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June 21, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:23:54
Beyond Growth
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Dennis Prager here.
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Hi everybody, welcome to the Dennis Prager Show.
It's Wednesday, therefore next hour is the male-female hour.
It was a little promo.
So, the oxygen by now would have been exhausted.
The oxygen supply, so it's very difficult to imagine that these five people will be rescued.
My prayer...
Was that whatever caused their death, if indeed they're dead, came fast.
It's the suffering and terror that more concerned me.
And I have nothing more to report on that because there's nothing more to report.
To the extent that it is, however, relevant, And it is relevant to the times in which we live.
I would have noted this even if it had been successful, the submarine immersion in, what is it, a mile and a half, two miles?
What is it?
How deep down were they supposed to go?
13,000 feet or something.
Yeah, 12,000 feet.
Anyway, I would have played this anyway.
There's apparently an audio.
Is there a video as well?
I think there's a video as well, yeah, of the CEO of the company.
There's audio of the CEO. It's on someone's podcast, and he's playing an audio.
Oh, sorry.
That's what I asked.
Is there a video as well?
So it's not.
It's not a video of the CEO speaking, but it's a video of this guy's podcast.
So you're seeing...
We have a video.
So we have a video of the podcast, but not the video of the man saying it?
He's saying it off camera?
As it were, yeah.
Of saying that normally in such hiring for someone to captain the ship or whatever the term would be for one of these submarine voyages, that they purposely would not take the normal choice which would be a middle-aged white man because it doesn't inspire young people.
With regard to Submariner work, I hope that goes viral.
That's all I can say.
The war on merit is the war on civilization.
The West was the one civilization for centuries, if not more than a millennium.
Wherein merit was rewarded, and that is the reason, if there is a the reason, as opposed to a major reason, for the success of the West.
People were not chosen based on blood, on family, or even largely on bribery.
They were chosen on merit.
It destroys everything.
It touches, and it is destroying Western civilization.
I have another proof that they're destroying Western civilization.
Did you see, are you familiar with the Beyond Growth Conference in Europe?
Yeah.
I watched a good chunk of it.
I mean, it's hours.
I was mesmerized.
Their aim is to stop growth.
That's why it's called Beyond Growth.
They believe that growth is a white supremacist, capitalist, which is the same to them, idea.
Well, they didn't even know.
No, what I heard was not preying on, believe it or not, on poorer nations.
I'm sure that's part of it because they spoke of white colonialism.
What they are really against...
Is the notion within the West that there should be economic growth.
One should learn to enjoy life with economic shrinking.
That was the constant theme.
The idea that we want the economy to grow is a bad idea.
These are sick people.
Every leftist is sick.
Because they want to crush our civilization.
Because it uses resources.
It uses resources, yes.
But even if we were fully green, they are anti-growth.
Green is anti-growth.
That's the point of the conference.
And people should understand that.
If you want your children to be materially worse off, if you want unemployment to skyrocket because people will have no money to buy goods that people make and ship, Then you support the Greens and the left.
They couldn't be more clear.
I wish I could just devote three hours to people listening to the Beyond Growth Conference.
They're communists.
In all their rhetoric, they are communists.
But isn't what is behind this idea that if you...
I'm going to repeat you.
Isn't what behind the idea that if you're for growth, yeah, you're using up resources.
Yes, but the resources, and it's not just merely using up resources, you're going to destroy the planet.
You're going to destroy the planet.
Right, so even if we're green.
Yeah, so, okay.
That is one of their claims.
You will...
It's a war on Mother Earth.
They worship the Earth.
But that is...
There is a deep desire to have people poorer.
They say it.
I didn't make this up.
We are all, except for the poor, too wealthy.
And we need time for care.
They kept repeating that.
We need time to care for one another.
They live in a make-believe.
They're all children.
Every leftist is a child.
Liberals are naive, but leftists are children, spoiled children.
And they get up there and they salute one another and give each other standing ovations for saying this.
We should care for one another.
And what is stopping us is the pursuit of economic growth.
No, what is stopping us is secularism.
As it happens.
Since religious people care for one another a hell of a lot more, every piece of data is that they volunteer more time than non-religious people.
Who's going to contribute to the caring groups when there's no economic growth?
Who's going to give that money?
Every day.
More data on how sick and bad the left is.
They're spoiled, bored.
That's key.
They're bored.
Economic growth is boring.
I couldn't believe what I was watching.
I don't know how.
Did you send me any link to it?
Oh, is that it?
Well, you mesmerized me.
I'm going to have to play some excerpts regularly for people to understand what's in store for them.
They hate the fact that you have two cars and a home.
They hate it!
It's like Marx.
He hated religion because people would find solace and comfort in it and not make a revolution.
If you have a car, if you have two cars and a house in the suburbs, you won't make the revolution.
And then you won't live John Lennon's Imagine.
That's what they do, they imagine.
Wow.
You have the CEO there?
What, do you have his name?
Do we have the guy's name?
It just says the CEO of Ocean Gate?
Yeah.
That's the name of the owners or leasers or whatever of the submarine?
They're the ones who made it.
They're the ones who made it?
Yeah.
Okay, so here's the CEO. What was the podcast?
Do we have the name of that?
No.
So we're convinced it's authentic, correct?
You'll hear it.
In the age of AI, I'm telling you, I'm getting worried.
No, this is not AI. Okay.
Go ahead, Sean.
Listen to what he talks about.
The CEO talks about hiring people.
Yes, I mean, when I started the business, one of the things you'll find, there are other sub-operators out there, but they typically have gentlemen who are ex-military submariners, and you'll see a whole bunch of 50-year-old white guys.
I wanted our team to be younger, to be inspirational.
