As Texas moves to ban “gender-affirming care” for minors, MSNBC’s Jose Diaz-Balart asked a parent, simply known as Rachel, on Thursday if Republicans were being hypocrites. Naturally, Rachel agreed and claimed that they were and that her daughter (son) knew she (he) was a girl before reaching the age of five.
With some bad moral relativism, Diaz-Balart wondered, “So what parental rights do you think -- are there any limits to parental rights and I'm just wondering because you do -- there are inconsistencies, right in what people define as parental rights.”
Rachel responded by claiming the science is clear: 5-year olds know best:
Well, I mean, I think it’s fair to say that parents should have the ability to access best practice medical care for their children. Especially when we have one physician in our legislature who’s decided that he understands this 'science' that he's referring to better than this huge body of scientific evidence that shows that this is the best practice medical care when we have access to physicians who specialize in this, we have our daughter transitioned socially when she was 5-years old.
While Rachel did not intend to argue for medical treatment for 5-year olds, she did advocate for “social transition,” claiming “So, the vast majority of transition is social. It is allowing children to be able to show the rest of the world who they are on the inside, and for my daughter, that meant growing her hair out, wearing dresses, and changing her name. So, it’s—there’s really not any kind of medical intervention until puberty and, you know, puberty blockers are totally reversible.”
That assertion is contentious, at best, but parental rights wasn’t the only issue Rachel alleged Republicans were being hypocrites on, “These are used for a variety of different healthcare reasons, not just for transgender youth and that's how we know this is a deeply discriminatory bill, because it is only banning the same healthcare that is accessible to non-transgender children and only, only targets trans kids.”
Yeah, because Johnny thinking he’s Susie is not the same thing as treating someone for precocious puberty or idiopathic short stature.
Diaz-Balart followed up by asking “I was just wondering, explain to me how that decision, a family decision, right, is taken. Because it’s-- you talk about your child from very early age, you know, was defining herself in many ways. How does that family decision get taken?”
Rachel claimed that “it’s not easy” and that “my husband really struggled with it. He thought it was a reflection on his masculinity.” However, she again insisted that the child knew before the age of five he was really a she, “and it was not until she really hit a breaking point when she was 5 years old and saying she could not go on anymore with the world thinking that she was a boy.”
Attempting to wax poetic, she added “She knew exactly who she was from the day she was born, as long as she could talk and we didn't know who she was, we made an assumption about who she was then and we've been able to, you know, support her and she's an awesome, amazing, happy kid.”
MSNBC should state when they think children are capable of making such informed proclamations because before treating 5-year olds as infallible, they made the same argument about 4-year olds. Little children, because they are little children, say crazy things all the time, but only when it comes to boys wearing dresses, are people expected to take it seriously.
This segment was sponsored by Samsung.
Here is a transcript for the May 18 show:
MSNBC Jose Diaz-Balart Reports
5/18/2023
11:37 PM ET
JOSE DIAZ-BALART: So what parental rights do you think -- are there any limits to parental rights and I'm just wondering because you do -- there are inconsistencies, right--
RACHEL [NO LAST NAME GIVEN]: Right.
DIAZ-BALART: --in what people define as parental rights.
RACHEL: Well, I mean, I think it’s fair to say that parents should have the ability to access best practice medical care for their children. Especially when we have one physician in our legislature who’s decided that he understands this “science” that he's referring to better than this huge body of scientific evidence that shows that this is the best practice medical care when we have access to physicians who specialize in this, we have our daughter transitioned socially when she was 5-years old.
So, the vast majority of transition is social. It is allowing children to be able to show the rest of the world who they are on the inside, and for my daughter, that meant growing her hair out, wearing dresses, and changing her name. So, it’s—there’s really not any kind of medical intervention until puberty and, you know, puberty blockers are totally reversible.
These are used for a variety of different healthcare reasons, not just for transgender youth and that's how we know this is a deeply discriminatory bill, because it is only banning the same healthcare that is accessible to non-transgender children and only, only targets trans kids.
DIAZ-BALART: I was just wondering, explain to me how that decision, a family decision, right, is taken. Because it’s-- you talk about your child from very early age, you know, was defining herself in many ways. How does that family decision get taken?
RACHEL: Well, I mean, the thing is I don't expect somebody who doesn't have a transgender child to know what this process is like, because it’s not easy. It was something that my husband and I had to really process, my husband really struggled with it. He thought it was a reflection on his masculinity, his fatherhood, showing up for his daughter and it was not until she really hit a breaking point when she was 5 years old and saying she could not go on anymore with the world thinking that she was a boy.
And so, I often say that it was the rest of us transitioning. She knew exactly who she was from the day she was born, as long as she could talk and we didn't know who she was, we made an assumption about who she was then and we've been able to, you know, support her and she's an awesome, amazing, happy kid and that's what these legislators don't want the general public to know.
They don't want people to realize that when kids are supported and loved and given access to the healthcare that they need, then they can thrive. And our kids deserve to have the same childhood that their classmates, their neighbors, their friends have and, you know, this isn't disruptive just for our transgender daughter. We have two other kids and they're terrified that the Department of Family and Protective Services is going to split up our family after the directive came out from the governor last year and we're watching what is happening in Florida and then here in Texas.
I mean, our family is explicitly used as a political pawn by extremist legislators and I don't know -- I don't know what else to tell my children except we will get through this together because everybody's -- well, okay, I do end want to say that, I don’t want to say everyone’s fleeing the state, a lot of people are fleeing the state, but a lot, a lot more kids cannot leave the state.
And they deserve to have the access to healthcare that, you know, everybody else has. And I wish our legislature would focus on providing good healthcare, basic healthcare for all the kids in the state that don't have access to just basic healthcare rather than target our already marginalized population of transgender youth.
