Transgender Violence (Executive Session)
Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about the rise in violence coming from people whom the left refers to as ``transgender.'' I have come to the floor many times in the last 6 years to talk about the issue of men competing in…
Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about the rise in violence coming from people whom the left refers to as ``transgender.''
I have come to the floor many times in the last 6 years to talk about the issue of men competing in women's sports. While this is a very serious issue and one that I have fought hard against every day since I have been in the Senate, I think it is time we have a broader conversation about the serious gender confusion-mental illness that is taking over this country.
I am not going to use the left's preferred terminology of ``transgender'' because it implies that it is possible for a person to change their God-given sex, which it is not.
Here is the truth: From the beginning of time of humans on this Earth, there have been two genders--male and female. So I will call these people what they are--gender-confused. Unfortunately, this gender-confused mental illness is on the rise in our society today, and it is very, very concerning.
You know, for decades, the radical left--Democrat socialists--have ignored science and brainwashed our young people into believing that you can change your gender by changing your clothes; by getting on some hormone-altering medications; or, God forbid, by undergoing some crazy surgery.
You know it is ironic that the same people who worshipped Anthony Fauci and lived by the motto of ``follow the science'' during the COVID-19 epidemic are the same ones today who are now ignoring the science when it comes to the horrific, life-altering consequences of hormone therapy and so-called gender-affirming care on young kids.
These mentally ill, woke liberals think that if you were born a man, you can go under the knife and be magically transformed into a woman; and if you were born a woman, you can somehow be turned into a man. You know, these people will look you straight in the face--and they have since I have been here--and tell you that men can have babies.
It is pure insanity what is going on in this country. I heard from one of the members of my staff recently who is pregnant, and she was asked by her OB/GYN what her gender is. Have we lost our mind? Obviously, if you are pregnant, you are a woman. But this is where the woke mind virus has taken our society.
It hasn't always been this way. For thousands of years, society accepted that there were two genders and you can't magically switch between the two. But over the past several decades, the Democrat socialists have been orchestrating a plan--a plan--to destroy this country by slowly chipping away at Christian values that have made this country great.
I want to be clear about this gender confusion. It is not normal. It is a cry for help, and our society needs to stop affirming people who are suffering from this mental illness.
You know, for years, the gender-confused have been told that they will finally be happy if they get treatment that will help them transition to the opposite sex. For years, our healthcare system has taken advantage of their mental illness, getting people to pay tens of thousands of dollars for expensive medications and irreversible surgeries, all while lying about the negative side effects sex change surgeries and medications have on their patients' physical and mental health forever--not just short time, but forever.
For example, doctors often tell young people who are gender confused about the fact that these life-altering procedures leave them sterile and unable to experience any form of intimacy in the long term. They fail to tell them that.
And in some cases, doctors don't even tell parents that their underage kid is going and undergoing these dangerous procedures, and they go behind the parents' backs. How crazy is that? It is the highest form of medical malpractice. Every single one of these doctors should have their medical licenses revoked and should spend the rest of their lives in prison.
Not to mention the fact that, many times, gender-confused people go through these surgeries and hormonal treatments and end up, in the long run, they regret it.
So I have heard from young women like Chloe Cole who was gender confused in her teenage years and underwent a double mastectomy at age 15, only to be filled with regret for years later after she got help and came to some of her senses about who she really was. But she will have to deal with this physical consequence of her actions at age 15 for the rest of her life. It is heartbreaking.
It is so tragic that we are normalizing child sex change mutilation; it is tragic. So here in DC, it is common to see parents plagued with the woke mind virus forcing their young children to transition into the opposite sex. These kids are so young and unaware that they don't understand what is happening, so the long-term consequence of their actions are horrific. This is child abuse and unacceptable.
We are doing no favors to anybody by tiptoeing through this issue, and that is the reason I am here today. It is past time that we have national conversations about this serious mental health crisis that is causing this widespread gender confusion.
In 2024, it was found that more than 300,000 teenagers ages 13 to 17 struggled with their gender confusion--300,000.
Gender-confused people have one of the highest suicide rates among mental illness--the highest. Data shows that roughly 61 percent of gender-confused students have thought about suicide; 30 percent have attempted suicide. That
is significantly higher than the general population. Gender confusion is an extremely serious mental problem that our society better start addressing.
Unfortunately, these gender-confused individuals aren't just harming themselves, they are also turning into violent people and hurting other people.
In 2022, a study found that youth who identify as gender confused are at the highest risk of becoming violently radicalized. You don't have to look long to see disturbing examples across our country. A recent case that comes to mind is the alleged assassin of my friend Charlie Kirk. His name is Tyler Robinson. The investigation into Tyler Robinson revealed that he was living with a man, his lover, who is gender confused and was going by the pronounces of ``her'' or ``she.''
Tyler himself was involved in transgender furry culture--furry culture, a bizarre subset of transgenderism where people are sexually attracted and frequently dressed up as animals.
It is no wonder this lunatic went after Charlie Kirk.
Charlie spent his career going from college campus to college campus trying to reach students who were indoctrinated by radical-left ideology with the truth. Charlie often spoke about his faith and advocated for traditional marriage and a growing family, while denouncing the woke mind virus, specifically the idea that you can change your gender.
