ADAMS: We talked about things like transparency and all these kinds of things, interactions with our schools. You mentioned secrecy and teacher involvement and stuff. Again, let me reiterate: we’re not talking about every teacher but clearly there are those who have become activists on these issues.
Then [00:30] there are probably those who are going along to get along because of threats. They’re afraid they’re going to lose their job, they’re afraid of consequences that may happen to them. Have you had conversations—you’ve been very involved with your school and so forth—have you had any conversations? Have you delved into that space? Let’s talk about that just a little bit. [01:00]
Then I’d like to shift into…I know you’ve formed an organization to help parents with this stuff. Let’s go into that some and what you’re learning, what you’ve experienced, what you’re doing to help parents in these situations.
FRIDAY: Let me start out with the fact that there are many teachers that are also indoctrinated and they’ve been [01:30] told relentlessly that they’re saving children’s lives by keeping these secrets from parents and promoting this transgenderism.
I do believe that many of them believe in their heart of hearts that that is true, that they’re preventing suicide. Because they’re told it and they’re not told the other side of the coin. They need to actually understand that this is different [02:00] than a child being gay. It gets very [confusing]. Nobody wants to be on the wrong side of that. This is very different than, years ago, parents not supporting their gay children.
Teachers owe it to their students to actually understand what transgenderism is, first and foremost. If they want to safeguard children [02:30] they have to understand that parents are there 365 days a year. We don’t leave after three o’clock, we don’t leave on the weekends or over Christmas break or summer break. We need to be in the know.
Teachers who are doing this, they know what they’re doing is wrong. You don’t have an excuse. I’m sorry, I’m not forgiving in that realm at all. Lose your job for a child. What would you do for a child [03:00] morality-wise? You can get a new job. You can file a lawsuit. There is no excuse to hurt a child like this. Zero.
There are lots of law firms that will take your case gratis to file the suits to protect children. What is more precious in our lives than children?
ADAMS: Yeah.
FRIDAY: We are the only people who can protect them, we adults. We are required, compelled to do it [03:30] regardless of the financial cost. There will be more jobs for you.
I think that’s really important, for people to stand up. The time is now.
ADAMS: Yeah.
FRIDAY: And parents—I want to talk a little bit about what parents can do to protect your children. There are books out there: Raising Your Child in a Transgender World by Erin Brewer, [04:00] which is a book I would recommend. Parents need to know what is going on in their schools. I was naive. You need to be in that classroom and you need to look at every book that’s on that shelf.
You need to read every assignment before your child does the assignment. You need to go to that school and pop in on those classes. You need to not use the school iPad. Again, these are costs, but these schools are tracking children through their [04:30] iPads. You need to opt them out of every course that you can opt them out of. Every survey—opt them out. That is your right.
You find out a third party is coming to speak at that school, you pull your kid from it. Know about these euphemisms. “You be you” clubs or equity clubs. They sound nice. But know what they’re being taught. A lot of the schools are hiding these [05:00] classes now. They have the classes at lunch time. Be in the know.
It’s insane to me that we actually have to be so involved at the schools to make sure the teachers are not teaching our kids gender ideology. Which they are. Look around the classroom and see if your child’s name—if there’s a different pronoun. Send in requests for records. That’s your right. [05:30] Find out what your child’s name is being used as at school. These are your federal rights.
Pull your kid from the public school if you have an inkling that this teacher may be an indoctrinator. It is painful, it is expensive, but what would you do to save your child’s bodily integrity? You’d pull your child out?
Money talks. You talked about money. [06:00] Each one of these children is worth over a million dollars to the medical community. They are life-long medical patients. They have a higher likelihood of suicide post-transition. They don't talk about this. They use these surveys to make up these numbers—the numbers are just not true.
The real numbers? Okay, sorry, I’m going to get a little deep. [06:30] There’s a study of four gender clinics in the United States. They’re supposed to be the “biggest,” “most premier,” whatever we want to call them. The experts. 315 kids went on cross-sex hormones or puberty blockers. Within one year, two of them had committed suicide. That’s over fifty times the average for this age group.
