PR: Bill blocking public universities from transitioning minors passes committee
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 21, 2023
Contact: Laura Macklem
[email protected]
BILL BLOCKING PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES FROM TRANSITIONING MINORS PASSES COMMITTEE
A bill barring the use of public funds and facilities for gender transition procedures on minors passed the House Health Committee today. NC Values submitted testimonies on behalf of two detransitioners who shared their stories of regret and warned lawmakers about the dangers of transitioning minors.
Prisha Mosely spoke at the committee hearing about her experience with medicalized transitioning in North Carolina.
“At age 17, after meeting with me for a matter of minutes, a counselor told me that I was actually a boy and that changing my body to be more like a boy’s would fix my mental health issues. A surgeon familiar with breast reduction surgery for women met with me and expressed eagerness in performing gender-affirming ‘top surgery’ on me. At age 18, my healthy breasts were cut off of my chest and incinerated,” said Mosely. “Instead of being treated for my depression, anxiety, and borderline diagnosis, I was fast-tracked down the path to life-long medicalization. These healthcare providers, whom I trusted to take care of me, misled me … As a result of these healthcare providers’ actions, I have suffered severe and lasting injuries.
“Legislation preventing children from undergoing such life-altering procedures could have protected me and many others like me. I was utterly convinced by adults that I had been born in the wrong body, and that hormones and surgery were the cure. No doctor should remove healthy body parts or prescribe sterilizing drugs to children for a social contagion of mental suffering.”
North Carolina resident Walt Heyer medically transitioned in 1983 and offered written testimony for today’s committee hearing.
“People are saying that these interventions are needed to help prevent suicide, but often times the procedures themselves cause the suicides. It is insane to treat depression with hormones and surgery,” said Heyer. “There is absolutely nothing good about affirming someone into a cross-gender identity. It will ruin their life. Hormones and genital surgery couldn’t solve the underlying issues driving my gender dysphoria, and I’ve talked with dozens of others like me who realized too late that surgery wasn’t the answer. Why would we abuse children with hormone blockers and cut their bodies apart as a way to effect treatment? We are ruining a generation of young people.”
NC Values Coalition Executive Director Tami Fitzgerald praised the bill’s success in being voted out of committee today.
“Hospitals like ECU and UNC have been misleading the public about their greedy business practices of transitioning minors, and this legislation will ensure they will no longer be able to destroy the lives and health of gender-confused children with experimental medicalized and social transitioning. We urge the legislature to swifty move this through to protect gender-confused children and their families.”
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Prisha Mosely Testimony, as of June 20th, 2023:
My name is Prisha Mosley. I am a 25-year-old woman who has suffered severe and lasting injuries due to “gender-affirming care” as a minor. This “care” included medical intervention to make my body appear as that of a male.
I support legislation that would prevent doctors and other healthcare providers, who are supposed to protect children, from harming them through so-called “gender-affirming care.”
As a teenager, I suffered from a number of mental health issues, including ocd, borderline personality disorder, anxiety, and depression. I also suffered trauma from sexual assault. And I engaged in self-harm.
At age 17, after meeting with me for a matter of minutes, a counselor told me that I was actually a boy and that changing my body to be more like a boy’s would fix my mental health issues. Around that same time, a doctor prescribed me testosterone.
While I was still 17, a surgeon familiar with breast reduction surgery for women met with me and expressed eagerness in performing gender-affirming “top surgery” on me. At age 18, my healthy my breasts were cut off of my chest and incinerated.
These healthcare providers, whom I trusted to take care of me, misled me into believing that changing my body to look more like a boy’s body would solve my mental and psychological problems.
As a result of these healthcare providers’ actions, I have suffered severe and lasting injuries. These injuries are both psychological and physical in nature.
My body did not develop the way it should have and does not function normally. I am unable to nurse a child. I do not know if I will be able to conceive and give birth to a child.
I have suffered painful and irreversible changes to my genitals. My voice has been permanently damaged. My larynx, crushed by the overgrowth in my throat caused my testosterone, prevents me from singing and raising my voice. Even speaking for long periods hurts. My body aches every day. My muscles burn and my bones ache. I was promised male puberty, and instead, I got menopause. I may not ever get to have children now.
I suffer daily with phantom breast syndrome, a waking nightmare in which I am haunted by the ghosts of my missing body parts.
I suffer from chronic pain and a host of additional medical issues and psychological and emotional anguish, as a result of the medical and surgical abuse that I was led into by the healthcare providers who were supposed to take care of me.
Instead of being treated for my depression, anxiety, and borderline diagnosis, I was fast-tracked down the path to life-long medicalization.
Legislation preventing children from undergoing such life-altering procedures could have protected me and many others like me. I was utterly convinced by adults that I had been born in the wrong body, and that hormones and surgery were the cure.
I now understand that surgery on the body cannot change the brain. No doctor should remove healthy body parts or prescribe sterilizing drugs to children for a social contagion of mental suffering.