It was common for Charlie to oppose gender confusion during these debates, but he did it in a respectable way. And I recently saw a video of Charlie Kirk interacting with a gender-confused person during one of his campus tours. The person who was a female told Charlie she is a transgender male and asked Charlie: I need some advice. I need some advice on this subject.
I am sure she was expecting a very different response than what she got. Charlie looked at this young woman and said: I encourage you to work on what is going on in your brain. My prayer for you is that I want you to feel comfortable in a way that you were born. I think that, with the right team and the right people, you don't have to wage war on your own body. You can learn to love yourself and your body.
His response was so filled with compassion for this young woman that everybody was moved to tears.
Charlie was exactly right. We don't need to enable these people who are clearly struggling with gender confusion, but we need to encourage--we need to encourage them--to get help for what is clearly a very serious mental health problem.
He never became violent toward college students--Charlie didn't--who disagreed with him, and he never told them that they were worthless for what they believed. He sympathized with them. His goal was simply to have a debate with these people hoping the truth would be revealed to them.
And yet a gender-confused person assassinated him for what he believed.
In fact, the bullets found on the scene that had DNA evidence matching Tyler Robinson had various engravings on them that are associated with the transgender culture.
After the assassination of Charlie Kirk, gender-confused people celebrated--celebrated--his death. Now, what would cause people to celebrate the death of a father, a husband, and beloved public figure who positively impacted the lives of millions of people? Two words: mental illness.
That is not the only story of a gender-confused person committing violence against others. Thomas Crooks, the lunatic who shot President Trump in Butler, PA, in July of 2024 was also involved in online transgender furry culture, and, apparently, they used ``they'' and ``them'' pronouns.
While there are still a lot of questions surrounding what happened that day in Butler, we do know that this young man seemed to be at least somewhat involved in the gender-confused cult.
In 2023, a gender-confused shooter walked into a Christian school in Nashville, TN, killing three 9-year-olds and three adults in a Christian school. This person, a woman, identified as a man and wrote in her diary that this female gender role makes me not want to exist. The level of mental anguish she was going through apparently led her to take her anger out on innocent kids.
In 2019, a different gender-confused high school student walked into his high school and killed a fellow student and injured eight others. His reason for committing this heinous act was because no one was willing to pretend with him that he was a woman. They refused to do it.
He was, in fact, a man.
And earlier this year, a gender-confused father opened fire at his family during a high school hockey game. This gender-confused man killed his wife and his son and then took his own life. Reports indicate that this man had prior family disputes over his insistence that he was a woman and not a man. Like any normal family, they rejected the notion that he could magically and unscientifically turn himself into a woman. Because his family told the truth, he decided to kill them and himself.
Additionally, a video game was created a few years ago that features a gender-confused hero who shoots people, including priests, who refuse to go along with the gender-confused mental illness. The video game allows people to ``unleash pent-up fury upon gender-critical tyrants with an arsenal of deadly weapons.''
This is absolutely sickening. It is clear that this gender confusion is a mental illness plaguing our society, and there is significant overlap between people who are gender confused and the furry community. Research shows that 25 percent of the furries are gender confused.
And it is more evidence of our society going to heck in a handbasket when we have stuff like this going on.
What is more concerning is that this mentally unwell furry community that touts the fact that many--listen to this--that many airline pilots, flight attendants, and air traffic controllers are part of the furry community.
Lord help us. It is terrifying when you think about this. When you walk onto a commercial flight, it is possible that the pilot flying your plane could have a deranged fetish of dressing up like an animal.
You can't make this up. It is in the best interest of our country to bring back mental institutions as a normal part of our society instead of sweeping it under the rug. Otherwise, we are just sitting ducks until the next gender-confused person decides to show up at our churches, or our schools, and start committing acts of violence. It is coming.
So why is the Democrat socialist party elevating these people who are clearly mentally deranged? Why is that happening? You know, Joe Biden had multiple gender-confused people working in high-profile jobs in his administration. A lot of people didn't know that. He had gender- confused people serving in the Department of Health and Human Services, Department of War, and the Department of Energy. His actual Assistant Secretary of Health--Secretary of Health--was a gender-confused individual.
And are those really the type of people we are supposed to trust in everyday life? But this is all part, unfortunately, of the Democrat socialist plans. They want to destroy every scientific fact and get rid of the absolute truth in this country. They don't want you looking to God and the Bible for what is morally good or morally right. Instead, they want you looking to them for what is right or wrong.
This is all about control, folks. That is what it is. That is why, for decades now, the Democrats have tried to destroy every morally good institution for their benefit. They have taken over our education system to brainwash our children with this woke mind virus.
For decades, they have helped erode the sacred institution of marriage, telling people that marriage is a relic of the past or raising a family is not worth it.
The Democrat socialist alternative is to make you think that you can identify as whatever you want and society should accept it. Because of this lie, we are seeing the younger generation that is growing up now plagued with mental illness.
The left loves to preach to all of us about kindness and tolerance, but it is not kind to affirm the delusions of someone who is clearly struggling with mental illness.
In fact, the kind thing to do is to sincerely encourage them to get help before they harm themselves and others.
We must put a stop to gender confusion before more innocent people lose their lives.
I yield the floor.