrial Complex is about pushing transgender drugs and surgeries onto kids. Usually, they will tell parents that if they don’t agree with transing their kid, then the parents will be responsible for the self-ending of the child. “Would you rather have a dead daughter or a live son?” they ask parents of girls. And in at least one state, they want to put even more pressure on parents to consent.

Here’s the latest story from The Federalist:

Colorado’s Democrat state legislators want to force transgenderism on parents, requiring them to affirm their child’s “gender identity” or risk losing custody.

Radical lawmakers introduced “Concerning Legal Protections for The Dignity of a Minor” (SB 26-018) on Jan. 14, and the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the bill, referring it to the full Senate on Feb. 18.

In its intended form, the bill requires courts to consider whether parents embrace their child’s “gender identity” when determining custody. Courts must favor parents who support their child’s “preferred name and pronouns” and push their child to receive harmful and damaging “transgender” drugs, hormones, and surgeries.

[…]While the bill seeks to regulate custody disputes, it also opens the door for courts or child protective services to remove transgender-identified kids from the custody of parents who believe in biological reality and don’t want to irreversibly harm their child with drugs and surgeries.

[…]Primary sponsors of the bill include Sens. Katie Wallace and Chris Kolker and Reps. Meg Froelich and Lorena García.

The article goes on to note that this has already happened in many states, including in red states like Indiana, Montana, Texas and Arizona. Who is doing this? Well, it’s usually a joint effort by a group of teachers, social workers, school administrators, school nurses, therapists, and medical providers.

One of the things that makes the transgendering of kids so painful is how these courts silence the parents so they can’t even tell anyone about what they are doing.

The Federalist article describes two of the cases – from Montana and Indiana:

When Krista and Todd Kolstad’s 14-year-old daughter landed in a Montana hospital for suicidal thoughts, her parents had no idea she would soon be taken from them. After the Kolstads’ daughter revealed her desire to “change genders,” Montana Child and Family Services removed her from their custody and relocated her to a treatment facility in Wyoming focused on “gender therapy.”

“They have a complete agenda. We have no voice, no voice in court,” Todd said. “They just gag ordered us and threatened jail time.”

Likewise, Mary and Jeremy Cox lost custody of their 16-year-old son for refusing to affirm his sexual identity confusion.

In courtroom proceedings, the Indiana Department of Child Services — while using biologically incorrect pronouns — argued the Coxes’ son needed to be in a home “where she is accepted for who she is,” not one that will “tell her how she should think and how she should feel.”

I don’t think socially conservative Christians realize the effect that this silencing parents has on the willingness of young people to get married. It’s a huge deterrent – the idea that teachers, administrators, social workers, medical people, etc. can come in and trans your child, force you to pay the costs on your health insurance, and then silence you from complaining about what they are doing to you.

This is very depressing, and if I were you, I would move to the reddest state you can find. Not Indiana, not Texas, not any of those. Tennessee is the best state in the union for social conservatives, and then other states like Oklahoma, Arkansas and Alabama. Make this move a priority if you have kids, because you do not want to have your kids taken from you, and then be slapped with a gag order that prevents you from telling anyone about it.

Anyway, here is a good news story from The Federalist:

On Wednesday, the Texas Supreme Court heard opening arguments in the case of a woman seeking damages for medical malpractice in gender transition.

Soren Aldaco, a detransitioned woman who suffered from gender dysphoria as a teen and underwent a double mastectomy at 19, is suing Barbara Wood and Three Oaks Counseling Group for recommending the senseless mutilation and allegedly falsifying information to secure it.

I thought this part of the article was interesting, so you can see how children are led along the transgender path:

As a minor, a nurse practitioner she met at a transgender support group prescribed Aldaco hormones. He was essentially “recruiting” patients from the support group, Aldaco said, influencing children and their parents.

At the time of her surgery, Aldaco said she was taking multiple mental health medications, had been hospitalized for a manic episode, and struggled with anxiety and depression.

Although Aldaco had only received telehealth counseling from her therapist for “relationship issues,” Wood signed a recommendation letter for a double mastectomy. Wood provided the letter in February 2021, and Aldaco underwent surgery in June.

The aftermath of the surgery was brutal, physically and mentally scarring. Aldaco documented excessive bruising and swelling that would eventually require drains from the surgery sites. The clinic staff was less than receptive, evading responses to her concerns and repeatedly requesting that she sign a nondisparagement agreement, she said.

Basically, the teaching, therapy and health care professions are filled with people who are driven by emotions. Their motto is “don’t judge”. They aren’t big on moral boundaries and spiritual truth claims. They just want people to do what feels good in the moment, and then escape all judgment and punishment. And they certainly don’t care what the Bible has to say about what the rules are and what the purpose of life is. They just want to be happy. And they want you to “just love everybody”. So, guys like me who tell young people not to take out student loans for English degrees are seen as terrible people.

Bible-believing Christian men are seen as the worst – always telling people to make better choices about relationships and sex and money. Blech! But what happens when the “don’t judge” people mislead their victims into terrible mistakes, like transgenderism. Then, the don’t judge people stop answering the phone, and they want you to sign a “nondisparagement agreement”. They really don’t like accountability. In fact, if they can, they’ll use force to cover up their failure and the damage that they caused. In Canada, the transgender activists often force parents to keep silent about what they are doing to children with publication bans, for example.

In case you missed it, the first victory from a detransitioner case happened recently. I blogged before about how transgender doctors love to trans kids because the initial treatments and ongoing treatments are a “huge money maker” for these health care providers. That’s why you need to be careful where you take your children for their educations and health care. A lot of these people on the secular left in the schools and hospitals are hoping to turn your kid into a pot of gold. And they don’t care what permanent effects they cause when they’re getting their bag of gold.

