The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation has become a state-enforced hoax that targets Christianity. The full force of government messaging, media, and public institutions now blames the Christian faith for a uniquely evil crime. A set of unproven accusations has been used to justify hostility toward an entire religious community, resulting in vandalism and church arson. What does the evidence show?

For my American readers who may not follow Canadian news closely, here is the background. From the late 19th century until the 1990s, the Canadian government funded a system of “residential schools” for Indigenous children. Churches—primarily Catholic, with some Protestant involvement—operated many of them under government policy aimed at assimilation. Conditions were often harsh. Disease, especially tuberculosis, killed large numbers of children, as it did in other institutions of the era. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission later documented roughly 3,200 confirmed student deaths, most from illness. In 2021 Canada established the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (observed September 30) to mark that history.

In May 2021 the story exploded. The Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation announced that ground-penetrating radar had detected soil anomalies near the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia. Media around the world immediately reported the discovery of a “mass grave” containing the remains of 215 murdered children. Similar announcements followed at other former school sites. The Canadian government lowered flags on federal buildings for months. Dozens of churches were burned or vandalized. Politicians and activists treated the claims as proven genocide carried out by Christian institutions.

Journalist Terry Glavin examined the evidence in the National Post back in May 2024.

He wrote:

“There was much that was dark about residential schools, but no graves have been confirmed at Kamloops to this day… Three years ago this week… the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc chief Rosanne Casimir issued a press release announcing… ‘the confirmation of the remains of 215 children who were students of the Kamloops Indian Residential School.’… Casimir hadn’t said anything about a mass grave, but the die was cast… This week… Casimir described the same ‘unthinkable loss’… only this time it was that ‘the stark truth of the preliminary findings came to light — the confirmation of 215 anomalies were detected.’ Anomalies, not ‘the remains of 215 children.’”

Glavin continued:

“In the months following the reported discovery of the Kamloops ‘mass grave’ in 2021, replications of the claim spread from one former residential school site to another… until the ‘missing children’ reportedly discovered in unmarked graves across Canada ended up numbering roughly 1,300. In each case, however, although you’d never have known it from the tabloid-shock headlines, where there were burials at all they turned out to be either graves in known cemeteries, or merely instances of hyperbolic conjecture… Across Canada, there were riots, dozens of churches were burned, statues were toppled, and the Trudeau government decided to keep flags at half-staff on all federal buildings for more than five months.”

Ground-penetrating radar detects disturbances in soil. It does not identify human remains. Years later, the major claimed sites have not produced verified mass graves of secretly murdered children matching the original headlines. Where limited excavations occurred, results did not confirm the sensational narrative.

In September 2023, Sohrab Ahmari summarized the outcome and its moral character in The American Conservative:

“So much for Canada’s mass graves. Two years ago, ground-penetrating radar supposedly discovered mass burial sites near several so-called residential schools… The ‘discovery’ prompted a good old-fashioned racial reckoning. You know, the kind necessitating arson and wanton destruction. In response to the radar findings, the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned the apparent mass murder (of kids!). Dozens of Canadian churches, including many that served indigenous communities, were burned to the ground by enraged activists—acts Trudeau described as ‘understandable,’ given the enormity of the racist crimes… Now, two years later, we learn that ‘a series of recent excavations at suspected sites has turned up no human remains’… The Pine Creek First Nation dug up fourteen sites near a residential school in Manitoba over the summer, and turned up zilch… All have turned up exactly zero human remains… There is no denying that some indigenous children were mistreated in residential schools. But the mass murders and mass burials used to justify attacking churches in general and the Canadian Catholic Church in particular were quite literally a piece of agitprop mythology… Call this what it is: an anti-Catholic blood libel.”

The blood libel was not limited to Catholics. Protestant churches were also targeted. The narrative painted Christian institutions as perpetrators of secret child murder on a massive scale.

The Canadian government amplified that narrative, funded further searches that continued to yield anomalies rather than bodies, and institutionalized the mourning through a permanent national holiday and constant public messaging.

Glavin noted the lasting damage:

“You could say that Panic of 2021 was itself a ‘dark chapter in Canadian history,’ and its lasting damage to Canadians’ sense of their own history is not entirely incalculable… Nearly one in five Canadians believe the horribly high mortality rates in the schools were not due to the known causes of infectious diseases like tuberculosis and influenza, but rather the result of children being deliberately killed.”

That belief is the product of the unproven claims. The 2021 claims that triggered the arsons and the national hysteria rested on radar anomalies that have never been matched by the excavated remains the headlines promised.

The federal government has actively treated skepticism of the most extreme claims as a problem requiring official suppression. Kimberly Murray, the Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Indian Residential Schools, recommended in her final report (released October 2024) that Ottawa amend the Criminal Code to create an offence of willfully promoting hatred against Indigenous peoples by “condoning, denying, downplaying, or justifying the Indian Residential School System or by misrepresenting facts relating to it.” She has also called for both civil and criminal sanctions against such “denialism.” In her earlier work she described the existence of unmarked and mass graves as well-documented. (Sources: Globe and Mail on Murray’s report; Budget 2024 allocated $5 million over three years specifically “to combat Residential School denialism.”)