Is this life saving? It is not. [07:00] It is life ending. People need to hear that and understand that. They’re actually setting up a child for failure if they push this ideology. We’re going to have to have massive suicides ten, fifteen years from now. The detransitioners are growing as fast as people are transitioning.
And I work with them! [07:30] Their sorrow and their physical pain is real.
ADAMS: Yeah. You started an organization, if I understand correctly, called Our Duty. Talk to us a little bit about that.
FRIDAY: Well, I did not start it. It was started in the UK. It’s an international group of parents and advocates. I am the co-lead in the Western region of the [08:00] United States. It is a group that offers support for parents, we also offer to find attorneys for people who are willing to sue both with detransitioners, parents, kids who were harmed.
We also do a lot of advocacy in that we hold rallies. We’re going to have one in May. We’re going to the Pediatric Endocrine Society in [08:30] San Diego because they’re the ones meting out these poisons into our children. We testify. We put together parents who are willing to talk to the press, we write letters. We do a lot of advocacy to raise awareness and get people moving, because there’s no one coming in to save us.
I know you talked a little bit about politics, but [09:00] this has been pushed as a political issue. It’s not. The Republicans seem to be fighting for it, the Democrats—the rank and file Democrats—we’re against this. Nobody’s listening to us. I go to Sacramento weekly as a Democrat. Thirty-seven years as a Democrat. They basically—they do! They ignore us.
They want to move this into a political thing; that we’re bigots and we’re hateful [09:30] because it helps continue this horrid—horrible thing to our children by saying it’s a Republican/Democrat issue. It’s not. It’s child-safeguarding. Anyone who loves a child should be fighting.
ADAMS: I totally agree with what you’re saying right there. Politics wants to sort of follow everything and make it a political wedge [10:00] issue.
These things—they’ve become political but they’re not at their core political. They’re ethical, they’re moral, they are societal, communal, family-centric. I think what is absolutely critical—and I appreciate the work you’re doing to try to make awareness, [10:30] to try to organize and mobilize parents on these issues. That’s so important.
What we’re finding is that many parents…they’re concerned but they don’t know where to start. They don’t know what to do, they don’t know who to reach out to. Our basic philosophy is, “Look, talk to your neighbors. Talk to the people [11:00] closest to you. Make it as local an issue as possible and fight for change where you are.” Engage as a community. Come to agreement on what’s the right thing to do, what you will accept and what you refuse to accept, particularly as it relates to our schools and what our schools are teaching or what our schools are hiding [11:30] or any and all of those topics.
At the end of the day, even in our schools, there’s a way that parents and citizens can get the upper hand. It boils down becoming aware, organizing and networking around your values. Then taking action around those values. [12:00] School board members are the stewards of our schools and if they school board members will not stand up and force our schools to do what’s right for our communities and our families, they need to be replaced. It’s really, really simple.
It means we run people who share our concerns and our values and we replace those who don’t. We provide[12:30] resources as an organization at Noah Webster Educational Foundation for school board candidates and all of those kinds of things.
Bottom line is, we believe it’s the parents who have the ultimate authority, responsibility, and the most interest in the well-being of our children. Schools do and can, but far and away [13:00] it’s the parents who have to lead that conversation and own that conversation. And make sure we’re doing the right things for our kids.
FRIDAY: I couldn’t agree with you more. Look, I’m not an advocate by trade. I didn’t go to school for this. I just did. That’s what I tell parents: just do. Go to that school board [13:30] meeting. You get two minutes. Bring some friends, start talking. Be brave. It gets more comfortable, courage begets courage.
ADAMS: Yeah.
As we’re moving into a close for this session—first of all, thank you for being with us today. I really appreciate you coming on. This is a difficult thing to talk about because it’s very personal for you.
