Dozens of transgender activists clashed with several parental rights protesters outside Sacramento City Hall on March 26 preceding public debate over a transgender sanctuary city resolution, which the council unanimously passed.
The city’s new policy shelters doctors and other health care professionals from “criminal punishment, civil liability, administrative penalties, or professional sanctions based on the laws of other states.”
The resolution also states that no city resources shall be used to detain anyone “seeking or providing gender-affirming care, nor the aiding of it,” including “gender affirmation surgery or gender hormone therapy.”
Additionally, it states that no city resources are to be used for “cooperating with or providing information to any individual or out-of-state agency or department regarding the provision of lawful gender-affirming healthcare or gender-affirming mental healthcare performed in the state of California.”
The resolution cites the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, better known as WPATH, and The Trevor Project—activist organizations that have both come under fire from conservative lawmakers and parental rights groups for advocating gender transitions for children—among other organizations.
City Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela, who sponsored the resolution, said the transgender sanctuary city policy isn’t a symbolic gesture but a binding resolution.
“I’m proud of our state legislature for how they have stepped up to pass laws to protect many communities including and particularly tonight, our LGBTQ-plus community, but it isn’t enough,” she said at the March 26 meeting. “So, I am honored tonight to be bringing forward this resolution.”
Socialist Influence
Emily Smet, an organizer for the Sacramento Democratic Socialists of America, which drafted the resolution, told the council it will protect those who identify as transgender and doctors from “unjust out-of-state investigations.”The activist, who identifies as a transgender woman, said the resolution is important for the health and safety of the trans community “given the increasingly hostile political climate for transgender, intersex and non-binary people,” leading to “what you could call transgender refugees” in the United States.
“As a trans person, I have watched with increasing concern as year after year states across the nation introduced increasingly restrictive laws targeting transgender life,” Smet said.
What started as “bathroom bills and sports bans” in states across the country has escalated to full bans on medical treatment for transgender youth and the criminalization of doctors who assist them, the activist said.
“This resolution prepares us for the rising tide of transphobic hate in our country—a hate that manifests itself in the groups opposing this resolution here today,” Smet said.
Sara Connor, another member of the socialist group, told the council she wanted to “underline and emphasize” the socialist group’s message about “the critical importance” of the resolution for Sacramento’s transgender community.
“I know and love so many trans people, and I see all across the nation, a trans panic sweeping our nation, and I find it despicable, and I find it horrifying,” she said. “I believe that the trans people in this city deserve better, and this resolution is a step toward that.”
‘Humans Cannot Change Sex’
Beth Bourne, chair of parental rights group Moms for Liberty in Yolo County, told the council that her daughter, now 18, thought she was transgender when she was in junior high school but has now, five years later, become more accepting of her “healthy, young female body.”However, her Kaiser Permanente doctor, she said, recommended that her daughter go to the Kaiser Proud Clinic the first time he heard she was using male pronouns “to have puberty blockers and testosterone injected in her body.”
“I said to her, ‘No, you will not be a guinea pig. This is an experiment, and children are having their bodies permanently harmed,’” Ms. Bourne said.
She told the council that girls aged 13 to 17 in her hometown are having their breasts removed.
“I’m here because I want you to know that humans cannot change sex. Sex is binary and immutable. It is every single cell of your body,” Ms. Bourne said. “Taking testosterone to grow a beard or having your breasts removed does not make you a man. Testosterone takes five to 10 years off of your life. It leads to liver cancer and it causes vaginal atrophy.”
She urged the council to “follow the money” to find out for themselves who is making money off gender dysphoric children.
“It’s these doctors, it’s these gender clinics, and it’s Big Pharma,” she said.
Nicolle Young, chair of Moms for Liberty in Placer County, said parents should be allowed to raise their children and make decisions “without the city of Sacramento offering them a safe place to medicalize their perfect bodies.”
“We’re talking about kids here. We all know adults have medical rights. We’re talking about providing sanctuary to children from parents. Now, I just want to let that sink in for a minute,” she said. “I’m a parent, and none of you know my kids, and none of you love my kids like I do. This is insane that we are having this conversation. Insane!”
Ms. Young told The Epoch Times that transgender activists harassed parental rights protesters at the meeting, mainly targeting Ms. Bourne by shouting insults, tearing up her signs, and disrupting her interviews with local news media.
She defended Moms for Liberty, saying the group isn’t objecting to gender transitions for adults but is only opposed to giving children access to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and gender-altering surgery, and social transitioning them at school behind parents’ backs.
“We’re not anti-trans,” she said. “We’re pro-parental rights and we’re pro-reality.”
Ms. Young said she is disappointed that the “silent majority” of Americans haven’t spoken up to oppose gender ideology and seems to be confused about the resolution.
Sacramento is now “a safe haven for children to escape their parents” and could be dangerous for these children, she said.
Gender dysphoric children, especially those who believe their parents are “unsupportive,” are prime targets for sexual predators, drug addiction, and sex trafficking, she said.
He accused activists of hypocrisy for preaching about inclusivity but then rejecting those who transitioned and later regretted it.
“If you make the claim that Christians try to impose their beliefs on people, well then how are you any different trying to impose your ideologies on people?” he said. “So, I just don’t see the distinction there. ... Where’s the inclusivity?”
Meg Madden, who pulled her middle-school daughter out of the Sacramento Unified School District over gender ideology, told the council that England, France, Norway, Finland, and Sweden have found—after evidence-based systematic reviews—that the risk-benefit ratio “of what is euphemistically referred to as youth gender transition” is either unknown or unfavorable.
Ms. Madden told The Epoch Times that she was very concerned by the way the city council spoke about the issue and interacted with transgender activists.
Double Mastectomy Applauded
A woman who told the council she had a double mastectomy three months ago and praised her Kaiser doctor who “wears a trans cap” was applauded at the meeting.“I’m very happy after receiving top surgery. I’m not confused. I’m actually—I have more clarity, since receiving the gender-affirming care that I have received at Kaiser,” she said.
But opponents of the resolution weren’t cheering and clapping.
“It was really sad to me to see that level of self-loathing celebrated,” Ms. Young said. “She needed help and maybe a hug and not her healthy breasts removed and her reality denied.”
“That’s what I see as one of the biggest problems with this whole trans ideology and the medical side. There is so much celebration and promises that you’ll have this gender euphoria if you have these procedures done,” she said. “You got your breasts cut off—and that, of course, makes no sense. Why would your brain feel better after you self-harmed?”
