A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein - Conservatives Don’t Care About Your Kids

00:00:00.000 Nex Benedict was 16 years old. They were a sophomore at Owasso High School in Owasso,

00:00:05.920 Oklahoma, a suburb of about 40,000 people just north of Tulsa. Nex was non-binary,

00:00:12.240 meaning they identified as neither male nor female. As Nex's primary caretaker, Sue, would put it,

00:00:18.820 Nex identified as, quote, right down the middle. Sue Benedict is often referred to in the media 0.64

00:00:23.920 as Nex's mother, but in reality is their biological grandmother who raised Nex for

00:00:29.180 more or less their whole life. As it pertained to Nex's non-binary identity, Sue has said that

00:00:34.880 she was still learning about it, but she always kept an open mind. Sue's husband told The

00:00:39.280 Independent, quote, when you're old, you don't always understand it, but it would be very boring

00:00:43.540 if we were all the same. It's on the inside that matters the most. When Sue or her husband used

00:00:49.280 Nex's birth name or their old pronouns, Nex would correct them, and they'd all just get on with it.

00:00:55.320 Nex was a stellar student. They loved reading and Minecraft and their cat. Nex also dealt with

00:01:02.520 bullying for years, which will come as approximately no surprise to any queer person who has ever

00:01:09.580 attended a school. They first started telling Sue about the bullying last year. On February 7th,

00:01:14.980 just a few weeks ago, Nex was in the girls' bathroom with their other trans friend. Mind you,

00:01:20.160 Oklahoma passed a law recently that students must use bathrooms consistent with the sex they were

00:01:25.040 assigned at birth, and Nex and their friend got into an altercation with three other girls who

00:01:30.960 had been bullying them. In text messages, Nex sent to a family member who later shared them with the

00:01:35.540 local news. Nex wrote, quote, they had been bullying me and my friends, so I got tired of it, and I

00:01:41.220 poured some water on them, and all three came after me. The girls knocked Nex into the ground and 0.90

00:01:46.300 repeatedly slammed Nex's head into the floor. The fight was eventually broken up by classmates and 0.99

00:01:51.240 faculty. Nex had bruises on their face and scratches on the back of their head. No one from

00:01:56.600 the school called an ambulance, a hospital, or the police. Sue was notified, though, and told that

00:02:02.280 Nex had been suspended from school for two weeks. Sue picked up Nex and took them to the Bailey

00:02:07.660 Medical Center in Owasso, from which they were later discharged on the same day. In those text

00:02:12.580 messages that Nex sent to a family member, Nex wrote, quote, got a shot in the butt for my pain, 0.90

00:02:18.320 but if I'm still dizzy and nauseous in the morning, I might have a concussion.

00:02:22.340 They went to sleep. The following day, Thursday morning, February 8th,

00:02:26.620 Nex was getting ready to go to Tulsa with Sue when they collapsed in the living room.

00:02:31.600 Sue called an ambulance, and by the time the EMTs showed up, Nex wasn't breathing.

00:02:36.500 Nex was pronounced dead at the hospital later that day.

00:02:39.840 Ryan Walters is the state superintendent of all Oklahoma public schools. His Wikipedia page

00:02:46.000 describes him first and foremost as an American hate monger. He's been called Oklahoma's top 0.56

00:02:52.020 culture warrior. In 2022, Ryan ran for state superintendent, a campaign which was endorsed

00:02:57.700 by Ted Cruz, and he won. His platform consisted of the typical shit you expect from far-right 0.99

00:03:04.560 politicians in education at this point. You know, get the wokes out of the schools, get the gay books 1.00

00:03:10.280 out of the libraries. Stop woke-ifying the kids with lessons about gender and race. Woke, woke, 1.00

00:03:16.060 woke, woke, woke, woke, woke, woke. Ryan has a particular fixation on what he considers to be

00:03:20.500 pornography in libraries and has accused school librarians of promoting pornography. What he

00:03:26.280 considers to be pornography, by the way, tends to be like, you know, sex education that includes gay 0.99

00:03:31.700 people. He elaborates on these beliefs in his frequently tweeted car vlogs. Edmund Public 0.96

00:03:38.760 schools is leading the charge to put pornography back in schools today we see edmond public schools

00:03:45.080 is fighting to keep pornography on their shelves and are challenging our rule to keep pornography

