Conservative political commentator Matt Walsh has escalated his efforts to call attention to child sex-change surgery, sparring with Tennessee lawmakers about a proposed bill.
If it becomes law, it would forbid use of drugs and surgeries to help boys take on characteristics of girls, and help girls take on the appearance of boys.
“We should be able to agree that children do not have the physical, emotional, or mental capacity to protect themselves or to make life-altering decisions,” the Daily Wire podcast host said as he testified before legislators.
“We should be able to agree that it’s never okay to chemically castrate, sterilize, butcher, or mutilate a child.”
Walsh, a father of six, got into the Tennessee fight when he used his podcast, “The Matt Walsh Show,” to call attention to Vanderbilt’s practice of performing mastectomies on young girls.
He was prompted to act after seeing a video showing a hospital official praising the profitability of the procedure.
In October 2022, Walsh led a “Rally to End Child Mutilation” in Nashville.
Walsh also wrote “Johnny the Walrus,” a book in which a boy pretending to be a walrus gets pressured by his liberal mom, doctor, and “internet people” to eat worms and surgically replace his limbs with fins.
Leveling Attacks
During his testimony before the legislature, Democratic lawmakers questioned Walsh’s credentials and quoted his old posts on Twitter.Though he has no medical expertise and didn’t attend college, anyone can see that the permanent surgical mutilation of a child is wrong, Walsh told lawmakers.
“I’m a human being with a brain and common sense, and I have a soul,” Walsh said, when they belittled his lack of credentials. “And so, therefore, I think it’s a really bad idea to chemically castrate children.”
Studies by groups such as the World Professional Association of Transgender Health, which supports transgenderism, show sex-change medications don’t stop suicides, he noted.
“They commissioned a study to try to prove that hormones and puberty blockers decreased suicide rates among trans-identified youth,” Walsh said. “And even in their own study, they found that they couldn’t prove it.”
State Rep. John Ray Clemmons, a Democrat, asked Walsh if he was testifying about child sex-change surgery to get “clicks” to boost his livelihood in media.
Walsh retorted by asking Clemmons if he was asking questions to get “clicks” from his supporters.
“I really like the idea of drawing attention to the fact that this is happening to children,” Walsh said to the representative. “I know you seem to find it very amusing. I don’t.”
Clemmons accused Walsh of making “misrepresentations,” but didn’t name anything specific.
In response to Walsh’s assertions that child sex-change surgeries should end, Democrat Rep. Caleb Hemmer grilled him about statements he'd made years earlier. Walsh had spoken about the historical trend of married teens starting families.
“At about 16, you’re an adult who is mature and can make decisions—you are that at 16,” Walsh said in the 12-year-old broadcast. “I don’t care what anybody says. And if you’re going to tell me it’s different, well, then how come for the first 10,000 years of human civilization, that’s the way it was?”
Walsh said the 2011 statement had been taken out of context.
“Do you think that a 16-year-old can meaningfully consent to having their body parts removed?” Walsh asked Hemmer.
A period of silence followed.
“We ask the questions,” Hemmer finally responded.
Rep. Bo Mitchell, another Democrat, said he dismissed Walsh’s opinions because he'd praised Singapore’s justice system in a post on Twitter.
“Singapore is able to have nice things, in part because they execute drug dealers by hanging, and arrest even petty vandals and thieves and beat them with a cane until they bleed,” Walsh wrote.
“We don’t have nice things here because we aren’t willing to do what is required to maintain them.”
Surgery and Suicide Risk
Transgender activists often say children who aren’t allowed to have sex-change surgery are more likely to kill themselves.Walsh disagreed with that assertion. And Mitchell objected, saying a University of Pittsburgh study showed transgender-identifying children commit suicide more often than non-transgender children.
But the study doesn’t mention sex-change surgery.
“I think, you know, before you state things, you may need to know all the facts,” Mitchell told Walsh.
Walsh didn’t get a chance to respond.
Mitchell said he didn’t think child sex-change surgeries were happening in Tennessee.
Walsh cited materials he'd found on Vanderbilt University’s website.
“The health care providers’ own words outline Vanderbilt Health and their transgender care program, and the people that work for that program,” Walsh testified.
Possible Penalties for Performing Procedures
If the ban on children’s sex-change surgeries passes, medical institutions could face fines of $25,000 per procedure. And profits from those procedures could be confiscated.It also lets affected minors sue the doctors and parents responsible for their sex-change procedures.
Minors would receive no penalty for getting a sex change.
It’s likely the bill will pass Tennessee’s Republican-controlled government.
In Florida, the state Board of Medicine and Board of Osteopathic Medicine barred doctors from prescribing hormones to children identifying as transgender hormones or performing surgeries on them to treat gender dysphoria.
