I was having a conversation about trust in the medical industry with my doctor, and he told me that his patients were just being tricked by “social media”, whereas doctors like him are “evidence-based”. First of all, the people I follow on social media are now running the NIH, FDA and CDC. So now I am the science. Second of all, the public’s distrust of doctors is based on evidence.

Let’s take a look at an article from the Manhattan Institute‘s City Journal by Leon Sapir about the American Medical Association:

The American Medical Association (AMA) is the largest and most powerful doctors’ organization in the United States. It has also consistently supported pediatric medical transition, or “gender-affirming care,” which includes puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries administered to minors. The AMA has passed a resolution promising to protect these procedures, joined an amicus brief in a lawsuit challenging a state age-restriction law, and written a letter urging state governors to veto similar legislation.

So, I think what consumers of medical services are seeing what the professional body of doctors says about transing kids, and they are thinking “gender dysphoria is a mental illness, and you cannot treat it with hormone replacement, and sex mutilation surgeries”. We are not just thinking about long-term consequences like infertility and continuous expensive treatments. Many of these doctors aren’t citing the studies at all, just asking parents “would you rather have a dead girl or a live boy?” That not evidence-based.

More:

The AMA has done all this despite the findings from systematic reviews—the gold standard of evidence-based medicine (EBM)—of weak evidence for these treatments’ mental health benefits, and despite the corresponding health risks.

[…]Skeptics of the AMA’s position have wondered how a professional medical organization could have ignored systematic reviews. New videos published by the Daily Wire provide a possible answer. The videos reveal the AMA’s president, the Michigan-based otolaryngologist Bobby Mukkamala, making false claims about pediatric gender medicine and demonstrating ignorance of basic concepts in EBM.

[…]In accordance with his belief about expertise, Mukkamala recommended that a legislator consult with one gender doctor in particular, fellow Michigander Jesse Krikorian. The Daily Wire videos also reveal that Krikorian, like Mukkamala, is unfamiliar with basic principles of EBM and with existing research on pediatric gender medicine.

Now, my doctor would probably have a very negative view of parents ability to form opinions about health care policy. But actually, ordinary people like me are following the studies closely, and ordinary people like you are reading about the studies, too.

The AMA’s stance contradicts years of research I’ve covered, including:

• New study: Risks associated with pediatric “gender-affirming” care
• New study: Transgender surgeries linked to suicidal ideation, depression
• New study: gender-affirming surgery associated with suicide attempts
• Pre-ban study: 53% of mothers with gender-confused boys have mental illness
• New study: Significant parallels found between anorexia and gender dysphoria
• New study: most children suffering from gender confusion grow out of it
• New study: Mental health issues persist after receiving “gender-affirming” treatment
• Study: “social contagion” is a major factor in teen and young adult gender dysphoria
• New study: psychotherapy improves mental health of autistic teens with gender dysphoria
• Controversial study on Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria and transgenderism re-published

The UK’s Cass Review, which I discussed in my May 2025 post linked above, is a gold-standard analysis. It found no consistent mental health benefits from puberty blockers or hormones, yet the AMA pushes these treatments regardless. I’m blogging about the gold standard studies, but AMA people think that ordinary people are not following the science. We are. Christians and conservatives bound our worldviews off of what science tells us. We are not being swayed by Big Medicine and Big LGBT to suppress the science. The AMA argues gender-affirming care reduces distress, but the Cass Review and other studies show no consistent mental health benefits.

The rest of that City Journal article talks about some of the myths that are believed by senior people at the AMA. (Either they are deliberately lying because transing kids is “a big money-maker“, or they are just ignorant of the research)

Here’s one example:

The AMA president… asserted that the suicide rate— not suicidal ideation or attempts, but deaths by suicide—among people who identify as transgender is between “50 and 70 percent.” He was clearly implying that gender-transition procedures for minors are necessary to prevent these tragic outcomes.

This claim is baseless. Indeed, even the most outspoken advocates of pediatric transition refrain from saying that suicide—as opposed to suicidal ideation or attempts—is this high among trans-identifying youth… Last December, ACLU lawyer and LGBTQ & HIV Project co-director Chase Strangio admitted in a Supreme Court hearing that “suicide, thankfully and admittedly, is rare” among trans-identifying youth.

[…]No credible evidence shows that medical transition resolves or lowers the rate of suicidal behavior, and some evidence suggests that suicide risk remains significantly elevated—though still nowhere near the figures cited by Mukkamala—following medical transition.

I think my doctor is probably thinking that rank-and-file Americans are not following these issues closely. We interviewed Dr. Jay Richards on our podcast, who is one of the experts on this issue at the Heritage Foundation think tank. I follow Jay Richards on Twitter, and he tweets out all the studies that he expects ordinary Americans to read them – at least the abstracts!

Heritage is a think tank that influences legislation and policy in the federal government. I read everything that Jay tweets, and that’s how I find all these studies. So, maybe social media is not such a bad thing, if it leads to the studies. It’s certainly a lot better than listening to NPR and reading the New York Times and the Washington Post and expecting to have accurate views about these topics.

