On last night's episode of NBC's Law and Order, an angry dad kills a doctor for giving his gender dysphoric child puberty blockers. The murdered doctor is married to a conservative congresswoman who is fighting the LGBTQUIA+ agenda.
The episode, "Private Lives," opens with fictional Congresswoman Kristin Bartell (Sasha Alexander) walking up the stairs to her home as an aide tells her, "We need to go over your schedule for next week. The Freedom Caucus is rallying for the ban on trans athletes in women's sports. They want you in D.C. to support...."
Before the aide can finish her sentence, the congresswoman finds broken glass and blood outside her husband's office. His body has been bludgeoned to death.
NYPD detectives Frank Cosgrove (Jeffrey Donovan) and Jalen Shaw (Mehcad Brooks) interview the congresswoman and learn she regularly receives death threats:
Shaw: Congresswoman, do you know anybody who wanted to harm your husband?
Bartell: This isn't about him. He was a saint. This is about me. This is about my political views. This is my fault.
Cosgrove: What do you mean, it's your fault?
Bartell: That was supposed to be me. I was scheduled to be here all day, but I got called into the office last minute for an emergency committee meeting.
Shaw: What makes you so sure that you were the intended target?
Bartell: I'm a conservative congresswoman in a state where admitting that out loud is a mortal sin. I'm constantly receiving threats. In the minds of far-left activists, I'm literally the devil.
Shaw: Any of those threats stand out in particular?
Bartell: Last week, there was an email. And they said that they would kill me in my own home.
Shaw: Do you know who sent that?
Bartell: No. It was anonymous. I just--I flagged the message for my security team.
Shockingly, the first part of the show focuses on left-wing activists who have been threatening or violent, something rarely acknowledged on television:
Cosgrove: 'You won't know when, but one day soon, you'll turn around, and I'll be there, in your house, with no one around to save you.' Message sent from an IP address registered in your name.
Drag queen: Yeah, I sent it. I should probably know better, but frankly, she deserved it.
Shaw: How's that?
Drag queen: I'm a drag queen. I started a program, Read the House Down. Once a week, me and other queens volunteer to read to kids from the community.
Cosgrove: You do it in drag?
Drag queen: Well, the idea is to get kids excited about reading by making it fun.
Shaw: Aren't drag queens more of an--an adult thing?
Drag queen: Drag is just a celebration of who you are. The kids love it. It makes it fun.
Cosgrove: There's nothing fun about sending a threat to that congresswoman.
Drag queen: I was being dramatic. But Bartell introduced a bill that would ban children from being exposed to drag queens. It's a coded way of telling the crazies out there that we're pedophiles. It sparked all kinds of online hate, so I thought she should know what it felt like.
Cosgrove: You seem angry.
Drag queen: Damn right I am.
Shaw: Angry enough to show up at Kristin Bartell's house yesterday morning?
Drag queen: I would never actually do anything like that. I'm a pacifist.
While the drag queen acknowledges his threats, he deliberately plays down the inherently sexualized nature of drag, dismissing legitimate concerns as merely from "crazies."
In homing in on those who threatened Bartell, the episode goes so far as to interrogate a nasty Antifa activist who scoped out Bartell's home:
Antifa activist: I was just checking out the area, because we were planning a peaceful protest outside of Bartell's home.
Cosgrove: You wanna protest outside of a private residence with a baton, and you wanna call it peaceful?
Antifa activist: Politicians like Kristin Bartell want to insert themselves into the private lives of every citizen in the country. So why shouldn't their personal space be fair game?
Public readings to children and publicly playing sports on a team of the opposite biological sex are not about "private lives," of course. Still, this episode is the first time I have seen Antifa mentioned in a network cop drama at all. It was a pleasant surprise to see the Antifa member portrayed as a jerk.
The episode's brief foray into the reality of left-wing rage ends when detectives discover that the murdered doctor was meeting with a 13-year-old boy privately in his home. At first, detectives suspect sexual molestation, but then learn that the doctor was "treating" a trans-identifying child named Taylor (Oliver Spenceman).
Taylor's school counselor, Susan (Rebekah Brockman), is the sister of the murder victim. She sent Taylor to her brother for medical intervention. Susan refers to Taylor as "her" and "she":
Susan: He was giving her medication to block her hormones. It's a pause button for puberty. It's to provide relief for trans youth who feel distress going through the wrong puberty.
Cosgrove: Let me get this straight. You conspired with your brother to medically intervene in a child's care without the parents' consent?
Susan: I was respecting her personhood. The medication has been used for decades to help non-trans children who begin puberty too early. If, for whatever reason, she changes her mind, she just stops taking the medication and puberty kicks in. It is completely safe and reversible.
Cosgrove: Your brother is dead. So, what you did wasn't that safe. And the last time I checked death isn't reversible.
Susan's erroneous claims about puberty blockers are never questioned and the harms are downplayed later at the trial. In truth, puberty blockers are more than a mere "pause," effecting critical aspects of a child's physical development such as bone density and sexual functioning.
Detectives discover that Taylor's father, Robert (Christian Conn), killed the doctor. Robert says he did it in self-defense. He claims the doctor attacked him after he threatened to call the police for prescribing puberty blockers to a minor without parental consent.
But in an added twist, it turns out the child's mother, Debra (Kara Jackson), had given written consent and forged the father's signature, throwing cold water on the bogus self-defense claim. The assistant district attorneys, Nolan Price (Hugh Dancy) and Samantha Maroun (Odelya Halevi), tell the mother she needs to testify:
Price: You gave a permission slip so Taylor could go see Dr. Bartell.
Debra: I thought it was for a checkup.
Maroun: You're lying. You and your husband had already met with Dr. Bartell. You knew the kind of treatment he wanted to provide.
Debra: After the scene Robert made, Bartell refused to give Taylor the medication. He--he didn't wanna break the law. He knew we didn't approve. And Taylor got really upset, so I--
Price: So, you gave Bartell consent to treat Taylor? You need to testify. Tell the jury that Bartell had your approval.
Debra: No, no, I--I can't.
Price: If your husband walks free, he'll continue to fight Taylor's transition. He'll file lawsuits, injunctions. Think what that will do to Taylor. You have a choice to make. Who do you want to protect, your husband... Or your daughter?
Taylor: Mom? Is everything okay?
Debra: Yes, sweetheart. Everything is fine.
Never mind the dead guy. The important reason for dad to go to prison is so that Taylor can mess up his endocrine system and pretend he is a girl!
On the stand, Debra testifies that she consented because she feared her child would commit suicide. The "suicide threat" to coerce parents into accepting Mengele-like "medicine" is a psychologically abusive tactic that the trans movement embraces.
In the end, the killer dad accepts a plea deal for a 15-year sentence. Price offers a shortened sentence because he does not want the fragile teenaged son to testify, fearing for the child's mental health.
Congresswoman Bartell's career is ruined from testifying that her husband performed "gender-affirming care." She tells Price that her opponent "doesn't even believe that trans people are real, that it's all make-believe. So, the only thing that you've accomplished here is making the world less safe for those children."
Her statement makes no sense, especially considering she has been threatened repeatedly by left-wing activists who want access to those children.
For almost a decade now, the entertainment world has been working hard to normalize the trans contagion. Last night's episode of Law and Order was just the latest example. It validated a troubled teen's delusion and made sure that the murderous villain is the one person who rejects medicalizing him.