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the CEO, Stockton Rush, that is that the gentleman's name, mentioned that he didn't want a white man, a middle-aged white man.
That's what submariners usually are to captain such submarines as the one that they made that appears to have failed.
My heart goes out to these people, obviously.
But he said, this is the key, it doesn't inspire young people to pursue submariner work if they see a middle-aged white guy.
They should see a 25-year-old.
I have a lot of thoughts on that because I have lived the life of someone who has tried to inspire young people from the age of 25. I am one of the few people who can actually say I've done this at 25 and now all these decades later.
And my following among young people is far greater today than it was when I was young.
Young people are very inspired by older people.
Leftists are not.
The woke are not.
Fools are not.
The average young person?
In fact, I would argue that if a young person saw a 25-year-old manning this type of submarine and a 50-year-old manning this, The young person would trust the 50-year-old more.
Somebody my age is running this submarine?
Really?
It's that easy?
This is one of the oldest idiocies.
The youth are inspired by the youth.
Yes, sometimes they are.
Of course that's true.
But it's not a rule.
It's not even a generalizable statement.
They're inspired by inspiring people.
How many young people have this particular bond with a grandparent?
How do you explain that?
God.
All right, Sean.
Let's continue with the idiocy from the CEO of this submarine maker.
So we've really tried to get very intelligent, motivated, younger individuals involved because we're doing things that are completely new.
We're taking approaches that are used largely in the aerospace industry as related to safety and some of the preponderance of checklists, things we do for risk assessments and things like that that are more aviation related than ocean related.
And we can train people to do that.
We can train someone to pilot the sub.
We use a game controller so anybody can drive the sub.
Mm-hmm.
Didn't work out, did it?
Who drove that sub?
Do we know what the age was of the person who, as he put it, drove that sub?
But he also, did you hear that in the beginning?
White guy?
The racist, leftist ideas have so permeated society.
That's pure, undiluted racism.
Pure.
There is systemic racism in the country, but it is all on the left.
All the systemic racism, not all the racism, there are individual racists across the spectrum, but all the systemic racism emanates from the left.
There is a story that riveted me indescribably.
You know, we hear about people transitioning.
That's the term they use for people who fool themselves into believing that they can become the other sex.
Just for the record, A man cannot become a woman and a woman cannot become a man.
You can look like a woman if you're a man.
You can take a woman's name.
We all acknowledge that.
By the way, my solution to the pronoun problem and all of that is the solution has always been with us.
I call a person by what they seem to be.
I don't ask my waitress, are you a female?
If she looks like a female, for all I know, she transitioned.
I'll still say she.
I'll still say thank you, ma'am.
Why is this a complex issue?
We call people by how they appear.
That has been true for all of the history of our civilization.
You refer to people by what they appear.
They don't tell you.
Nobody shows up at one's table at a restaurant and says, I just want you to know I'm male.
If you have to tell people, it's a problem.
But nobody talks about the effect of transition on loved ones.
Particularly...
Friends and family, and particularly family, and particularly an adult.
We're supposed to, this is part of the pride totalitarianism.
You will not only respect us or tolerate us, you will honor us.
You will honor people for transitioning.
We will all take pride in them.
So there's a piece.
Did you see this piece, Alan?
How my husband became a woman after 25 years of marriage?
I'm going to read this to everybody.
It is so heartbreaking.
But nobody cares about that.
Oh, my husband became a woman.
Isn't that wonderful?
Let me take pride in that.
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Well, come on pretty baby, won't you walk with me?
Come on pretty baby, won't you talk with me?
I wonder how these women who have been married for decades and then their husband says he's a woman.
Is she supposed to celebrate Pride Month?
So this is sort of like the, you will like it.
That's what this is.
The pride thing is truly totalitarian.
You will not only tolerate, you will not only even accept, you will celebrate.
You don't celebrate, you're going to be ruined.
You will be crushed.
Every, what is it?
He said it.
30, 40 years ago, the man who grew up a communist, David Horowitz.
Every leftist is a communist.
I thought it was a drop over the top, but I so knew nobody, I would say the only person I know who knew communism better than I was David Horowitz.
He grew up one.
So here's a story, Daily Mail, how my husband became a woman after 25 years of marriage.
Okay.
I'm not reading you the entire thing, it's quite long, but I begin in the third paragraph.
I knew he was a good person, that he loved me and the children, and I understood that he had grown up in a very traditional middle-class family, where something like cross-dressing would have been totally unacceptable.
I decided...
I could live with it.
The story began with, I don't know when or even if my ex-husband was ever planning to tell me.
In the event, I found out by mistake when I discovered him at home wearing the red camisole and knickers.
It's a Brit.
That's underwear.
From La Perla that he had given me for Christmas.
He had thought I was out.
The most enormous shock.
Time froze for a few seconds.
Was that red lipstick he was wearing?
Deep down I must have known he wasn't telling me the whole truth.
For one day, when everyone was out, I went up into the attic, which he always organized, for a look around, and there I found it.
A suitcase I didn't recognize, containing size 9 heels.
This is not about discrimination or transphobia, a term I had never heard of when I discovered that suitcase ten years ago.
I've always been a huge advocate of compassion and support for people who wish to express or become the gender they feel they are inside.
All I ask is that their families do not become collateral damage.
The left never asks about collateral damage.
Let's have lockdowns.
Yes, tens of thousands of restaurants and other small businesses will be crushed.
That's collateral damage.
Families...
Ruin because dad becomes a woman?
It's collateral damage.
The current revolution in all matters related to gender means more and more people in their 40s and 50s are admitting what was previously a secret, leaving wives and children to deal, often overnight, with a radically different version of the person they love.