I wanted to write a post about unions for Labor day. I have to be nice, because my conservative neighbor to the north really likes unions, and there are conservative people who work in unions. In fact, many people who work in unions don’t like that they are forced to pay union dues in order to work, because they know those union dues go straight to the secular left, to push for leftist policies.

Let’s start with this article from John Stossel, that appeared in Daily Signal, because it explains how unions like the Teamsters work:

Another was Yellow Corp—once one of the largest freight carriers in America.

Then the Teamsters threatened to strike, demanding faster payments of healthcare and pension benefits.

The company warned that a strike could bankrupt it.

But O’Brien kept pushing, saying, “The company has two more days to fulfill its obligations, or we will strike. Teamsters at Yellow are furious and ready to act!”

Yellow gave in. The strike was averted.

Days later … the trucking company shut down for good.

Thirty thousand people lost their jobs.

Asked if he felt responsible for the lost jobs, O’Brien said, “No, not at all … they were so mismanaged.”

I think a case can be made for private sector unions, but not public sector unions. Public sector unions are unions composed of government workers.

Here is an article written by my favorite economist Thomas Sowell. As usual, Sowell is able to dig around in the past to show you how policies that sounds so good to the ears have worked out so badly when tried.

He writes:

The old-time, legendary labor leader John L. Lewis called so many strikes in the coal mines that many people switched to using oil instead, because they couldn’t depend on coal deliveries. A professor of labor economics at the University of Chicago called John L. Lewis “the world’s greatest oil salesman.”

There is no question that Lewis’ United Mine Workers Union raised the pay and other benefits for coal miners. But the higher costs of producing coal not only led many consumers to switch to oil, these costs also led coal companies to substitute machinery for labor, reducing the number of miners.

By the 1960s, many coal-mining towns were almost ghost towns. But few people connected the dots back to the glory years of John L. Lewis. The United Mine Workers Union did not kill the goose that laid the golden eggs, but it created a situation where fewer of those golden eggs reached the miners.

It was much the same story in the automobile industry and the steel industry, where large pensions and costly work rules drove up the prices of finished products and drove down the number of jobs. There is a reason why there was a major decline in the proportion of private sector employees who joined unions. It was not just the number of union workers who ended up losing their jobs. Other workers saw the handwriting on the wall and refused to join unions.

So, just think about how unions work on Labor Day, and ask yourself whether they are good for anyone except the union bosses. I do think that a case can be made for private sector labor unions, as long as they let workers who want to join opt-in voluntarily. But I don’t think any case can be made for public sector unions. They end up costing taxpayers a lot of money, and they can’t be stopped by a company going out of business. That’s why we have a $37 trillion national debt, and our children (and children’s children) will be the ones who have to pay it off.

I noticed from the latest round-up of Truthbomb Apologetics that Chad had found some interesting news about Jen Hatmaker. I remember that Jen Hatmaker, like Beth Moore, used to be a Southern Baptist and then left the denomination. I never pay much attention to these popular women. I prefer Walter Bradley, Stephen C. Meyer, Jay Richards, etc. Let’s see why they are different.

First, let’s see the latest news about Jen Hatmaker, in the far-left New York Times: (archived)

Jen Hatmaker went through a drastic middle-age crisis like that. Twice. Hatmaker, who is 51, had built a career as a Christian women’s influencer, best-selling author and TV personality — all along modeling a lighthearted, relatable yet enviable family lifestyle for evangelical women. Then, about a decade ago, she went through a public shift away from some of her most conservative stances on things like gay marriage.

The thing is, I want to know why she was a Christian influencer in the first place. When I am picking a Christian influencer, I am picking people who allow me to defend the Boss and disciple Christians in areas that are being challenged. So, I care about what James Tour says about the origin of life. I care about what Jay Richards says about economics. I care about what Sean McDowell says about the gospels. Why would I care about someone who makes me feel things about my own life? There is a war on, and I want to know how to train, fight, lead and win about what’s actually true. I don’t have a me-centered view of Christianity. I am on a truth quest, not a happiness quest.

More from the article:

On your website, you say, “I used to be a darling of the evangelical women’s subculture, but now I am a bit of a problem child.” How did you become a darling? I grew up in a really traditional, regimented Christian environment, the Southern Baptist world. I had always been good at being good, so that was a great environment for me to succeed in because it’s rules based: This is what we do, this is what we don’t do, this is what we believe, this what we don’t believe. I went to a Baptist college, and I married a ministry major. We immediately went into full-time ministry. But the way that it works in church is a two-for-one approach: His job was my second job. I was a teacher, but I was at every single church thing that existed. Then when I was 29, I wrote my first book. Miraculously it got published, it became a five-book contract, and thus began my ascent into evangelical lady subculture.