New book by professor of mechanical engineering on the design of the human body

I’m always on the alert for new books that will help me get into interesting conversations with people about the big questions of life. The trick is being good on every topic relevant to the big questions. I’ve had to learn the basics of cosmology, astrobiology, paleontology, historical methods, economics, policy, investing, etc. And there’s a new book out on the human body that might help me to have even more interesting conversations.

Here’s a description of the new book by physicist Dr. Brian Miller (who is actually our guest on the next episode on the Knight and Rose Show):

I have written previously about the groundbreaking research of engineering professor Stuart Burgess that has demonstrated the exquisite design behind human anatomy… Dr. Burgess has compiled many of the best examples in his new book, out today for Darwin Day, the birthday of Charles Darwin: Ultimate Engineering: How Human Biomechanics Reveals Intelligent Design. This book not only dismantles claims that the human body often appears poorly designed, but it also demonstrates that human anatomy displays ingenuity and efficiencies far superior to the best creations of human engineers.

I know what most of you are used to making sophisticated arguments like the origin of the universe, the cosmic fine-tuning, habitability, explosions of biological complexity in the fossil record, etc. But think back to when you were in high school. Your friends were deciding what to think about origins then, and they did not know about the sophisticated arguments. At that time, I remember my friends accepting Darwinian evolution over things like supposedly poor designs in biology as well as the “icons of evolution” that Dr. Jonathan Wells writes about. So, you and I have to know how to respond to that low level of argument for Darwinian evolution.

Anyway, Dr. Miller continues:

After contrasting the divergent expectations of the two frameworks, Burgess shows that claims of poor design consistently collapse under close inspection… Rather than arising from empirical evidence, evolutionary critiques largely reflect the projection of anti-teleological expectations onto the biology.

Burgess goes much further by demonstrating that human anatomical structures appear was well designed as theoretically possible.

He mentions a few “poor designs” in the article, and I hadn’t heard of any of them.

The argument against design from sub-optimal design is a fine argument to try, but I don’t think it is going to work on engineers. I am a software engineer. When we do designs, we are always thinking in terms of tradeoffs. I used to work in the embedded space, so we wanted to have things run fast, but we couldn’t put desktop CPUs and desktop amounts of memory in these little devices or they would cost too much! Designers understand that optimal design simply is not realistic. I buy my Dad a new laptop every 4 years, and sometimes his old one is still working fine. He keeps telling me that he wants his laptops to last more than 5 years, but if they did, he would have to accept that this might blow up the cost, the size, the power consumption, the noise level, etc. There’s no free lunch when you’re designing software or hardware.

And in the human body, the designs have clearly prioritized certain features at the expense of others. Just because God designs something, it doesn’t mean that it has to match our expectations of “perfect” design. We want to live forever, but that’s not what God wants most of all. He gives us a body that lasts a certain period of time so that we can either reconcile with him or not. People want to think that the design of biological systems should be for their comfort and ease. But that’s not what God’s goal is when he designs something. He has different goals.

I think some people who reject God just don’t want to accept that they are not the center of the universe. They say “well, if my happiness isn’t the goal of all this designing, then I’ll just deny that there is a designer”. I remember Christopher Hitchens saying things like that in his debate with William Lane Craig. “The universe is so big, I don’t like it. That’s not how I would have done it”. And there are certain people that find an argument like that very convincing for some reason. To me, it sounds too narcissistic. Why does everything have to be perfect for me, or I throw a temper tantrum? Sometimes I think that a theist is just someone who doesn’t insist on having their own way all the time, about every little thing.

I noticed that Dr. Miller has a new article up after this first one where he talks about two specific examples of design: the knee and the brain.

If this is something you think you might like to add to your quiver of discussion topics, check out the book.

Knight and Rose Show #72: Kingdom Priorities: Following the Teachings of Jesus

Welcome to episode 72 of the Knight and Rose podcast! In this episode, Wintery Knight and Desert Rose explore the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels, to equip you to follow the Leader. If you like this episode, please subscribe to the podcast, and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We would appreciate it if you left us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Podcast description:

Christian apologists Wintery Knight and Desert Rose discuss apologetics, policy, culture, relationships, and more. Each episode equips you with evidence you can use to boldly engage anyone, anywhere. We train our listeners to become Christian secret agents. Action and adventure guaranteed. 30-45 minutes per episode. New episode every week.

Episode summary:

Wintery Knight and Desert Rose discuss Jesus’ teachings from the Gospels, emphasizing truth, evidence, self-denial, and forgiveness. They explore passages on seeking the kingdom, loving enemies, and private prayer. They critique prosperity gospel and moral relativism, urging Christians to prioritize eternal matters over worldly approval. They offer practical insights for obedience to Jesus, focusing on reconciliation, service, and pursuing God’s priorities.

Outline and transcript

Here is a transcript of the show provided by TurboScribe AI. TurboScribe AI allows you to translate the transcript into many, many different languages. You can also export the transcript into many different formats, with optional timestamps.

Episode 72:

Speaker biographies

Wintery Knight is a black legal immigrant. He is a senior software engineer by day, and an amateur Christian apologist by night. He has been blogging at winteryknight.com since January of 2009, covering news, policy and Christian worldview issues.

Desert Rose did her undergraduate degree in public policy, and then worked for a conservative Washington lobbyist organization. She also has a graduate degree from a prestigious evangelical seminary. She is active in Christian apologetics as a speaker, author, and teacher.

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You can use this to subscribe to the podcast from your phone or tablet. I use the open-source AntennaPod app on my Android phone.

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Music attribution:

Strength Of The Titans by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5744-strength-of-the-titans
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license