00:03:51.080 out of the classroom this is unbelievable it's a great day for oklahoma schools big win today the 0.74

00:03:57.560 drag queen is out at western heights i've demanded it from day one on august 21st 2023 the far-right

00:04:04.360 anti-LGBT stochastic terrorist hate account, Libs of TikTok, ran by Haya Reitchick, who

00:04:10.860 we'll get to her in a second, reposted a 16-second TikTok video originally posted by

00:04:16.700 an Oklahoma public school librarian, a young woman named Kirby. In the video, Kirby lip-syncs to a 0.97

00:04:23.060 ludicrous song, and a superimposed caption reads, POV, teachers in your state are dropping like

00:04:29.320 flies, but you are still not quite finished pushing your woke agenda at the school.

00:04:34.360 this is a joke this is sarcasm and there are two reasons you might not read into it that way

00:04:41.160 the first is if you're autistic and struggle to pick up on social cues which like no shade that's

00:04:47.880 a thing and the second is if you're i don't know a right-wing politician who is purposely missing

00:04:53.920 the sarcasm here because you want to exploit this sentiment in earnest to outrage people 0.96

00:04:59.040 into thinking some fucking school librarian is literally on a warpath 0.99

00:05:03.280 to make all of her students transgender. 1.00

00:05:06.420 Superintendent Ryan Walters shared the video to his Twitter,

00:05:09.600 adding the caption, quote,

00:05:11.320 Democrats say it doesn't exist.

00:05:13.820 The liberal media denies the issue.

00:05:16.040 Even some Republicans hide from it.

00:05:18.320 Woke ideology is real, and I am here to stop it.

00:05:23.040 It's crazy, right?

00:05:24.360 How all you have to do is be like, you know, 1.00

00:05:26.760 gay agenda, lolol, 1.00

00:05:28.280 and the dweebiest white guy you have ever met 1.00

00:05:31.920 thinks he's transforming into fucking Batman. 1.00

00:05:35.200 Flying across the city by night 1.00

00:05:37.100 to save the poor, poor children. 0.91

00:05:39.320 Not from pedophile priests,

00:05:41.580 not from poverty or lack of affordable housing

00:05:44.580 or lack of subsidized school lunches

00:05:46.840 or lack of healthcare

00:05:47.880 or the increasingly uncertain future kids are facing

00:05:51.200 as a result of climate change

00:05:53.040 and the impending collapse of social security.

00:05:55.060 No, he's saving the kids 0.99

00:05:57.340 from some fucking school librarian 0.99

00:05:59.420 who reads books about loving each other. 1.00

00:06:02.640 Union Public Schools,

00:06:04.200 the school system that that librarian Kirby worked for,

00:06:07.940 they receive bomb threats every day

00:06:09.560 for the six days following

00:06:10.700 Superintendent Ryan Walters' tweet.

00:06:12.780 And so did the librarian, directly to her home.

00:06:15.480 Only after the fourth day of threats

00:06:17.040 did Ryan Walters call for them to stop.

00:06:20.060 And even still, he didn't, and still hasn't,

00:06:23.200 removed the post that was widely believed

00:06:25.040 to have sparked them.

00:06:25.800 At the end of this past January, two weeks before the death of Nex Benedict, Superintendent Ryan Walters hired Chaya Rejcik, the Libs of TikTok influencer, to serve as a member of the Oklahoma Department of Education's Media Review Committee.

00:06:41.820 Chaya Rejcik is a former real estate agent in her late 20s, originally from Brooklyn and now living in Los Angeles.

00:06:48.700 Chaya skyrocketed to conservative media fame a couple years ago with her account, Libs of TikTok, which I've discussed ad nauseum on this podcast. 0.89

00:06:58.120 On Libs of TikTok, which is actually a Twitter account, Chaya's stated goal is to stop the sexualization of children in schools.

00:07:05.600 In practice, though, it's an endless feed of pictures and videos of random queer or queer-friendly teachers plucked out of fucking obscurity because they had a rainbow sticker on the chalkboard or a rainbow flag in a mug on their desk or something, posted to Haya's 3 million followers, oftentimes with the name of the teacher, the school district they work in, and some snarky caption insinuating that they're a pedophile because they support their LGBTQ students or something.

00:07:34.680 whenever these posts go up, bomb threats and other threats of violence against the school 0.86

00:07:40.360 districts targeted almost always follow, sometimes leading to evacuations of elementary schools.

