Activist Billboard Chris thinks that until recently, Republicans have feared the political fallout of opposing sex-change procedures on children. Now, he said, they see that fighting radical gender ideology has public support.
“They realize this is a winning issue for them to talk about when they talk about it truthfully and with compassion,” he told The Epoch Times.
Billboard Chris, also known as Chris Elston, has requested nine bills from the Oklahoma legislature to ban radical gender practices for children.
The requested bills promote parental rights and forbid compelled support for gender ideology, according to a Twitter post from Elston. They include the “Save Adolescents From Experimentation” (SAFE) Act, a bill protecting students from being compelled to use “preferred pronouns,” a law that allows parents to choose what name their child will use in school, a guarantee that parents will get authority in medical decisions involving their children, a guarantee of school transparency, a bill to protect parental rights over children, a “do no harm” law, a law allowing parents to sue when their rights are violated, and a law prohibiting the falsification of birth certificates by changing sex.
Elston, a Canadian, said on Twitter that the ways radical gender ideologues cut organs off children’s bodies and replace natural hormones is “pure evil.”
“This shouldn’t be a political issue, but Democrat politicians have made it one. This is your opportunity to do the right thing, and crush them in the process. They deserve it,” he told conservative lawmakers on Twitter.
According to LGBT group the Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) website, support for child gender transition is essential.
“Transgender adolescents and adults rarely regret gender transition, and the process (including social and/or medical changes) substantially improves their well-being,” its site reads.
The HRC advises using puberty blockers for early adolescents, opposite-sex hormones for older adolescents “as appropriate,” and sex-change surgeries for older adolescents “as appropriate.”
The Epoch Times also reached out to the HRC but received no response by press time.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt and State senator Shane Jett have cooperated with Elston on the bill. The Epoch Times reached out to them but didn’t receive comment by press time.
No More Mutilation
Elston said the laws he’s advocating for passage in Oklahoma will likely face a challenge by the court system. That’s why he plans to pass nine individual laws. Hostile judges would have to combat each law individually.
“They can attack a bill with nine different components in it based on just one component, so then all the other ones could get thrown out as well,” he said.
He said a speech he made to Oklahoma legislators and conservatives about radical gender ideology’s impact helped move them to action.
“Everyone was shocked. There were some tears, and a lot of resolve to end this abuse,” he said.
For the last year, Elston has traveled North America with a billboard around his neck reading “Children Cannot Consent to Puberty Blockers.”
Elston has met 15-year-old boys with breasts from hormones and cites studies showing that teenage girls experience menopause because of the hormones.
He quotes doctors speaking of children on puberty blockers who will have no sexual function whatsoever as adults.
Authorities are encouraging struggling children into these decisions for the wrong reasons, Elston said.
“Every single story reads the same. They were lost, they were struggling, they had autism, borderline personality disorder, whatever. They'd been abused,” he added.
Often, people don’t understand how much radical gender ideology harms children, he added, saying that people react in shock when they learn the truth.
“Most Democrats don’t want their children getting sterilized,” he said.
He said he feels certain that one day, society will no longer permit the castration and hormone alteration of children under 18.
“The only question is how much harm is going to come to hundreds of thousands of kids before we stop this once and for all,” he said in his Twitter thread about the legislation.
Sex Change in the Senate
In Oklahoma, Elston’s allies will likely win a huge victory. Elston noted that he’s in Oklahoma because the governor and legislature hold conservative values.
“They have a Republican governor, and they have a Republican Senate and Republican House, so you’re going to have more success in states like that,” he said.
Elston said that in his experience, almost 90 percent of people he speaks with oppose child sex change.
“To stop a child’s physical development is completely insane. And almost everyone understands that,” he said.
According to a 2022 poll from the Pew Research Center, 46 percent of adults want child gender transition to be illegal, 31 percent support child gender transition, and 22 percent feel indifferent.
The survey also shows that 41 percent want teaching about transgenderism in public schools to be illegal, while 38 percent want transgenderism taught in public schools, and 21 percent feel indifferent.
Adults ages 18 to 29 support transgenderism the most, while adults 50 and older support it the least.
In 2017, 54 percent of Americans believed that someone can be female only by being born female, Pew noted. But in 2022, 60 percent of Americans believed the same.
Increased public knowledge of child sex change surgeries makes a huge difference, Elston said.
“A couple years ago, no one was talking about this at all. Now every day, on the major airwaves, and in conservative podcasts, we have people talking about this issue, so awareness has increased dramatically,” he said.
Elston argues that Republican politicians have previously categorized transgenderism with same-sex marriage.
Same-sex marriage enjoyed a 70 percent support rate in 2021, according to Gallup polls. But transgenderism doesn’t have widespread public acclaim, he said.
“When you start sterilizing kids and cutting off their body parts, and the brain is still forming and they’re just young and they’re struggling with other comorbidities, that’s just pure and simple child abuse and medical malpractice,” he said.
Even if laws against child sex changes may find more support today, it can be difficult to uphold them in court, Elston said. Judges tend to dislike when legislators try to tell doctors how to practice medicine, he said.
“Honestly, in a sane world, that’s correct,” Elston said, but the movement for child sex change surgeries has captured the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and the American Psychological Association.
“They'll present all this garbage evidence supporting the practice of child mutilation and sterilization,” he added.
To beat the movement for child sterilization, Republicans should take a hint from Florida and exert control over state medical boards, Elston said.
“They need to go through the medical board and go at the science of this,” he said. “Because we need to expose that there actually is no science to support this practice.”