And yet, all too often, those wives and children are not afforded compassion and support themselves.
Of course not.
According to the left, your husband becomes a woman?
Oh, you're to love her!
Oh, darling, that is so beautiful that you're expressing your inner self.
That's what I wanted when I married.
A man who says he's a woman.
That is really, it's almost an aphrodisiac.
And yet all too often, those wives and children are not afforded compassion and support themselves, but instead are cast aside or forgotten, or even accused of bigotry.
Today people talk about trans widows and trans orphans.
That's right.
That doesn't matter to the left.
You are rubbish.
Or as they'd say in Yorkshire, rubbish.
You're rubbish, love.
Hello there, everybody.
Nobody talks about the collateral damage of all these people who transition.
The damage to parents when their daughter says she's a boy.
The damage to siblings.
My sister is now my brother.
Oh, you're supposed to march in the pride parade, kid.
This is one of the greatest things that's ever happened in your life.
Your sister is now your brother.
What are you, a bigot?
There is a narcissism in the LGBT activist's world that is unmatched anywhere in society.
We will do what we want, when we want, and if it hurts anybody in our family, they're scum.
That's it.
That's their motto.
So here is a woman married 25 years to a man she loved and he loved her.
And now he's in dresses and lipstick and high heels.
And what is she supposed to do, LGBT people?
March in a pride parade?
What would you recommend she do?
Nobody at NBC, ABC, CBS, New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, NPR. None of them talk about that.
The collateral damage, as she puts it, are worthless.
Worthless.
Why continue?
Today, people talk about trans widows and trans orphans.
I want to tell my family story because I know cases like ours are not uncommon, but are largely untold.
By the way, she doesn't give her name.
Which I don't blame her.
I mean, it's a family issue.
It was clear the marriage was doomed.
No kidding.
And eventually I plucked up the courage to tell him I wanted a divorce once the children were older.
He agreed, but said he wanted an open marriage until then.
Starting now, after initially denying it, he admitted he'd been having sex with other people dressed as a woman.
Well, I presume that it was with men.
Okay.
It's odd that she said people.
I would love to know.
Because I'm thinking of a woman, certainly a heterosexual woman, would not want to have sex with a man who says he's a woman and dresses accordingly.
Would a lesbian want to have relations with a woman who had a male body?
Wouldn't be a lesbian.
Then she wouldn't be a lesbian, as you say.
Oh, alright, anyway.
He had also been spending a lot of money on trips, clothes, and hotels using a separate bank account.
I agreed to an open marriage if that meant we could delay divorcing.
But a few months later, the situation began to spiral.
He stopped hiding evidence of cross-dressing.
I began to find things around the house, nail polish that wasn't mine.
Size 18, women's clothes in his drawers.
Parcels addressed to him from Zara, arriving on our doorstep.
The children were upset with me because they assumed I had kicked out their father with little reason when they finally separated.
They didn't know about his cross-dressing, and I still wanted to protect them from the truth.
I think I was frightened to tell them.
I wonder what the LGBT... Activist group would say to her, of course tell your children.
You know how happy they'll be for Dad?
That he's finally expressing his true female self?
What would they say?
I'd love to know.
My view, the LGBT activists don't give a damn about this woman or those children.
My eldest child found and read the letter about selling the house.
And soon after that, my middle daughter started self-harming, cutting herself on her thighs and upper arms.
This poor woman, I could tear up reading this.
My younger daughter wouldn't get out of bed for weeks.
I thought she had chronic fatigue syndrome.
By now, my ex and I were only communicating through lawyers.
Without telling me, having not seen them for months, he arranged to meet the children for a walk.
He told them he liked cross-dressing and was non-binary.
He was non-binary?
So he was neither a man nor a woman, but dressed as a woman?
I'd love to have one of the people at the Human Rights Campaign or GLAAD or any of the other LGBTQIA plus activist groups answer the question, how do you expect the children to react?
My dad has become non-binary and now dresses like a woman.
They came home in complete shock.
Later that night, the youngest burst into hysterical tears, not knowing if I knew the truth about her father.
I had to summon all my strength to tell her that I did, that I was fine, and I was there to support them.
My daughter, who was self-harming, however, had a total meltdown and was sectioned in a general NHS mental health ward.
National Health Services is a British woman.
Then, five years ago, I discovered from my GP, who I assumed I knew that my ex-husband was getting NHS counseling and hormone therapy in order to start transitioning to become a woman.
In about a year, said the GP, he would be able to start the surgery process in London.
I will continue with this truly, truly sad piece when we come back.
The Dennis Prager Show.
I wonder how many wives are marching in pride parades if their husband transitioned to woman.
Or for that matter, announced he's gay.
Which, I don't blame him.
I'm just...
Speaking about, if you're serious about compassion, which the left is not, there's nobody meaner than the organized left, these people deserve a lot of consideration.
I'm going to do male-female hour on this subject.
My ashen-faced daughters told me they received a round-robin email from their father.
Sent to his parents, uncle, and two siblings, informing them that his pronouns were now she and her, and that he had changed his name to Charlize.
I wasn't included.
We lived in one of those South London suburbs where everyone knows each other, and I started getting funny looks in the street.
The two youngest were being teased at school.
Isn't that amazing?
They're teased for what their father did.
But children are pure.
Even ostracized, it turned out that Charlize was prolific on Facebook and was going around the neighborhood in fishnet tights, skimpy tops and heavy makeup.
See, that's just selfish.
This man's contempt for his family was total.
None of us would deny Charlize her right to this freedom, but I wanted to scream, slow down, this is not just about you.
Not just about you, there is no narcissistic group in America that matches that of the LGBTQIA leadership groups.