00:07:47.640 Save the children, right? I mean, what could be traumatizing about scurrying a bunch of fucking 0.99

00:07:53.240 10-year-olds outside with alarm bells ringing because some deranged libs of TikTok follower 0.99

00:07:59.080 called in a bomb threat over a teacher who had pronouns on their fucking name tag, right? 0.98

00:08:04.520 One thing that is truly fantastic to witness from Haya Raychik is the way she genuinely 0.99

00:08:10.060 has no coherent belief system around any of the shit she talks about online. 0.98

00:08:14.980 Taylor Lorenz, the Washington Post journalist who actually was the guest on this show for 0.99

00:08:19.500 the episode we did about Libs of TikTok, recently met Haya for an interview outside

00:08:24.200 of a coffee shop in LA where they both live.

00:08:26.540 Haya agreed to the interview on the grounds that it would all be recorded,

00:08:31.120 which is just mind boggling to me because 0.92

00:08:34.540 If you eradicate transgenderism, which I believe you suggested in a post today.

00:08:39.600 No, I never suggested that. 1.00

00:08:40.860 Oh, okay. You reposted a post that was advocating for that.

00:08:44.520 What would happen to the people that have already medically, socially, completely transitioned

00:08:48.700 and are leading happy lives? What would happen to them? I mean, what's your plan for that? 0.74

00:08:52.780 if transgenderism doesn't exist which it seems like you're that's what you believe what happens

00:08:57.640 to all the people living happy lives as trans people well first of all the whole trans is it's 0.96

00:09:03.560 based on a lie you can't change your you can't change your gender okay but so they could they 0.99

00:09:08.940 could go live their their life i mean i can't tell someone what to do in their in their house

00:09:15.120 sounds like you do want to tell people what to do in their house i never said that so you're

00:09:19.920 totally okay with people being trans just not as long as they're in public no i never said that

00:09:25.460 they could it's the whole thing is based off of a lie and i think that um the fact this lie 0.98

00:09:33.840 cannot be mainstream in our in our society it's just it's a lie and what harm is it causing do

00:09:42.520 believe um I like the truth I like truth right but I'm saying what what's the 0.98

00:09:50.280 what's the harm of people expressing their gender identity differently than

00:09:54.040 you believe it to be what harm are they causing like I said we are a a nation of

00:10:02.480 truth and I seek the truth but that's but I'm asking about the harm what's the

00:10:08.320 harm you might believe it to be possible the harm is that there's a lie that is

00:10:11.560 very mainstream and is being embedded into every institution.

00:10:14.780 I guess I'm wondering what the material harm is.

00:10:18.060 Aside from it's maybe something that you disagree with, as in your version of the truth is different

00:10:22.060 than their version of the truth, what is the material harm of them living their life as

00:10:26.980 a woman or man or gender that you don't agree with?

00:10:29.080 Not anything that's wrong is there a material harm, necessarily.

00:10:32.980 So there's no harm?

00:10:33.980 I didn't say that.

00:10:34.980 Would you say that you're a free speech supporter?

00:10:36.980 Yeah.

00:10:37.980 So how do you square the sort of being this free speech supporter with wanting to ban literature?

00:10:44.060 What kind of literature?

00:10:45.800 Any kind of literature.

00:10:46.780 I mean, I would think that if you're...

00:10:47.580 What kind of literature am I trying to ban?

00:10:49.140 Oh, I thought you were just trying to say that you've made an effort to get books removed from schools.

00:10:54.100 What kind of books?

00:10:55.620 Books dealing with LGBTQ people and sexual education.

00:10:58.540 No, that's not what I said.

00:10:59.340 Oh, so you're not trying to get any books banned from school.

00:11:01.480 That's not what I said either.

00:11:02.580 Okay, why don't you explain to me how you're thinking about this?

00:11:04.820 You just accused me of wanting to ban books.

00:11:06.580 What kind of books am I trying to ban?

00:11:08.400 You tell me.

00:11:10.920 I'm not trying to ban anything.

00:11:12.400 But you're not trying to ban any books.

00:11:13.640 You said I'm trying to ban books.

00:11:14.760 Are you trying to remove books from libraries?

00:11:16.760 From public school libraries.

00:11:17.900 Okay.