This federal holiday is neither about truth nor reconciliation. It is the federal government weaponizing an unproven accusation that licensed violence against Christians.

Today is day two of my series of posts on new studies. Last time, we looked at a new study that found that support for gender ideologies was associated with support for political violence against dissenters. Today’s study found that there is no evidence for the widespread and alarmist claim that state prohibitions on surgeries, puberty blockers, or cross-sex hormones for gender-dysphoric minors increase suicide rates.

The article is from Do No Harm.

Today, Do No Harm released a study finding no evidence for the widespread and alarmist claim that state prohibitions on surgeries, puberty blockers, or cross-sex hormones for gender-dysphoric minors increase suicide rates.

[…]Employing three distinct analytical models, Do No Harm found no evidence to support the claim.

“The alarmist claim that protecting children from sex-rejecting procedures increases suicide is false,” said Jay Greene, Director of Research at Do No Harm. “We examined the evidence in a first-of-its-kind study of how teen suicide rates were affected by states adopting policies restricting so-called gender-affirming care for children. No matter how you examine the data, the result is consistently clear: These state policies did not increase teen suicide rates. Medical practice and policy must be grounded in evidence, not emotionally manipulative talking points. That principle is all the more critical when it’s a matter of children’s health and well-being.”

[…]Do No Harm’s study also debunks the flawed research cited by activists, media, and lawmakers to justify the suicide myth and claiming that “gender-affirming care” is “lifesaving.” These studies have profound methodological limitations and depend on unreliable evidence.

I remember Jay P. Greene, because I bought a book by him: “Education Myths”. I try to buy at least two of the best books on every kind of policy. I remember that when I got to education policy, that was one of the books I chose. Anyway, this new study confirms an older study that I reported on before.

This Substack article by Benjamin Ryan talks about that prior study from 2024.

He writes:

The Finnish study’s four coauthors have published some of the strongest scholarship challenging the assertion that providing them to adolescents improves their mental health and is life-saving. All of these Finnish investigators were also coauthors of a paper published in 2024 that found that there was no independent, statistically significant association between taking cross-sex hormones and the rate of suicide deaths among youths attending gender clinics.

The 2024 study was published in a medical journal called BMJ Health. One of the four authors was actually one of the pioneers of gender transitioning treatment. She was all for it, until she got far enough into it that she realized that it wasn’t working out as expected.

Other recent studies have found that transgender treatments and surgeries actually increase the rate of suicide.

First one from Oxford Academic.  The Post Millennnial reported on it:

A study of over 107,000 patients with gender dysphoria over the age of 18 has concluded that those who undergo transgender surgeries, are at greater risk for mental health problems, including depression, suicidal ideation, anxiety, and others.

The paper, published in the Oxford Academic Journal of Sexual Medicine, stated in conclusion that bottom and top surgeries are “associated with increased risk of mental health issues.”

And second one is from the journal Cureus and is up at PubMed.

It concluded:

Gender-affirming surgery is significantly associated with elevated suicide attempt risks, underlining the necessity for comprehensive post-procedure psychiatric support.

The third one is from the journal PLOS One.

It found:

Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population. Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism, and should inspire improved psychiatric and somatic care after sex reassignment for this patient group.

So, I hope that all these studies are helpful for you if you get into a situation where someone is telling you that children will commit suicide unless they get transgender treatments and / or surgeries. The research is pretty clear about this. Sometimes, doctors and hospital workers will lie about the research in order to get health insurance money. Sometimes, airheads will speak in ignorance of the data because they just want to virtue signal. But you have to stick with the evidence even if it’s hard on you. Because that’s how you protect children from predators.

I am taking a break from my break from blogging to report on several interesting studies and articles I’ve found in the last month. I have 4 interesting things to write about and I’ll try to do 1 every day this week until I run out. The first thing is a new FEDERAL GOVERNMENT research study that links support for “gender ideology” to justifying political violence. Naturally, they’re talking about people in the Democrat party here.

Here’s the story from The Washington Examiner:

New scientific research commissioned by the Department of Health and Human Services has found that individuals radicalized by gender ideology are substantially more likely to believe political violence is justified.

A report on the study’s findings, published Wednesday, concludes that ideologues who adopt core tenets of gender theory tend to hold left-wing authoritarian beliefs, a psychological profile marked by aggression toward perceived oppressors and enthusiasm for top-down censorship paired with institutional enforcement.

The study’s authors, comprised of researchers from Rutgers University, the Manhattan Institute, and the Network Contagion Research Institute, titled the report, “Where the Clinic Meets the Movement: Does Gender Ideology Arm Left-Wing Authoritarian Psychology?”

It was not a small study, either. They used a sample of 1,200 U.S. adults to gather the data for it.