Not every member who is, not every person, obviously.
There are some terrific people who are any one of those letters.
But the groups, the activists?
This is not just about you.
Of course it's all about them.
You are rubbish!
I reached out to a transgender charity for a counseling session for myself instead.
But the counselor, a trans woman, implied that the reason the children weren't dealing with it well was because of me.
I left in tears of impotent rage.
That's what the society has when these people involve the children like at school.
impotent rage.
We do what we want and you will march in a pride parade.
Hi everybody, this is the Male Female Hour.
The most honest talk about men and women that I know of in the media.
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Hence the Male Female Hour each Wednesday, second hour of my program.
Many people have said many.
I'm talking...
Truly a large number of people have said that their marriage has improved considerably because of this hour.
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Today's subject is unique and difficult.
It's based on a story told, the true story told by a woman whose husband has transitioned to female and the collateral damage on the family and her that no one takes note of.
So I would like you to call in.
It's total anonymity.
And I think you would be doing a service so people know.
And by the way, I'm not looking for calls of sadness.
I'm looking for honest calls.
Did your husband or wife come out as something other, sexually, genderly, than you married?
1-8 Prager 776 877-243-7776.
Did your husband come out as gay?
Did your husband or wife transition?
In fact, you know what?
I don't hear...
No, that's not true.
I do hear.
Did your wife come out as gay?
Did your husband or wife decide to become a member of the other sex?
You cannot be a member of the other sex, but you can certainly act like it.
That's not a put-down, it's just a fact.
What did you do?
What would you recommend others do?
If this has affected you, I take that back.
If this has happened to you, it may not have affected you.
I don't want to put words in your mouth.
Please call.
And if you know a family to whom this has happened.
1-8 Prager 776-877-243-7776 This woman describes what happened after 25 years of actually what she describes as a loving marriage.
She discovered him wearing her clothing, and once discovered, it spiraled.
into his doing it publicly and the effect on the children.
I knew that the beginning of the downfall in this arena and therefore so much else in society was what I was taught in college that men and women are basically the same.
This all emanates from that lie.
Therefore, none of this matters.
If we're the same anyway, what difference does it make how you express yourself?
Someone just texted me pictures of a family in which this happened.
The husband came out as gay.
Let me see.
Well, let me read the description, actually, of what I just received, including pictures from someone I know.
Yes.
Someone just reconnected with an old friend who has virtually the same situation.
She not only caught him cross-dressing, she found that he'd been hooking up with men on Grindr.
But she and he have agreed to stay married.
She still loves and enjoys him, but have a sexless marriage.
They have two daughters in their late teens to early twenties.
And I got some pictures.
My heart breaks for everybody concerned, by the way.
I don't have an anger agenda.
The only anger I have in this regard is that people act, and we're supposed to act, like it only affects the individual.
And we should have not only sympathy, but we should have pride in that individual.
But how does it affect others?
Well, here's an example of a woman who still loves him.
him he hasn't he hasn't changed sexes as it were but he is active with other men so they have a sexless marriage a lot of pain out there isn't there I've always said that.
If pain were water, the world would drown.
Okay, William in Greer, South Carolina.
Thank you for calling.
Hello.
Hello, Dennis.
How are you?
I'm well, thank you.
Yes, sir.
It's not really a husband-wife thing for me.
My father actually came out as homosexual in 1999. So I was eight years old, 34 as of yesterday, and gone through quite the rollercoaster of emotions and how to go about accepting that.
We've grown closer and grown further apart.
But I actually have a program called Pain Pals, where you can write other people that are going through similar issues.
So I feel like I actually have gotten something positive out of it.
How did your mother react?
My mother reacted like an absolute angel that she is.
She tried her best.
As I was only eight years old, to hide it from me and my younger sister, who was four.
I live in a small town.
You actually just recently visited Greer, South Carolina.
Things get around pretty quickly in Greer.
So, you know, in 1999, that was a pretty wild thing to have come out.
And she tried to, like I said, she tried to hide it from my sister and I. And I found out pretty quickly through friends.
And it was my mission to keep my sister's childhood as normal as possible.
So she actually didn't find that out until she was 17. Oh my God.
How was it kept from her?
Did your parents stay married?
No.
My dad actually, she's a little on the naive side, which is fine.
Did he live with a man?
He did live with a man, yes sir.
And what did your sister think?
They were just buddies?
No, no, I'm not being cute.
I'm just curious.
No, I understand.
Yeah, she just thought they were friends, both divorced.
He had two children, just as my dad did, and they were right around our age.
So he did not advertise he was gay?
Not to us.
Plus, I think, you know, in the South in 1999, it was a little different than what it would be today if that were to happen.
It's funny, we joke now saying if it happened today that we may even be the popular kids in school.
That's a very interesting point, I think.
I hadn't thought of that.
Did your mother remarry?
She did, yes, sir.
She's been married for about 18 years now.
Unfortunately, no.
Are you close to your father?
I am not right now.
I have been many a year.
I lived with him for a short amount of time.
Did he bring men home when you lived with him?
He actually was with a man for about 12 years, Johnny, who I actually would say I'm closer with than my stepfather.
What a fascinating story.
Thank you for calling.
I want to hear your stories, my friends.
That's what this edition of the Male Female Hour is about.
This is the Male Female Hour, the second hour of Wednesdays.
Did your husband or wife come out as gay?
Did your husband or wife decide to change genders, transition, as the term is now used, or someone else in your family?
And what happened then?
This is the subject today.
Dan in Newark, New Jersey, thank you for calling.
Hello.
Hi.
Hi, how are you?
I'm well, thank you.
Well, let me tell you my story.
I've been cross-dressing since I was about five years old.