00:11:19.080 The fact that she can't string together a sentence if her life depended on it aside, 0.99

00:11:24.260 these are softball fucking questions Taylor's asking. 0.98

00:11:27.720 And you know, I happen to think Taylor is a good journalist. 0.99

00:11:30.300 But these aren't even tricky questions.

00:11:33.360 She's asking Haya the most basic, fundamental questions about her own belief system.

00:11:39.220 A belief system which she spends 25 hours a day espousing online for millions of followers

00:11:44.920 and an ungodly amount of money. 0.99

00:11:47.840 Do you believe in banning books? 1.00

00:11:49.680 What is the harm of trans people being themselves?

00:11:52.460 What do you believe? 0.98

00:11:54.600 And Haya's like, gee, I've never fucking thought about it before. 0.97

00:12:00.100 Haya Rechik has been labeled by many as a stochastic terrorist. 0.97

00:12:05.060 Stochastic terrorism is a form of terrorism where if you openly and directly target a

00:12:10.040 community with violent, slanderous rhetoric, as Haya does online with queer people every 0.54

00:12:15.120 single day, some form of violence is likely to transpire as a result of that rhetoric. 0.77

00:12:19.940 Like, if you keep lying to millions of people on Twitter that gay and trans people are posing 0.97

00:12:25.420 a real threat to children, for example. One of your followers is very likely going to take that 0.97

00:12:31.180 claim to its natural conclusion and do something fucking crazy. In response to credible accusations 0.98

00:12:38.340 that Chaya's online practices of targeting teachers, librarians, and schools is causing

00:12:42.980 real psychological harm to both school teachers and their students, Chaya laughed. USA Today

00:12:49.660 published a headline that read quote when libs of tiktok posts threats increasingly follow

00:12:55.820 chaya responded by holding up the newspaper and smiling with it for a photo which she then 0.84

00:13:01.980 made her profile picture on twitter because what the fuck else do you do when your primary goal 0.52

00:13:07.660 is as the libs of tiktok website states on its donation collecting tab protecting american 0.54

00:13:13.480 families. What better way to protect American families, American children, than to pose with

00:13:20.640 the newspaper calling you a terrorist threat to schools everywhere and make it your fucking 1.00

00:13:25.320 Twitter picture? Surely her goal with all of this isn't to, I don't know, monetize a culture war 0.99

00:13:32.720 whose ultimate victims are fucking transgender children who want to live their lives and 1.00

00:13:37.500 otherwise be left the fuck alone? Surely her goal isn't to become famous and end up with, 1.00

00:13:44.300 I don't know, a TV show on Fox News or, hey, a position in Trump's cabinet?

00:13:50.020 If Trump was re-elected, would you be interested in a job with his administration?

00:13:53.880 Uh, maybe.

00:13:55.060 No, no. This isn't about you, Chaya. It's not about your fame or money or career or influence. 0.95

00:14:02.880 It's about protecting the children from sexualization in schools, from those dirty, 1.00

00:14:09.000 dirty gay teachers. But not the straight ones, though, interestingly. Not from straight male 1.00

00:14:15.780 adults whose sexualization of young girls is famously, like, the most fucking common problem 0.99

00:14:21.640 when it comes to the sexualization of children. But that's none of my business. That's none of 0.99

00:14:26.940 your business, Chaya. No. What we need to protect the kids from, really, at the end of the day, 1.00

00:14:31.980 is that polyester fucking rainbow flag in a mug 1.00

00:14:35.040 on some teacher's desk in a conservative town in Oklahoma. 1.00

00:14:38.780 That is who is posing the real threat here.

00:14:42.060 And thank God we have Haya and her fans 0.99

00:14:45.040 threatening to blow up entire schools because of it.

00:14:48.320 Saving the children.

00:14:49.500 I mean, what the hell would we do without you?

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00:16:56.660 of this show and its listeners. Now back to the show. So why does Ryan Walters, this Ohio State

00:17:06.000 superintendent, appoint a Brooklynite turned Los Angeleno, former real estate agent turned

00:17:13.040 conservative hate monger who has self-admittedly only ever been to Oklahoma once to a position on

00:17:19.760 the Oklahoma Department of Education. Because this is America, you fucking idiot. We made a reality 1.00

00:17:26.120 TV competition host the fucking president. You can do anything you want as long as the vibes feel 1.00

00:17:31.440 right. Don't let your dreams be dreams. Don't limit yourself to being a Twitter influencer

00:17:36.420 when you can also be the person who eggs on real-life hate crimes in Oklahoma public schools

00:17:41.500 and get paid for it.

