SAN FRANCISCO—Parental rights advocates and other community members urged California Gov. Gavin Newsom to veto more bills that favor transgender ideology, in a Sept. 24 seminar opposing Assembly Bill 957 in San Francisco.
The governor had vetoed AB 957 just a couple of days before the seminar, which was hosted by American Asian Coalition for Justice (AACJ).
Responses to the Veto
Kevin Snider, Chief Counsel of Pacific Justice Institute (PJI), told The Epoch Times: “I’m glad he vetoed the bill. And I think even if he doesn’t believe in his heart that the LGBTQ agenda is wrong, as long as he follows [what] people want, that’s a good thing.”Introduced by Assemblywoman Lori Wilson (D-Suisun City), AB 957 would have required judges to favor “gender-affirming” parents in child custody disputes.
“One of the problems that we have seen is that these bills have a common thread. The thread is that they are using the natural love of parents who want to keep their children to hang on to authority,” Mr. Snider said in his speech to the audience on site and over live internet broadcasting.
Mr. Newsom wrote in his veto letter, “I urge caution when the Executive and Legislative branches of state government attempt to dictate—in prescriptive terms that single out one characteristic—legal standards for the Judicial branch to apply.”
Mr. Snider said Mr. Newsom “is wanting to appear that he’s a middle, a moderate person.”
“He’s trying to appease the people on the left by saying it’s not necessary so don’t worry, but he’s also trying to satisfy the people on the right by telling them that they don’t have to worry about this law,” Mr. Snider added.
Erin Friday, an attorney and western U.S. co-leader of Our Duty, said in a speech: “We’re not falling for it. We’re not falling for it at all!”
“Even if he vetoes AB 665, we’re going to continue on, because he’s passing bill after bill,” Ms. Friday said.
AB 665 would allow a child as young as 12 to consent to mental health counseling and placement in a group home without parental knowledge or consent.
Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), an LGBT activist and a co-author of both AB 665 and AB 957, said at a March 28 committee meeting that opposers were spreading “extreme misinformation” to “stoke outrage online” and create “false moral panic that people are running around trying to steal people’s children.”
“The outrage machine completely undermines our efforts to address actual children at risk by making pretend that all children are somehow being targeted, and that the mental health profession is targeting them, and their teachers are targeting them, and LGBTQ people are targeting them,” Mr. Wiener said. “It is outrageous.”
Erin Friday, western U.S. co-leader of Our Duty, speaks at a seminar in San Francisco on Sept. 24, 2023. Lear Zhou/The Epoch Times
Ms. Friday’s Story
Ms. Friday said she has found that counseling is unidirectional.After her daughter was told she was transgender, Ms. Friday tried to obtain counseling in the other direction for her, but no therapist would treat her daughter’s depression without considering gender dysphoria first.
“There are no doctors to help you, there’s no therapist to help you, the teachers are against you, the government’s against you,” Ms. Friday told The Epoch Times. “It’s a very lonely place to be.”
Ms. Friday shared the story of how she dragged her daughter out of transgenderism.
“I entered into the gender cult’s blogosphere through my daughter,” she said.
The journey took one and a half years starting in 2019.
“It permeates the whole family; the whole family is affected,” she said. “She needed all of our attention, as parents. She needed intense therapy and love and compassion, and I needed to be there whenever she was willing.”
She said it was like taking drugs away from an addict.
“These kids also take on a different personality. When they say that they’re trans, they become angry; they become vicious; they almost are unrecognizable. They’re mean because they are told to hate you,” Ms. Friday said. “It’s really difficult for a parent to get kicked in the teeth. Because that is what’s happening as you’re pulling your child out.”
Ms. Friday’s story eventually had a happy ending.
“My daughter and my marriage survive,” she said.
Concerns About Transgender Ideology
Attendees shared common concerns with the community about the LGBT-related curricula that may influence children in school to become transgender.Ms. Friday said: “I believe that we have the ability to file a lawsuit against these required courses because transgenderism is a religion. It is based on a belief system that one can change sex. It is not biologically based; it’s not scientifically based.”
In California, parents or guardians can opt their children out of sex education in public schools, but LGBT curricula cannot be opted out of.
“I would recommend opting your children, grandchildren out of almost all surveys. These surveys are designed to plant the seed that one can be born in the wrong body, because it asks those questions,” said Ms. Friday. “You have to pay attention to the papers that are coming home to you from school, or the online questions.”
The number of youths between the ages of 13 and 17 who identify as transgender has grown rapidly in California, from an estimated 0.85 percent, or 22,200, in the 2017 report by the UCLA Williams Institute to an estimated 1.93 percent, or 49,100, in the Institute’s 2022 report.
“It really became prevalent when real religion became secondary and disappeared. People needed something to believe in, and they believed in this,” Ms. Friday told The Epoch Times. “And it’s sold as an elixir, that it will remedy all your sorrow, all your sadness, all your discomfort if only you transition.”
Mr. Snider said in his speech: “In this country, you’re allowed to believe what you wish, and parental rights are crucial. They are something the society is built on, and if we don’t protect them, we will have a decivilization in front of us.”