Started publicly cross-dressing when I was about 18. I'm 55 now, so I was out at 18 in 1987. When you say out, you were out as?
I would go...
I live in New Jersey, so I would go to the clubs in New York City, dressed in, I guess...
No, no, forgive me.
You said...
I'm just...
To understand, I'm just clarifying.
You said you were out.
Were you out as gay?
Were you out as...
Trans, what were you out as?
That was my question.
Okay, so I guess you could say I was out as a cross-dresser.
Okay.
So are you hetero or gay?
I am bi.
You're bi.
Okay, we understand.
You don't have to go into detail.
Okay, go on.
So what I'm trying to say is pretty much the terms have changed over the years.
Now I'm 55 years old.
I considered myself in 1987 to be a transvestite who dressed in drag.
Nowadays, you can't say that word transvestite.
You'd get...
That's interesting.
People get mad at you.
And why do they get mad?
I think they believe that the word transvestite is a slur.
You know, the whole tranny thing.
So what would they call you?
Today, they would call me a cross-dresser.
And the reason why I don't consider myself trans is because I don't want to transition.
I've never wanted to transition.
When you put on women's clothing, do you feel that you're a woman at that time?
No, not at all.
So there's no question to you that you're a male, but bisexual.
Okay.
So what...
What propels you, if it's even utterable?
I don't mean in terms of propriety, in terms of...
Is there language to describe how you feel when you do that?
That's an interesting question, and people ask me that all the time.
Like, why do I dress?
And I honestly can't give you an answer for that.
When I was in...
When I was younger, it was a stress reliever.
Were you in any way maltreated by a parent?
Not by a parent, but by another female neighbor.
At the age of five?
I was five when she started.
I was about nine when she stopped.
Do you think that has played a role?
I don't think so.
I don't think so, because I was doing it before she started.
Did your parents know you were doing this?
My grandmother knew.
I come from an old school family where an extended family lived in the house.
I lived with two parents and a grandmother.
My grandmother discovered that I was dressing in my mother's clothes when I was about seven years old.
How did she react?
She was a very caring person, and I guess you could say she supported me.
She didn't out me to anybody.
Did she encourage you?
No, not at all.
Right, okay.
Did anyone know about this, other than your grandmother?
No, not that I know of, or nobody confronted me on it.
I have no idea.
Are you married now?
I am married.
I got married 30 years ago.
And I'm still married to the same woman.
Has she seen you in women's clothing?
Yes.
Do you have a sex life with her?
Yes.
So it doesn't matter to her?
No.
I think it does.
I think at first...
I told her before we got married because...
I didn't think it would be fair for her to find out afterwards.
So she knew going into this marriage.
Hmm.
Well, you couldn't have been more honest.
Yeah.
And understanding that we're on radio and it's public, so I'll just more or less ask for a yes or no.
When you have relations, Are there times when you are dressed as a woman?
No.
Okay.
So it is understood that that would turn her off?
Yes.
Does that bother you?
No, not really.
When do you cross-dress?
Usually to go out to a bar or a club or something like that.
A gay bar?
It used to be just gay bars, but now, since 2010, it's pretty much able to go anywhere I want.
Nobody...
Do people know who you are in real life, so to speak?
No.
And I never disclose that.
Right.
Well, I thank you so much for calling.
I think for everybody, this is a learning session.
Humans are very complex creatures.
Sounds like a good man.
Okay, let's see here.
Greenville, South Carolina.
Susan, hello.
Hi, Dennis.
Hi.
My son at age 21 decided that he should have been born a girl.
And this has...
In terms of addressing your question with families, it has really affected my entire family, particularly my husband and I in our relationship.
And my son at one point said that he hoped it would break us up, but it hasn't.
In fact, because of our faith, our marriage is stronger than ever.
But this all occurred without any signs, symptoms, anything.
I think your previous...
Caller said he started cross-dressing at age 5. There was absolutely none of that.
We were completely taken by surprise.
We believe he was encouraged by his college counselor during the COVID epidemic when he said that he was feeling more depressed than usual and was thinking maybe he should have been born a girl, just very confused, and she encouraged him to join her trans group to explore those feelings.
Stay on with me.
I want to understand something.
Why you said he wanted to break up your marriage.
We'll be back in a moment.
Please call if this has been in your family.
If I had to give a new title to the Dennis Prager Show, I would probably title it Real Life.
This hour is an example.
Male-female hour every Wednesday, second hour of the show.
And this one is if a member of your family, especially a spouse, has transitioned or wants to or cross-dresses or has come out as gay, how has it affected you?
If you have a child of such a person, you're just as invited to call in.
So let me go back to South Carolina.
In Greenville, yeah.
So Susan has a son who at 21, so to speak, out of nowhere, said he was a girl or a female.
And I didn't want to interrupt you, but you said something that obviously needs...
Some explanation.
He wanted to break up your marriage.
Is that what you said?
He hoped that the announcement would break up our marriage.
And I believe that's because he and I were very, very close.
And I have to admit, I was the softie.
I think I regret that.
And my husband was more the disciplinarian.
Saying that, I didn't let him get away with...
Things he shouldn't be doing, but, you know, because my husband was more the disciplinarian, not in any physical form, but, you know, just telling him...
Oh, we understand.
Okay, so he resented your husband?
Yes, definitely.
They weren't really close at all.
I see.
Okay.
Do you think that his coming out as a woman...
Was in part animated by the desire to do this to the marriage?
No, I think, you know, he always had issues with depression and anxiety.
Okay, so this is how I... If you don't agree, even one eensy-teensy bit, just tell me.
But based on the little I have heard, the pattern...
There is a pattern.