00:17:43.680 I mean, seriously,

00:17:45.000 diversifying revenue streams as a content creator

00:17:47.420 is vital these days.

00:17:49.480 I would know.

00:17:50.860 In 2022, Haya Rejcik targeted Tyler Wren, 0.99

00:17:54.660 a queer Oklahoman English teacher 1.00

00:17:56.860 who worked in Next Benedict's school district.

00:17:59.420 Tyler had posted a TikTok

00:18:01.120 where he told his students that he loved them

00:18:03.520 and was proud of them,

00:18:04.820 even if their parents weren't.

00:18:06.640 Haya shared the video to Libs of TikTok, 0.99

00:18:09.440 inspiring her followers to threaten

00:18:11.120 and harassed Tyler within an inch of his life, and amidst all of this, he was let go from the

00:18:15.920 school. According to Sue Benedict, Nex thought this was fucking ridiculous, which it was. 0.99

00:18:22.340 After news broke of Nex's death last week, people immediately began calling into question the role 0.99

00:18:27.940 that Haya Raychik may have played in it, and for good reason. Haya has been clearly and 0.97

00:18:34.220 intentionally making American public schools a place where nobody is allowed to openly express 0.93

00:18:39.240 any sort of gender variance and where no teacher can openly support LGBTQ children without the very

00:18:45.040 real fear of being exposed to Haya's millions of online followers through her editorialized

00:18:51.160 homophobic lens. I mean, what the fuck else are you going to do when telling students that you 0.98

00:18:56.400 love them just as they are could result in an entire school district being held hostage by 0.99

00:19:01.460 hateful internet psychopaths who genuinely think of themselves as crusaders for child justice?

00:19:07.340 Obviously, you're going to stay quiet. 0.71

00:19:09.660 Obviously, you're going to take down the rainbow flags and the safe space classroom signs.

00:19:15.480 Obviously, you're going to feel scared to reach out to a student who might appear to be struggling with themselves or with bullying for being themselves because you're scared someone's going to accuse you of having ulterior motives.

00:19:27.020 And obviously, these invisible forces will make any school feel more hostile and less safe, 0.84

00:19:32.780 particularly to LGBTQ students for whom school is already pretty fucking isolating to begin with. 0.79

00:19:38.820 When I was 15, I wasn't out to my family yet. 1.00

00:19:42.660 I was really struggling, as most queer kids do in this time between realizing you're different 0.99

00:19:47.720 but not knowing where it's safe to express those feelings. 0.92

00:19:50.760 One of the first people I came out to as gay was my health teacher at the time.

00:19:54.940 After class, when the rest of the students had filed out, I just asked her if she had a minute and I told her. And then, you know, her eyes turned black and the floor opened up beneath us and we both descended into the pits of hell as she laughed maniacally. 0.51

00:20:09.660 no nothing happened i told her i was gay and she was like okay that's okay and you know what 0.91

00:20:18.380 that's all i fucking needed someone to tell me that the world wasn't going to collapse that i 0.94

00:20:24.640 still had a future that it was fine that's what an accepting teacher can do it's not indoctrination 0.97

00:20:32.220 it's not an agenda it's not satan worship it's just making it more likely that that scared little 0.72

00:20:39.260 queer student is going to get up the following morning and keep going because they know they 0.90

00:20:44.700 aren't completely on their own. That's it. Anyway, nowhere has Haya Raychick wreaked more havoc

00:20:52.920 arguably than in Oklahoma, where Nex Benedict died after getting beat up in that school bathroom.

