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Editor’s note: Matt Walsh has responded in detail to this article. Readers can view his response here and LifeSite has also embedded his response at the bottom of this article. The author then responded to Walsh here.

(LifeSiteNews) – It took courage for Matt Walsh to appear on Dr. Phil this January and debate almost single-handedly two “non-binary” guests and a left-wing professor in the presence of a hostile audience.

The two non-binary guests seem to be likable people. One is a woman who believes she is a man and has long hair and a beard. The other is a man who has successfully blended the characteristics of both genders to create an appealing hybrid. They come across as well-meaning people who have suffered due to people misunderstanding their struggles. In that context, simply using their preferred pronoun seems a small ask.

Walsh responded by focusing on how the transgender movement denies the truth of our biology. He exposed the irrationality of using new pronouns by asking why someone couldn’t, using the same logic, demand others characterize him exclusively as “handsome” and “brilliant.”

He reiterated this critique of the transgender movement in a subsequent appearance on Megyn Kelly’s podcast. When Kelly stated that she would be willing to look past her personal stance and use someone’s preferred pronoun in order to be “loving and kind,” Walsh took a similar tack, asking rhetorically, “are we going to retain a semblance of truth and reality in our culture or not?”

This is a valid point that’s worth making, but it by itself, it leaves Walsh’s strongest argument unsaid – one that’s especially useful for people like Kelly, who seem to be on the fence.

After all, isn’t it a bit hair-splitting to insist on perfect logical rigor if the alternative would lead to the “transgender” person feeling dramatically less mental anguish? Would that alternative lead to less suicide? Would it allow the transgenders to lead happier lives?

These were the questions Kelly was essentially asking, and they represent the source of whatever popular appeal transgenderism can muster, yet they too often go unanswered. Conservatives can only win this debate in American society by forthrightly responding. This requires making the case that transgenderism inflicts unacceptable damage not only on those who dissent from it but also on the transgenders themselves, as well as children caught up in a “social contagion.”

Much of Walsh’s appearance on Dr. Phil exemplified the predicament of conservatives when they forfeit this crucial piece of their argument. When one guest asserts, “trans women are women,” Walsh points out that he has conflated sex and gender. The exchange quickly breaks down into both sides talking over each other, which obscures the true logical force of Walsh’s argument and makes it seem like mere quibbling over a minor point. As the feminist professor tells Walsh later (20:50), “I want to ask why you care so much.”

Walsh went on to bring up the destruction of women’s sports and the dangers of allowing men into women’s bathrooms as other reasons to oppose the transgender agenda. He mentioned the rape in Loudoun County, Virginia, of a girl by a boy dressed in a skirt this past year that occurred in a woman’s bathroom.

But the left-wing professor easily fends Walsh off by saying (30:00) that she does not support “open bathrooms where anyone can go in,” showing how easily the left can neutralize the dangerous bathroom argument by simply taking a compromise position – in this case, separate bathrooms for the transgendered – that allows them to avoid truly justifying the transgender position.

Instead, the right should focus on the fact that the very thing these confused people are seeking – their happiness – will be harder and harder to find the further they go down this road.

The damage that can be done to the transgender is illuminated by comparisons to other, less fraught mental health issues. Do we imagine that we do any favors to a schizophrenic by telling him that the hallucinations he’s seeing are real? Would it be good for the anorexic to be affirmed in her belief that she’s obese? These questions answer themselves. And by implication, they answer the question posed by Kelly.

This commonest of common-sense is also borne out by the evidence. Suicide rates are much higher among the transgender – by a factor of nine, according to the Williams Institute. In a period of unprecedented societal “acceptance” of transgenderism and transgender identities, it’s untenable to argue that bigotry could be the culprit for such a dramatic number. High suicide rates are just the beginning of the anguish inflicted on people who act on the transgender account of reality.

Then there’s the damage being done to children. In his book When Harry Became Sally (and here) Ryan Anderson cites Dr. Paul Hruz’s claim that puberty blockers may cause low bone density, “‘disfiguring acne, high blood pressure, weight gain, abnormal glucose tolerance, breast cancer, liver disease, thrombosis, and cardiovascular disease.’” Note that puberty blockers are still NOT approved by the FDA for gender “transition.”

Cross-sex hormones are also dangerous. Family Research Council (FRC) relied on the World Professional Association for Transgender Health – hardly an “anti-trans” organization – for its shocking conclusions. Estrogen for boys may cause “blood clots, high triglycerides, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes.” Testosterone for girls may cause “high red blood cells, high cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and destabilization of certain psychiatric disorders.” FRC also notes “a course of puberty blockers followed by cross-sex hormones is highly likely to result in permanent sterility.”

In her book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters Abigail Shrier exposes the immense amount of internet content that encourages people in their confusion. As the prevalence of children with gender dysphoria skyrockets it’s obvious that the craze for affirming people in their confusion is the principal cause. Once parents realize their children are more likely to take life-altering hormones or even undergo surgeries, the conversation takes on new urgency.

Shrier also discusses the growing chorus of formerly transgendered people who have chosen to “de-transition” after realizing that they had made a terrible mistake. They look back in horror at the physical mutilation that doctors, schools, and even their own parents, allowed them to impose on themselves in a period of deep mental confusion. Their stories are powerful, but largely ignored in mainstream debates.

Walsh gets closest to this sort of argument when he briefly takes exception to the transgender agenda being “foisted” on kids but failed to develop the argument. As a result, much of its force was squandered. This dynamic is a microcosm for the state of the debate writ large.

The right would be better served by shifting the argument from an exclusive focus on girls’ sports and dangerous bathrooms to the well-being of the gender-confused and the increased likelihood for confusion amongst children. The argument for truth and honesty in sex and gender is dramatically more powerful when the true stakes of the issue – the happiness and wholeness of real, vulnerable people – are at the forefront.

See below Matt Walsh’s response:

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