A depressed, anxious individual goes for help and is told by the professional, quote unquote, that the issue might be that the individual is really the other sex.
Did that happen?
Yes, absolutely.
It did.
And I feel he was very open to it because of the state of his mood at that time, especially during lockdown.
And, of course, he goes to this group, and they're all loving and encouraging and friendly and warm.
What group is it?
What group was it?
It was a trans group that the same counselor who was counseling my son encouraged him to join.
This counselor, was this counselor a psychologist?
A psychologist.
Yeah.
And I'm going to say it at the University of South Carolina.
Right.
And a female.
Yes.
So every single characteristic of the pattern was present in your life.
Instead of dealing with his issues, this counselor told him you'll really find comfort if you transition.
This is a very sick and awful aspect.
Of the psychotherapeutic profession.
It certainly is.
And it has broken our hearts.
He hasn't spoken to us in years.
And, listen to this, he moved to Seattle to be with his people.
And who are his people?
Other trans people?
The trans community is very accepted there.
Yeah, of course.
No, not accepted.
They're celebrated.
Yes, they are.
Absolutely.
Do you have other children?
I do.
I have another son.
He's wonderful.
He's a few years older.
He's an engineer.
He's married.
Does this son speak to your other son?
No.
My son, Mark, has cut his entire family off.
Well, I wish you happiness, and it's only possible If you don't allow him to ruin your life.
Exactly.
I agree.
You're a special woman.
Thank you.
It is such a pattern that I could have, in a sense, made the call and spoken to myself.
Overwhelmingly, what is happening is the sick therapeutic community.
They are sick.
Well, I'll finish that sentence when we come back.
Hello, everybody.
Welcome back to or to the Dennis Prager Show.
You can imagine, by surprise, opening up the Wall Street Journal yesterday and seeing the lead column, not news page, but the lead column on the column page.
It was about Charlie Kirk and me and our appearance at Arizona State University a few months ago leading to the firing of a remarkable woman, Ann Atkinson.
She wrote the piece.
It's a gutsy, terrific piece about suppression of speech at Arizona State University.
Any of you listening, and I have a very big Arizona audience who give money to Arizona State University, I say this, I would say it with my hand on the Bible, I would much rather you flush that money down the toilet than give money to Arizona State.
You would be wasting the money if you flush the money down the toilet, but you are doing harm if you help Arizona State and virtually any university in this country.
She was fired.
And she, for inviting Charlie Kirk and me.
Robert Kiyosaki was the third person there, but that didn't offend them quite as much as Charlie and I did.
So Anne Atkinson is on the show with me right now.
We have not spoken since her article appeared yesterday.
So Anne, I will say publicly what I said to you.
Right before the show, you are a hero of mine.
Well, thank you, Dennis, and it's an honor to be here with you, and thank you for continuing this very important story about the suppression and condemnation of free speech.
So please explain to people, because it's a little complex, there is a college, there is a center, And they're all like individual units at ASU. So in a nutshell, explain who brought Charlie and me.
Absolutely.
It starts with a center for personal development called the T.W. Lewis Center for Personal Development.
It's housed within ASU's Honors College.
And the purpose of this center is to put on speaker programs, of which in my two years running the center, We've put on nearly 150 different programs.
And we hosted a speaker program this spring titled Health, Wealth, and Happiness.
We started with Robert Kiyosaki coming to speak, lead a seminar there at the Honors College through our Lewis Center.
I told him it would be a dream of mine to bring you into Arizona State University as it was with him.
And he suggested Health, Wealth, and Happiness.
As a speaker program, and I suggested let's make it public and do it at the largest venue and the largest university in the country.
That is ASU Gammage.
So that's how it began.
Wait, wait, wait.
What is Gammage?
ASU Gammage, great question, is the home of Broadway in Arizona.
It's a large venue adjacent to campus at Arizona State University.
Okay, so it's a hall.
Or an auditorium?
Yes, a large auditorium.
So again, what does it mean an honors college?
That's not clear to me.
Barrett the Honors College includes around 7,000 students that are undergraduate students at Arizona State University and includes students of all majors and all years.
I'm actually an alumna of Barrett the Honors College from many years ago.
And it exists to give students the ability to do more during their undergraduate experience and graduate with a degree in honors that was more difficult and challenging than a general ASU degree.
So it is cumulative on top of their degree.
So not every undergraduate qualifies for the Honors College?
Correct.
Okay.
So the Honors College has this Lewis Center.
And you were the director of the Lewis Center.
By the way, you said you put on 150 programs in two years?
Yes, just this spring semester we put on 40. Are you Superwoman?
I'm joking only in the terms of there's no such thing as Superwoman, but you sound like it.
How did you put on so many programs?
Well, the Lewis Center consists of two staff members.
I have an incredible partner there.
And then we have faculty that teach our courses.
So two of us put on these centers.
And two things.
One, the speakers that come are eager to be a part of our program because of the Lewis Center intent.
And two, the students are eager to help.
So we have a team of honor students that help us to put on these events.
So you did Health, Wealth, and Happiness with Robert Kiyosaki, who is a rich dad, poor dad, one of the most famous authors, certainly on economic matters in America.
And you invited Charlie Kirk and Dennis Prager.
When did you start to realize that this was controversial?
As soon as we launched public marketing on the program, which...
In our world, we start to market shortly before our programs.
We don't have month-long campaigns to do so.
As soon as marketing went public, I realized it was controversial because the teachers, not the students, but the Barrett faculty at the Honors College led a national condemnation campaign to shame, condemn, and scare people away from any association with our event.
Did you see this coming?
Did you have any idea that this would happen?
Well, this had been planned since the prior summer with yourself, Robert Kiyosaki, and Dr. Radha Gopalan, who is the expert on health.