00:20:59.340 So when people started to point this out, how did Haya respond? Well, she posted a selfie on Twitter

00:21:05.600 doing a duck face and holding up a peace sign, with the caption,

00:21:09.640 good evening everyone, even to the haters and losers, kissing emoji. And then the following

00:21:15.120 day, posts yet another selfie, this time in different makeup and hair, but same post with 0.99

00:21:20.720 yet another caption, good afternoon everyone, even the haters, losers, and liars, kissy face. 0.98

00:21:27.280 When people on Twitter called her the queen of stochastic terrorism and quote, 0.98

00:21:31.480 murderer alert, she satirically retweeted those claims as if to say, you know, jokes on you, 1.00

00:21:38.880 I'm owning these titles. Is this the response of someone who cares deeply about the welfare of

00:21:47.180 children? I mean, I don't know. I feel like someone who genuinely cares about the safety

00:21:53.280 and well-being of school children, you know, the belief that Haya's career claims to be built on,

00:21:58.700 would express somewhere in all of this mourning, devastation, sorrow. A kid is fucking dead. 1.00

00:22:08.860 But no, no, not you, Chaya. You are gallivanting around the internet, posting meme after meme, 1.00

00:22:16.900 mocking people who dare to question your potential involvement with the death of a high school 1.00

00:22:20.780 sophomore, like it's a big fucking joke to you. Where's the compassion? Why this unrelenting, 1.00

00:22:29.040 heartless cruelty? I could tell you why. None of these people care about children.

00:22:36.760 Not higher age chick, not Ryan Walters, not any conservative media personality on Fox News, 0.99

00:22:43.180 not any politician who runs platforms on protecting children from transgender mental 0.54

00:22:48.780 illness or the woke mind virus or parents' rights or whatever, these people do not care 0.57

00:22:55.060 about children. You, the listener, you might. You, a follower or a fan of one of these people,

00:23:02.700 might. But they don't. Or at least, I feel extremely comfortable saying that their primary

00:23:09.400 goal in discussing the protection of children is not the protection of children. It's just not.

00:23:16.020 Their primary goal in discussing the protection of children is enriching themselves, and in

00:23:21.120 more ways than one. 0.91

00:23:22.580 Maybe it's monetizing viral tweets about gay teachers they're baselessly accusing of being 0.98

00:23:27.460 predators. 0.95

00:23:28.540 Maybe it's stirring up fear among the constituents they represent in government enough so that

00:23:33.220 those constituents will vote for them again.

00:23:35.620 Maybe it's money.

00:23:36.860 Maybe it's ratings.

00:23:38.040 Maybe it's re-elections. 0.50

00:23:40.200 You know, Florida's Don't Say Gay Bill.

00:23:42.440 Remember the bill which prevents teachers from mentioning anything relating to gender or sexuality in grade schools? 1.00

00:23:49.340 That created national controversy, which allowed Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, to position himself as a savior and protector of children, bravely defending their innocence from the scary drag queens. 0.99

00:24:03.180 And yeah, the Don't Say Gay bill pissed off a lot of queer people, but not everyone was so discerning about its real motivations. 0.99

00:24:09.640 not everyone could see from the get-go that the goal of such a law is ultimately to make queerness

00:24:16.240 something that's inappropriate to discuss or publicly exist in polite society. Not everyone

00:24:22.900 knows or is willing to know that if Ron DeSantis had it his way, gay and trans people wouldn't 0.88

00:24:28.280 exist. Not in public, not in their homes, not at all. No. When they see Ron DeSantis approve the 0.88

00:24:36.100 don't say gay bill, they see someone who is bravely, as Ron DeSantis claims, taking practical 0.95

00:24:42.160 measures to prevent the sexualization of children. That's what he says he's doing, anyway. And they 0.55

00:24:48.100 believe him. And then look, Ron DeSantis becomes a household name, known across the country for

00:24:54.400 being a brave culture warrior, fighting on behalf of the sweet children everywhere. And hey, one

00:25:00.240 year later, he runs for fucking president. And one of the main pillars of his platform is this 0.99

00:25:06.040 save the children from the gays bullshit. Everyone wants to protect kids. Conservatives frame all of 1.00

00:25:14.580 this culture war shit as people who care about kids versus people who don't, which is a lie. 0.99

00:25:21.340 And they know it. We all care about kids. We all care about kids. But they think you're fucking 0.99

00:25:29.060 stupid. They think that if they dangle this carrot in front of your face and say, look, 1.00

00:25:34.520 this is why children are at risk and this is why child sex abuse happens it's because of the queer

00:25:41.740 people it's because of the teachers with rainbow flags it's because of the drag queens and i can 1.00

00:25:48.420 take them down they will dangle that carrot in front of you for fucking forever if it means 1.00

00:25:54.140 you'll keep giving them views keep giving them money keep voting them into office they need a 0.99

00:26:00.800 villain to save you from. Your poor, innocent, straight children are at risk. And you need them