Tell us what you’d like [14:00] about your own journey with your daughter, if you’re seeing light at the end of the tunnel on this. I know these are ongoing processes and we can’t really pin it all down, but talk to us about some of the hopefulness that you have and have experienced. Then talk to parents out there who may be listening, or it might be grandparents who are listening. [14:30] What can you encourage them with?
FRIDAY: I am very hopeful with my daughter. She’s only sixteen so I’ve got a long way. We’re also in California so the pull of transgenderism is everywhere. It's in advertising, it’s at the grocery store, it’s on TV, it’s in movies. It’s in their phones.
I’m optimistic that [15:00] her comfort in her female body will stick but, I have to admit, I’m terrified. I sleep with one eye open and I don’t know where to send her for college, if I do send her for college. These are real issues—I won’t sleep soundly until she’s twenty-five and that frontal lobe is matured where she understands long term consequences.
For parents out there, and grandparents, it’s [15:30] really important for them to hold the line. For them to be the voice of reality with love, compassion. And understanding that these kids really feel what they feel. It’s not funny, it’s not a joke. They’re caught up in a cult and when they’re angry, you have to go back for more. You have to take the anger. That’s your job as a parent.
We are not [16:00] supposed to be friends with our children until later in life. They can hate you, that’s okay. That means you set up boundaries. You need to hold the line, take over control of that phone, over the internet. It’s hard. It’s painful. But you have to do it, especially if the kids are young—you have a great opportunity to reset your child.
You also have to give your child an [16:30] off ramp. Because, again, these kids get love-bombed when they’re trans. They become untouchable, they become special. They become brave. Maybe they can’t do that change staying at the same school so you have to maybe put them in another school. You’re going to have to throw some money at the issue, even if you don’t have the money. It’s better to take that college [17:00] fund and use it in a way to get your child out of this, go on a long vacation where she or he is working with their body to understand how amazing the human body is as it is.
Use your extended family to help you. Don’t be afraid of following your gut; the gut is always right. Even if you say, “Oh, I [17:30] can’t do this. She’s going to be angry with me.” Let her be angry with you because she’s going to be angry with you later when you let this happen to her. They want your child. It’s your child. Remember that: this is your child and it’s your obligation to give your child the future.
ADAMS: Erin, you are sharing some very powerful things with us today. No doubt there are people [18:00] listening who are grappling with this issue, or they know someone who is grappling with this issue in their own family.
So I want to ask you: do you have a contact that you could share where they could reach out to you or to other entities to get help?
FRIDAY: For parents and grandparents who are looking for support if they have a gender-confused child, they [18:30] should join Parents of Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria Kids. That’s a support group and it’s done state-by-state. It’s a national group. I lead our northern California group. That’s more for getting advice for how to handle the day-to-day.
There’s also Partners For Ethical Care. That’s an advocacy [19:00] and support group. There’s my group which is OurDuty.group. We are more of an advocacy group. There’s also Advocates Protecting Children which is another support group.
Then, for science, if you want to understand the science behind this, I would go to [19:30] segn.org. It tracks all the scientific studies, what’s happening in Europe, what puberty blockers do, what cross-sex hormones do. There’s a lot out there for parents who are looking for words on how to get their child out of this.
I would recommend Desist, Detrans & Detox: Getting Your Child Out of the Gender Cult, a book by Maria Keffler. [20:00] I used it to help with the words that I needed to say to my child. There’s also a podcast called Gender: A Wider Lens and that gives a lot of advice on how to talk to your child. I would look at detransitioner videos also to understand how the children got into this and how they got out of it.
There’s a lot out there now, [20:30] which is amazing. When we entered this forum there wasn’t a lot of literature written, and now there is. There’s a lot of help. Don’t feel alone. You are not alone. There are thousands of us.
ADAMS: Well, that's excellent. We’ll have the team put this in the program notes for this episode as well. [21:00] If you’re a listener and you’re looking for help and resources, we want to help you any way we can. Take a look at the program notes, pick up those resources that we just shared with you.
Keep at it, because your child matters.