Our donor, Tom Lewis, invited Charlie Kirk to join, I would say, closer to last minute compared to when this event was originally organized.
And in that moment...
I notified the deans.
Charlie has wonderful people that follow him and attracts a lot of youth, but he can also attract criticism.
So I have seen your work and Charlie's work.
I've seen how that's been viewed by folks in higher education, but that should be a bigger reason to hear your opinions.
But I thought the students...
We're incredibly excited about this.
The student reaction to this program was profound with excitement and enthusiasm, and it was the teachers that ultimately decided to protest and condemn and shame and harass and so on.
There are how many faculty in the Barrett Honors College at ASU? 47. How many signed the petition against our coming?
According to the professor who told me he was managing the petition, he went on record, he said 39 of those 47 Barrett faculty members signed this petition.
By the way, for the record, and I believe I saw this in the comments section, I don't believe it was in your article in the Wall Street Journal, I invited any of those professors onto my show to explain why they opposed my coming.
Needless to say, not one accepted.
They never do.
They don't debate.
They smear.
If they were anything else, they wouldn't be a leftist.
Do you have a public political persona?
No.
In fact, I haven't made a Twitter post ever until...
Just the last couple of days I've shared the Wall Street Journal and some of the media that's followed.
I have no public political profile.
I've used Instagram for pictures of my one-year-old and my five-year-old and a couple of them are my dogs.
What breed are your dogs?
They're Cavalier King Charles.
Oh, I love them!
I love them!
They are the...
Most self-confident.
We are the king of the house dogs.
A breed, I believe, exists.
My friend had them and they would take a seat at the table when we had lunch as if they wondered why we were seated at the table and not only they.
So I have a real affection for your breed.
They're a great companion.
Yeah, so I want everybody to understand, and then we're going to get to the heart of your piece in the Wall Street Journal, which has sort of gone viral, by the way, which I'm very happy about that.
And you were fired, and that's, of course, what we're going to talk about, why you were fired, how they explained it, and has ASU responded to your piece?
Don't answer me now, because I want you to take the time to answer it.
But this is what is happening, ladies and gentlemen, on campuses.
By the way, just for the record, you know what Charlie Kirk's speech was about?
You know, but I'm telling the audience.
It was about the Sabbath.
Now, that's a real hate speech.
And I talked about happiness.
More hate.
We'll be back in a moment with Ann Atkinson.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have a remarkable woman, Ann Atkinson, just fired by Arizona State University for having a program, one of well over 150 that she produced there, for a center called the Lewis Center at the Honors College that they have.
Ann Atkinson, she got fired for inviting Charlie Kirk and me.
As I noted right before the break, Charlie Kirk spoke about the Sabbath.
That was his entire speech.
And how it's become an important part of his life.
And interestingly, it's the Jewish Sabbath of Friday night, Saturday night, and he's a committed Christian.
It's a remarkable speech.
I told him when he finished the speech, very few rabbis could have given such a good speech.
And I was on with Robert Kiyosaki and a prominent physician on health, wealth, and happiness.
So just for having us, it was irrelevant to ASU, Arizona State University, what we spoke about.
Just for having Charlie Kirk and me, she was fired.
So they are claiming, Ann Atkinson, they are claiming that, well, they didn't fire you, it's just that the center no longer exists.
You want to respond to that?
Yeah, sure.
ASU, and they just issued a response in the Wall Street Journal 15 minutes ago.
They're focused on the fact around my firing, and they're ignoring the story about what happens when somebody dares on a college campus to present speakers with a view that dissents from the prevailing orthodoxy.
So, if I can take just a second to tell you why this Lewis Center exists.
And what is being removed, that's important.
And we can also talk about the facts of what happened that ASU is not addressing.
So the Lewis Center exists, right, this is a donor-funded center at Barrett, to prepare the honors students for the challenges of life.
And it focuses on topics including entrepreneurship, personal finance, happiness, success, career success.
And it also exists...
To educate Barrett Honors College students regarding traditional American values of individual liberty, hard work, free enterprise, personal responsibility, faith, family, community service, and civic duty.
That is what the Lewis Center does and why it exists.
So all of our programming must fit within those confines.
So when this program happens, It was a direct fulfillment of my job, of the obligation.
And what ASU is not talking about is that their deans at the Honors College censored our marketing.
They ordered for our marketing posters, the TV screen posters, and also the hard copies to be removed from all around the campus because it was offending the faculty, number one.
Number two, the deans told me what you...
What Robert Kiyosaki and Dr. Gopalhin were allowed to say and were not allowed to say.
And the deans told me, as I addressed in my op-ed with the Wall Street Journal, that we must stick to health, wealth, and happiness.
And we are not allowed to discuss anything that could be deemed as political or that might alienate the audience.
And that's in the best interest of the Lewis Center, which I perceived as a threat.
The third point then is the deans pressured me on many occasions to read a warning during my opening remarks to tell the audience this may contain potentially offensive content.
And I was told that was...
They actually said that to you?
I have multiple meetings and multiple follow-up emails.
They were very concerned with this.
And the dean at Barrett...
She insisted multiple times for me to send that warning and work with this ASU colleague to develop the warning so she could read in advance.
So to me, I was fired, and they don't have to give a reason why I'm fired.
That's part of the story, but the real story here is I'm a mother, I'm a business owner, I'm a person that's an employee at the university doing her job, and Dennis, respectfully, I understand why people might attack you or Robert Kiyosaki or Charlie Kirk, but I'm doing my job and face the wrath of the faculty mob because they didn't agree with the speakers that I invited to fulfill my job.
So that's the important piece.
Well, right.