00:26:06.580 to protect your children from this scary, pedophilic drag queen that they've fucking 1.00

00:26:12.000 invented. And it's all a big fucking lie. You know why? Because the way child abuse actually happens 1.00

00:26:19.960 is fucking complicated. And it's impossible to capture in a single story or trope. It's messy 0.99

00:26:26.200 and uncomfortable to talk about, because that means grappling with the fact that the vast

00:26:30.580 majority of child sexual abuse isn't perpetrated by a scary stranger, or a trans person in a

00:26:36.540 bathroom, or a drag queen at Saturday afternoon family drag bingo. The vast majority of child 0.62

00:26:43.400 sexual abuse is perpetrated by someone who is intimately close with the victim, and roughly

00:26:48.440 40% of abusers are the victim's relative. And while we're at it, most child molesters are

00:26:54.520 statistically heterosexual men. And you know what else is hard to grapple with? The fact that

00:27:00.160 talking to kids about sex from an early age is one of the most effective ways to protect them

00:27:05.120 from abuse. You want to know why? Because a kid who doesn't understand what sex looks like,

00:27:10.540 what consent is, what body parts they have, is that much more vulnerable to being abused by an adult 1.00

00:27:16.300 because that kid won't know what the fuck is going on and won't know who to tell or even what to tell 0.97

00:27:21.720 or even that something happened that was worth telling someone. 0.99

00:27:25.640 Look, I get it. 0.99

00:27:28.100 It's fucking uncomfortable that we have to talk to kids about sex. 0.99

00:27:32.420 In the average adult mind, 0.99

00:27:34.220 kids and sex belong nowhere in the same sentence.

00:27:37.680 But when studies show that giving them comprehensive sex education

00:27:41.840 from a young age is among the best ways to keep them safe, 0.98

00:27:46.140 what the fuck does it matter if we're uncomfortable? 0.97

00:27:48.640 You want to talk a big game about caring about kids? Well, care about kids. But these people, 0.98

00:27:57.040 these culture warriors, these media personalities and politicians, they don't care about kids.

00:28:02.860 They care about crafting an image of caring about kids. They care about the aesthetic of

00:28:09.480 caring about kids. Because everything we know about keeping kids safe, safe from abuse, safe

00:28:15.300 from isolation, safe from hating themselves for who they are. These people don't want to do it

00:28:20.520 because it makes them uncomfortable. Because this is not about kids. This is about them

00:28:27.180 and their image and their careers. But you're a good person. You want to save children.

00:28:34.740 You want to protect them from evil. Why wouldn't you? So when some devious fucking politician or

00:28:41.340 influencer or news broadcaster tells you that they have the solution to child abuse, 0.99

00:28:46.860 why wouldn't you give them some money and a vote? Why face the complicated, uncomfortable reality

00:28:52.260 of what it means to protect children when you could just fucking unconditionally support some 1.00

00:28:57.220 guy in a suit who says he'll deal with it by stomping out the queers from public life? 1.00

00:29:02.360 Wouldn't that be easy? Yeah, it would be easy. But the reality of these issues isn't. 1.00

00:29:08.540 And so at the end of the day, you can vote for the guy who will remove every pro-gay faculty member from schools, who will ban fucking drag queen bingo from any venue within half a mile of a school, who will ban life-saving healthcare for kids, who will force trans children to use restrooms they feel unsafe and uncomfortable in, force them to play on the wrong sports team, deadname and misgender them to death, to death, after death. 0.99

00:29:34.940 and you can retweet every libs of tiktok video claiming that some teacher in oklahoma is dangerous 0.99

00:29:41.640 to children because he said he'd support them and love them even if their parents don't 0.99

00:29:45.300 you can dox all the teachers and doctors and anyone else fucking higher rate chick tells you 1.00

00:29:50.700 is the reason kids are in danger you can round up every queer person and put them in fucking 1.00

00:29:56.520 concentration camps and you know how many kids you will have helped zero zero 1.00

00:30:04.880 But you'll have hurt a lot fucking more than that. 0.96

00:30:08.220 I mean, yeah, there's the kids that are gay and trans who will feel even more isolated and unsafe in their own bodies, obviously. 0.99

00:30:16.360 They'll hate themselves. 1.00

00:30:17.880 They'll hurt themselves.

00:30:19.400 And they'll hate you too, by the way.