Now, I did do a quick check on the standard far-left LGBT activist web sites to see what their response was. And their responses were similar to that of Floyd Lee Corkins II, the gay activist who was convicted of domestic terrorism for his violent attack on the headquarters of the Family Research Council. It just seems like the whole LGBT activist movement is not very comfortable with scientific research that shows that there is something wrong with their worldview. The main point from the LGBT activists was that the study didn’t make them feel good and that caused them to approve of political violence against the people who made them feel bad, just like the study said it does.

But the thing is, the study wasn’t just idle talk – it’s based in the actual actions of the LGBT activists.

The Washington Times reported:

The study also points to a string of real-world cases where transgender identity intersects with violence — from Kirk’s killing to a Minneapolis church shooting to a 2022 plot against a Supreme Court justice. Researchers concluded gender ideology can act as “an ideological accelerant” signaling to authoritarian-minded believers when violence is justified.

And this isn’t the last we’ll hear about this:

Adm. Brian Christine, the assistant secretary for HHS, said “the association between sex-rejecting clinical beliefs, authoritarian attitudes and the justification of political violence warrants serious scientific scrutiny” and that the agency “will continue to pursue rigorous research.”

I noticed that hospitals are taking action based on studies about what transgender treatments and surgeries actually do to children.

Here’s a story from the Daily Signal about what hospitals are doing.

It says:

Opponents of “gender transition” surgeries on minors applauded a Justice Department settlement with at least six major hospitals to stop the practice.

The Department of Justice has announced settlements with six hospitals, The New York Times reported, to stop doing the surgeries and hormone treatments for minors.

“The Department of Justice has done incredible work in driving healthcare providers to end experimental transgender treatments on minors,” Dr. Kurt Miceli, chief medical officer of Do No Harm, said in a statement Wednesday. “Nearly two dozen systematic reviews have found no credible evidence supporting these interventions. Meanwhile, the known or expected harms are significant, including infertility, cardiovascular disease, and surgical complications, among others.”

Texas Children’s Hospital, Cleveland Clinic, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, Mount Sinai Health System, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Children’s Hospital, and most recently, New York University Langone Hospital reached separate agreements with the DOJ, the Times reported.

Here’s a recent article from Daily Signal, written by the famous Tyler O’Neil. You might remember that he was a guest on The Knight and Rose Show.

He describes how gay activists were very upset with these hospital actions, but he reported that the Department of Health and Human Services refused to cave in to them:

“Protecting children from irreversible sex-rejecting procedures is not discrimination, and HHS will not allow unfounded claims linking these protections to violence to distract from the serious medical risks facing vulnerable children,” an HHS spokesperson told the Daily Signal in a statement Friday.

The statement marks the administration’s latest defense of efforts to halt transgender medical interventions for minors as major hospital systems across the country are reaching settlements with the Trump administration.

The HHS is just following the research:

Yet HHS released a peer-reviewed review last year finding “extremely weak evidence” for any benefits from “gender-affirming care” for young people.

Last month, HHS released “Wolves in White Coats,” a report focused on how medical professionals used false medical billing codes to prescribe so-called puberty blockers for minors.

HHS and other administration officials have challenged activist claims that restricting transgender medical interventions increases suicide, violence, or other harms. The administration has argued that the evidence supporting “puberty blockers,” cross-sex hormones, and surgeries for minors is weak and that the procedures carry significant risks.

The HHS spokesperson cited the “Wolves in White Coats” report, stating that “these procedures carry significant risks to children’s physical and mental health, including lifelong consequences.”

I cannot remember when the federal government was doing such a good job of protecting children from LGBT activists. Can you?

Upcoming mid-term elections

I do have a libertarian friend named Libby who likes to talk a lot about how both parties are the same. When I ask him anything about stories like this, he always says the exact same things: 1) That is such a good action by the government, and 2) I wonder why I had never heard of it. And I know why he’s never heard of it. His entire source of news are these little cartoons called “memes” that he shares with his libertarian friends.

For example, Libby shares memes criticizing the US armed forces fighting Iranian Muslims and rescuing Venezuela from communism. I ask him if he supports Islam and communism, and he said “of course not”. Then I ask him why we shouldn’t use our armed forces to fight them and he said “because we could use memes to fight them instead, hee hee hee”. I asked him when he’s going to stop driving his car, which runs on gasoline, and he said “gasoline comes from gas stations, we don’t need to deal with Iran or Venezuela for that”.

And for all his complaining about government, he doesn’t know anything about elections. In fact, I had to tell him when his state primaries were and which candidates to vote for. He had no idea who the candidates were or that an election was even going on.

Well, we do have mid-term elections coming up, so if you don’t like the idea of transgender surgeries on children or the idea of domestic terrorism committed by LGBT activists then you should probably vote Republican so we can get more research and action like we’ve been getting. It’s certainly a big change from the Biden administration that supported transgender surgeries on children and soft-pedaling violent crimes committed by the political left.

And if you want to stay informed about the news, I read The Federalist and Daily Signal every day. Don’t be a Libby.