Walt Heyer Testimony, as of June 20th, 2023:
My name is Walt Heyer, and I am asking you to support the protection of minors from puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries that remove healthy body parts.
I lived eight years as a female named Laura Jensen after undergoing reassignment surgery forty years ago in 1983. I have since worked with hundreds of people over the last ten years who have been hurt by the gender reassignment industry. As someone who identified as transgender and went through the medical so-called transition process, I bring seventy-eight years of first-hand experience to the table. Over the years I have written several books on the topic, and now run the website SexChangeRegret.com.
For me, my transgender story began at four years old when I became curious about the dresses my grandmother made. She made a purple one for me and affirmed me, telling me how cute I was for over 2 years. Later, when my uncle found out about the dress, he began mocking me and molesting me. When I told my parents, they didn’t believe me. Around the age of thirteen I I took on a female identity for the first time. I kept it secret and called myself Chrystal.
Later in life I went to a gender therapist, Dr. Paul Walker, who told me that the only way to overcome my distress was to undergo hormone treatments and reassignment surgery. Dr. Walker was recognized as the top gender therapist in the country at the time, and had written the original Harry Benjamin International Standards of Care for treatment of gender identity disorder. Those standards of care are essentially what they are still using today. The gender medicine community tells teens and their parents those same lies today.
I now travel the world telling my story because Dr. Walker was wrong. To a person undergoing gender transition, in the beginning it feels like the right thing to do, even exciting, for the first few months or years. I felt at peace for the first four or five years after I transitioned. Then I realized the high cost of that tenuous peace. Identifying as female requireddestroying the identity of Walt so my female persona, Laura, would feel unshackled from Walt’s past, with all of its hurt, shame, and abuse. It’s a marvelous distraction for a while, but it isn’t a permanent solution when the underlying issues remain unaddressed. Medical intervention for what is a psychological issue is a band-aid. A band-aid that permanently harms a person, especially a young person.
We need to start actually helping these young people. I ask every person who comes to me for help, “When did you stop wanting to be who you are?” One-hundred percent of them can give me an answer. When they tell me their stories, I weep with them. Their stories are often so deep and hurtful that nobody wants to talk about it. But we need to start talking about it. People are saying that these interventions are needed to help prevent suicide, but often times the procedures themselves cause the suicides. It is insane to treat depression with hormones and surgery. These children need to go see a good, kind, professional psychotherapist to help them work through their situation.
Speaking from my own experience and on behalf of numerous people with stories like mine, I must say there is absolutely nothing good about affirming someone into a cross-gender identity. It will ruin their life. Hormones and genital surgery couldn’t solve the underlying issues driving my gender dysphoria, and I’ve talked with dozens of others like me who realized too late that surgery wasn’t the answer. Why would we abuse children with hormone blockers and cut their bodies apart as a way to effect treatment? It’s actually insane if we stop to think about
it. We are ruining a generation of young people, and it’s serious business. I’m not pulling any punches anymore, and you shouldn’t either.
I’m one of the lucky ones. I am 37 years sober after using alcohol and cocaine to mask the pain in my childhood and my regret after the surgery. Now I travel the country telling my story. North Carolina legislators, please support this bill and protect these kids.
Walt Heyer
PR: NC Values responds to Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit to overturn will of voters and protect abortion mills
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 16, 2023
Contact: Laura Macklem
[email protected]
NC VALUES RESPONDS TO PLANNED PARENTHOOD’S LAWSUIT TO OVERTURN WILL OF VOTERS AND PROTECT ABORTION MILLS
Executive Director of NC Values Tami Fitzgerald responded to Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit today, challenging SB 20 in court:
“Today, Planned Parenthood and one of the state’s more notorious abortionists, Dr. Beverly Gray from Durham, filed suit against North Carolina’s new pro-life law, Senate Bill 20, two weeks before it goes into effect. We expected the abortion industry to defend its revenue stream in the state that saw the biggest increase in abortion after Roe v. Wade was repealed almost one year ago in the Dobbs vs. Mississippi case. Afterall, North Carolina saw a 37% increase in abortions after Dobbs, due to its liberal abortion laws allowing abortion up to 20 weeks of pregnancy. Planned Parenthood and Dr. Gray sued as Defendants the least likely people in the state to defend the law—the Attorney General Josh Stein who unequivocally stated he would not defend the law, the Secretary of Health and Human Services who does not want to have to implement the law, and the District Attorneys in the counties where Planned Parenthood clinics are located—the most liberal cities in North Carolina. Glaringly not named as defendants are the two leaders of the General Assembly—Senate President Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore—which passed the law. The lawsuit seeks to declare the new law unconstitutional, unenforceable, and permanently enjoined.