00:30:21.700 Good luck getting invited to your child's Christmas party in 15 years. 0.97

00:30:25.060 And then there's the straight cisgender kids. 1.00

00:30:27.640 Some of whom you will not only have turned into total assholes, unable to accept any level of difference or diversity, 1.00

00:30:34.760 But all these kids, the gay ones and the straight ones, trans and cis, will be fucking terrified to express themselves. 0.99

00:30:42.720 Any level of gender variation or exploration or creativity or love or art turns into a hostage situation. 0.97

00:30:50.180 Deviating from the norm is dangerous and bad. 0.99

00:30:53.020 Life is to be lived in black and white or not at all.

00:30:56.260 And those are just the kids that live.

00:30:58.040 because you'll also have next benedict the 16 year old who was beaten within an inch of their life 0.98

00:31:04.520 by three other girls in a fucking high school bathroom who was unable to walk to the nurse by 0.98

00:31:09.700 themselves who not a single teacher called medical assistance for who collapsed dead the following 0.99

00:31:15.200 day next benedict who is dead whose mother now has an empty chair at her dinner table and who

00:31:21.440 will never come home again but who cares right ryan walters still gets to be the oklahoma school

00:31:27.980 superintendent. He gets to continue his crusade against porn in school libraries, whatever the

00:31:33.800 fuck that means. Haya Raychik is still serving as a media advisor on the Board of Education of 0.99

00:31:39.140 Oklahoma, a place she's been to once. And she still gets to run her fucking Twitter account, 1.00

00:31:44.520 where she posts selfies mocking the death of a trans child in the name of Save the Children. 1.00

00:31:50.440 She's making more money than ever. Her selfie wishing a good evening to the haters and losers 0.99

00:31:55.840 is pinned on her Twitter profile where all of her tweets are monetized according to how many views 0.99

00:32:01.060 they get, where any attempt to curtail her reach or influence has gone out the fucking window 1.00

00:32:06.700 because Elon Musk has crawled up her asshole and created a home there. So who cares if a child was 1.00

00:32:13.300 bludgeoned to death? At least we can all keep feeling like we're defending the children, right?

00:32:18.840 I mean, they might die, sure, but at least they won't be queer, right? 1.00

00:32:25.000 This is fucking embarrassing. 1.00

00:32:27.620 Have we lost the plot entirely? 0.99

00:32:31.300 I have no hope for people who have staked out a position to profit from fear-mongering about queer people and children.

00:32:38.720 The politicians who have built campaigns off of creating a fake panic about some of the most marginalized people in American society so that they can win re-elections.

00:32:48.840 The influencers who have monetized the paranoia they've instilled in you.

00:32:53.820 Haya Raychik.

00:32:55.140 I have no hope for her. 0.99

00:32:56.700 I find her morally vacuous. 1.00

00:32:58.520 And as far as I'm concerned, she can go fuck herself forever. 1.00

00:33:02.260 Dancing on the grave of a dead child in the name of protecting children. 1.00

00:33:06.940 The good news is, I don't think the average person is too far gone.

00:33:11.720 You, the listener.

00:33:13.300 You, who was perhaps sent this podcast by your child or a friend. 0.99

00:33:18.120 I remain completely hopeful that the average person who buys into this bullshit in one way 0.98

00:33:24.480 or another is capable of learning new information that changes their perspective. And if I can't 0.99

00:33:31.200 hold on to that hope, what's the point? What do we have? What optimism can I maintain for

00:33:37.780 the 14-year-old me, you know, the little gay boy who would sweat himself to sleep thinking about 0.99

00:33:43.640 how he needed to marry a woman. So go. Turn around. Love your child. Love all children. Love 0.99

00:33:51.780 gay children and trans children and non-binary children and children who are figuring it out

00:33:57.000 and children who are confused and children who have questions and children who feel certain.

00:34:02.340 Love them and protect them. Not protecting them in a way that is ultimately only of service to you

00:34:08.860 in your quest to feel like you're protecting them, 0.98

00:34:11.860 but in ways that actually fucking protect them. 0.98

00:34:14.840 Because they are suffering in silence 0.99

00:34:16.820 and sometimes dying and they need you.

00:34:20.840 Thank you for listening.

00:34:22.820 I love you very much, very, very much.

00:34:25.700 And until next time, stay fruity.

A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein - February 27, 2024

Conservatives Don’t Care About Your Kids

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