Notice what she says here, that the Southern Baptist world is a “rules based” world. And that’s what I’ve seen as well, and I would extend it to every conservative denomination. What’s emphasized there is behaviors and community. What is not emphasized is truth. That’s why they produce people like Russell Moore and Brent Leatherwood. Those people are great at feeling good and being liked by non-Christians. But they have literally no knowledge or skills when it comes to defending the Bible’s truth claims and commandments. They don’t speak or write about evidential apologetics, and they have no evidence-based defense for any of the Bible’s moral teachings that would work on a non-Christian.

My view of Christianity is totally different from their “I’ll follow the parent and church rules, and that entitles me to happiness, community and success”. My view is “the Bible is full of truth claims and moral commands. Jesus gave arguments and evidence for those truth claims and commands. I have access to the Holy Spirit to help me do the same. How can I manage the resources that God has entrusted to me well, so that I can promote his truth and commands most powerfully and persuasively?”

I just don’t have the expectation that “following the rules” will lead to a happy life of social acceptance. When I read military history, what I see is a lot of people sacrificing their happiness and even safety in order to serve their commanding officer. (2 Tim 2:3-4) Not sure how anyone can read the Bible and not get the idea that with respect to God’s purposes in the world, our happiness and popularity are expendable. Also, people who suffer while following the Boss are the most honorable and blessed. I’m really wondering whether people like Jen Hatmaker, Rachel Hollis, Glennon Doyle Melton, etc. have ever read and understood the Bible at all.

Apparently, getting soft on Jesus’ definition of marriage is a big winner with evangelical women:

Maybe 10 days before the 2016 election, I gave an interview to the Religious News Service in which I said, I’ve changed my mind on this, and I’m in full affirmation of the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A. community. That was it. My books were pulled off shelves the next day. My most successful book was put out of print. All my speaking engagements were canceled. My publisher put out a press release the next day against me. I thought my career was over, but then to my surprise, my community began backfilling with hundreds of thousands of primarily women who were in a similar seat as me going, This is what we were raised in, this is what we were taught, but this is no longer holding. That began a whole new period of my life.

So, I am pretty strong on defending marriage. I’ve written secular cases against no-fault divorce, the sexual revolution, cohabitation, premarital sex, same-sex marriage, etc. Rose and I have done podcast episodes about it. And in every case, I’m making logical arguments, I’m quoting secular data, like studies on how children do best with their biological mother and father. But, I guess knowing how to fight to defend the Bible is not a really big priority in conservative denominations. Instead, they prefer feminized priorities: making people feel good, making people be liked. It’s like it doesn’t matter to anyone what Jesus says about sexual issues, because Jesus has a higher goal: making his followers feel good and be liked by non-Christians. And that’s what makes women like Hatmaker and Moore famous in evangelical circles.

Well, I don’t know anything about Christian women. I don’t read books by the authors that are popular with women. I don’t listen to the music that is popular with women. I don’t watch the movies that are popular with women. I just don’t understand how women can go through a Christian upbringing and then come out like Jen Hatmaker, raging against chastity and natural marriage, and not bothering to do a stitch of actual research about either. When I go to a car mechanic, I want an expert to fix the car. Why do so many Christian women choose someone who is not an expert at anything related to Christian truth and ethics?

My thoughts

I asked Grok why Hatmaker and Moore are so popular with evangelical women when they can’t advocate for the Bible’s truth claims and moral teachings with reason and evidence, the way that Jesus and Paul, etc. did in the Bible when dealing with skeptics and enemies.

And here is what Grok said:

Jen Hatmaker and Beth Moore’s popularity among evangelical women stems from their relatable personas, emotional authenticity, and ability to connect through storytelling, social media, and accessible teachings. Hatmaker’s humor and transparency about family life, combined with Moore’s passionate Bible studies, resonate with women seeking inspiration and community, often filling gaps left by male-dominated church structures. Their platforms, amplified by books, podcasts, and events, create a sense of intimacy and empowerment, appealing to women navigating faith in modern contexts.

Critically, their appeal lacks the intellectual rigor of apologists like Jay Richards or William Lane Craig, focusing instead on emotional engagement over evidential apologetics. Their shift toward progressive stances—Hatmaker’s support for gay marriage and abortion rights, Moore’s critiques of evangelical Trumpism—diverges from traditional evangelical values, yet retains followers due to their emphasis on compassion and inclusion. This may reflect some women’s preference for affirming, less confrontational messages, possibly tied to cultural trends toward entitlement or people-pleasing, though it risks diluting doctrinal accountability. Their limited engagement against feminism, socialism, or atheism, and alignment with leftist politics, suggests their influence lies more in emotional resonance than theological or ideological consistency, which may not deter women prioritizing relatability over orthodoxy.

I would never rely on someone like this do achieve anything that had to work in the real world.

I always wanted to partner with Christian women who advocate for God with non-Christians using reason and evidence. If you look at my podcast with Desert Rose, that’s what I think women should be like. In that podcast, I promote women’s voices who I admire and respect like Natasha Crain, Shanda Fulbright, Terrell Clemmons, etc. But it sure does seem like the bulk of Christian women have a totally different way of approaching Christianity than I do.