“This lawsuit is indicative of the desperation of the abortion industry to continue murdering unborn children so they can profit financially. Because the abortion industry cannot win in the ballot booth by electing enough abortion extremists to office, they seek to overturn the will of the people’s duly elected representatives—the North Carolina General Assembly. The lawsuit attempts to create confusion, where there is none and to limit the power of the people to pass laws that place reasonable, popular, and common-sense limits on abortion. The people of North Carolina have said through elections and in poll after poll that they do not want unrestricted abortion on demand up to birth, yet that is what the abortion industry is seeking through this lawsuit.
“The Planned Parenthood lawsuit seeks to strike down informed consent, science-based safety regulations on chemical abortion pills, health and safety regulations, and reporting requirements. For instance, they object to a requirement that abortions after 12 weeks (which would only include abortions for life limiting fetal anomalies, rape, incest, and medical emergencies) be performed only in a hospital. They object to giving women seeking surgical and chemical abortions ALL of the information about complications and risks associated with abortion. They object to requiring this information be given by the doctor in person, so the woman can ask questions and interact with her doctor. They object to having to tell the woman the doctor’s name that will perform the abortion. They object to being required to follow the FDA protocol on abortion pills, that it is indicated only up to 10 weeks of pregnancy. I challenge the abortion industry and particularly Dr. Beverly Gray to specifically say how this law harms women. Making abortionists disclose all the risks and complications of abortion, perform abortions in a hospital after the first trimester, give women a chance to ask questions of the doctor, abide by FDA regulations on abortion pills, only protects the health and safety of women. Health and safety is not harming women. Apparently, Planned Parenthood does not care about the health and safety of the women to whom they provide abortions; thus the name ‘abortion mills’.
“The law, known as the ‘Care for Women, Children, and Families Act’ also provides care and nurture to women who experience unplanned pregnancies. It forces abortion clinics to provide safe and adequate facilities comparable to other ambulatory surgical facilities. It provides maternal care, child care, a college education, paid parental leave for state employees, and housing for pregnant women. It seeks to reduce infant mortality and morbidity and allows for safe surrender of an infant up to 30 days old. It’s hard to believe that women who might seek an abortion would want all of these “safety-net” provisions struck down in court. Planned Parenthood said it filed the suit on behalf of its patients. Maybe they should have asked their patients before they filed suit, because statistics show that 76% of women who have had abortions would choose life for their babies if their circumstances were different. But, Planned Parenthood wants women to remain in dire circumstances, so they can spend their money on an abortion, instead of giving life to the best thing that may ever happen to them. The law that Planned Parenthood seeks to strike down would give women the opportunity to choose life instead of abortion. It’s life-giving both for the baby and the mother.”
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PR: Protections for female collegiate athletes gains steam after Senate approves House version of women’s sports bill
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 14, 2023
Contact: Laura Macklem
[email protected]
PROTECTIONS FOR FEMALE COLLEGIATE ATHLETES GAINS STEAM AFTER SENATE APPROVES HOUSE VERSION OF WOMEN’S SPORTS BILL
The North Carolina Senate Education Committee passed the House version of the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act,” which unlike the Senate version, includes protections for collegiate women athletes. The bill states biological males would not be allowed on women’s sports teams.
“We are encouraged by today’s vote which protects middle school, high school and female athletes from being forced to play against biological males, who without question have significant physical advantages,” said NC Values Executive Director Tami Fitzgerald. “It’s time for North Carolina to ensure all student female athletes have a level playing field, and their rights under Title IX are upheld.”
NC Values and NC Faith & Freedom Coalition commissioned a statewide poll in January 2023, and found over 70% of North Carolinians believe biological males should not be permitted on female sports teams. A new nationwide Gallup Poll revealed 69% of Americans also agree about protecting female athletes from being forced to compete against transgender competitors, showing a 7% leap since 2021.
Payton McNabb and Riley Gaines, female athletes both personally affected by transgender competitors submitted statements for today’s committee hearing. McNabb was a high school volleyball player in Cherokee, North Carolina injured when a trans volleyball player spiked a ball in her face causing her long-term neurological, mental, and other issues.
“I have suffered mentally and physically every day since the incident. My body suffers with the side effects of my head and neck injuries; the constant headaches, fatigue, partial paralysis on my right side, vision, problems, and my ability to retain, or comprehend, has been affected,” said McNabb in her statement. “The amount of anxiety of not knowing when or if I will ever completely heal, has taken its toll. I have had severe bouts with depression because of this. I never want anyone to have to go through what I’m going through.”
Riley Gaines, who was cheated out of a championship title by biological male Lia Thomas, also submitted a statement to the committee today. “Make no mistake about it, by allowing Thomas to displace female athletes – in the pool and on the podium — the NCAA and its member colleges intentionally discriminated on the basis of sex,” said Gaines. “I implore you to please pass House Bill 574, the ‘Fairness in Women’s Sports Act’ that preserves women’s athletic opportunities at all levels, including young women competing in college like me.”
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