So does the center, the Lewis Center, still exist?
It will be dismantled at the end of this month.
So as I mentioned, we have...
Right, but please, the reason is?
Well, the reason is the dean has a different vision for Barrett, the Honors College.
So what ASU said publicly is true.
T.W. Lewis, who's been our generous donor for the past several years, canceled the funding agreement.
But that's not the whole story.
After that cancellation earlier this spring, I brought in a group of donors excited to fulfill the mission of the Lewis Center, and I presented to the dean at the Honors College on multiple occasions, I have donor funding that's glad to support us to keep this work going.
The condition is that the Lewis Center must maintain the intent that it was founded upon.
That's why I am there.
That's why most of our speakers choose to come.
That's why people have celebrated the work of the Lewis Center because it's just so different from what you would expect in higher education.
And I made that proposal that Barrett Dean showed no interest.
So, forgive me, this is really important because they're telling half the truth that Mr. Lewis is no longer funding it.
You found other funds.
So they're closing the center, not Lewis pulling out.
That is correct.
And I took all of my concerns, it's important your listeners know, I took all of my concerns through proper ASU channels over the past several months, all the way up to ASU leadership.
And I respect President Michael Crow, Provost Nancy Gonzalez, but I was very disappointed that this road ends here.
They said even with...
Additional donor funding.
We would still need to take a pause and reconsider what's in the best interest of Barrett.
I'm quiet because I want everybody to assimilate it.
Barrett, again, is the Honors College of Arizona State University.
So there is no longer the center.
Did you ever ask the...
Did you speak to any of those 37, 39, whatever, professors?
Did you ever speak to one of them?
I don't know the majority of them.
Typically they'll come in...
That's why I asked.
Did you even speak to one of them?
About this issue?
Yes.
No.
The most I had was the professor that sent me a harassing and threatening email.
I responded to that forcefully and took it up through HR. That's been my only communication with the Barrett faculty.
So when they wrote that...
Charlie and I hate women, hate gays, hate, I don't know, whatever all the groups were.
Blacks, presumably.
Did they ever provide proof?
Their proof was generally media matters.
Of course.
I'll explain that to the audience when we come back.
Ann Atkinson's piece in the Wall Street Journal is up at DennisPrager.com.
Hi everybody, I'm Dennis Prager, a woman who was responsible for having the center she ran for two years at Arizona State University.
Inviting Charlie Kirk and myself was fired by Arizona State University.
She wrote about it.
It was the lead column in the Wall Street Journal yesterday.
The article is up at DennisPrager.com.
There are 47 professors.
At this Barrett Honors College, 39, I believe, wrote a letter protesting Charlie and my coming to Arizona State.
Wouldn't it be great if I debated 10 of them?
It would still be unfair to them if they outnumbered me 10 to 1, not because I'm brilliant.
But because they're empty.
But they wouldn't.
They don't debate.
And I don't blame them.
They lose.
Every time.
Ann Atkinson is the woman who was fired, the head of the Lewis Center.
So, have you been reached out to by any of the media?
Yes, I have.
I think this story hits home because it's about free speech.
And I'm not talking free speech in the context of allowing an event to take place.
I'm talking in the event of the massive collusion and condemnation that is the wrath faced by anybody in my shoes that dares to bring in a view that is different.
This story has landed nationwide, regardless of political party.
It's landing with parents, with donors, with students, who know that, you know, I don't speak publicly for a living.
I just put on these programs for the students.
This can happen to anyone, and I think that's why I've had so many different media inquiries, and you've seen that the coverage has been really profound.
The Arizona Republic, which is not on the right, the major paper in Arizona, they had a column, and the columnist said, you've got to be kidding.
You protested against Dennis Prager?
I've listened to this guy for years.
He makes people happy.
He brings couples together.
I didn't memorize the article.
I assume you saw it.
I did.
And he's right.
Our students, our next generation and these students deserve the ability to pick and choose who they listen to.
They deserve the ability to hear from many different viewpoints.
And right now, the faculty mob and I will say leadership at Barrett are trying to pick how we can talk about these things by the Barrett deans telling me what you can and can't say and so forth that manifested.
The most frightening thing I found in your piece, and the whole thing is frightening, was that students were afraid to come lest a camera that would be recording the event or taking pictures of the event have photographic evidence that they attended my talk.
Is that correct?
Yes, and to expand on that, the rationale was a fear of retribution from their faculty.
I want everybody to hear that about Arizona State, but I want you to understand something.
Add any state name and add the word State University, and it will be the same thing.
Idaho State, Montana State, Michigan State, Washington State, it doesn't matter.
It just happens to have happened at Arizona State.
But it's happening everywhere.
Students in the United States of America, for the first time in its history, are afraid to attend a talk, lest they be seen there and be punished by faculty and the university.
I want people to understand what is happening.
Ann Atkinson has been fired.
And her article was the top piece in the column section yesterday in the Wall Street Journal.
On a personal note, were you surprised that they accepted your column and featured it so prominently?
You know, in hindsight, I understand why they did.
I can imagine the number of submissions, but look at the reaction.
Look at the comments.
These are the Wall Street Journal article.
People are really frustrated by this.
And I think an issue is that as I raised the cancellation censorship in these issues, through all the proper ASU channels, ASU leadership told me when I asked what they thought about the deans taking down marketing and telling us what we can and can't say, they said it was handled.
We knew it needed to be handled, and that might have appeared as though we were trying to suppress.
So to answer your question, I think this is resonating nationwide because it likely is a whole lot bigger than one school.
Exactly.
Ann Atkinson, we will stay in touch.
Thank you.
You're a wonderful asset to this country.
Thank you.
Dennis Prager here.
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