The Social Security Administration just released a statement announcing five key changes that will be made to the Social Security program starting in 2025 regarding benefits, limits, and taxes. Join host Roman Balmakov on this week’s episode of “Facts Matter.” Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. 🇺🇸 Epoch Times $1 Full Access Special Offer: https://ept.ms/RomanSale

President-elect Donald Trump has announced a day-one policy to end birth citizenship. Currently, under U.S. law, a person is granted U.S. citizenship if they’re born in the country. Trump argues this creates an incentive for illegal immigration, or for a woman to simply travel to the United States from another country when she is pregnant. And if the child is born on American soil, then it opens the door to various social benefits and chain migration. We’ll discuss this topic and others in this episode of Crossroads. Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.    🔵 Watch the full episode HERE 👇   https://ept.ms/3Cps4bZ Stay Informed. Stay Free. https://www.joshphilipp.com/

In this episode, I sit down with John Lott, founder and president of The Crime Prevention Research Center, to discuss his extensive research into national crime rates, arrest rates, as well as gun permit laws and how they impact crime. “In 2022, the last year that we have the National Crime Victimization data for, while the FBI showed a 2 percent drop in violent crime, the National Crime Victimization data showed a 42 percent increase in total violent crime,” says Lott. Why is there such a disconnect between media reporting that violent crime is down and the public’s perception that crime is surging? Watch the video: “If you look at arrests for total crimes, reported and unreported, only 8 percent of violent crimes result in arrest,” says Lott. Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. FULL TRANSCRIPT Jan Jekielek: John Lott, such a pleasure to have you back on American Thought Leaders. John Lott: It’s great to talk to you again. Thanks for having me on. Mr. Jekielek: John, I often turn to you for insights on crime statistics. Currently, different agencies are providing conflicting information with varying numbers. What is your observation at this time? Mr. Lott: Several media outlets are discussing the decline in crime rates over the past few years. However, most of the media lacks an understanding of the differing statistics being presented. There are two primary sources for crime data, both from the Department of Justice. The first is the FBI data, which records the number of crimes reported to law enforcement. The second is the National Crime Victimization Survey, which surveys approximately 240,000 individuals annually to gauge the overall level of reported and unreported crime. It is well known that the majority of violent and property crimes go unreported to the police, as confirmed by the National Crime Victimization data. For example, around 42 percent of violent crimes are reported, while only 32 percent of property crimes are reported. Additionally, the rate of unreported crimes has been subject to significant fluctuations in recent years. Historically, the FBI reported crime data and the National Crime Victimization data moved in tandem. However, over the past three years, they have shown a perfect negative correlation. To illustrate, in 2022, the most recent year for which we have National Crime Victimization data, the FBI reported a 2 percent decrease in violent crimes, while the National Crime Victimization data indicated a 42 percent increase in total violent crime. I believe the primary reason for this disparity is the declining rate of arrests. Law enforcement in the United States has experienced a significant deterioration. Many are aware of this change, as witnessed by the prevalence of items behind glass at stores like CVS or Walgreens in numerous areas of the country. Such precautions were not commonplace a few years ago and now exist in various retail operations. In large cities with populations exceeding one million, there has been a consistent decline in the arrest rate for violent crimes, which was around 44 percent prior to the COVID pandemic. This rate started dropping in 2020 and reached 20 percent by 2022, marking a decline of over 50 percent. It is important to note that these statistics pertain to reported crimes only. When considering both reported and unreported crimes, the arrest rate for violent offenses drops to a mere eight percent, while the corresponding rate for total property crimes stands at just one percent. Not everyone who is arrested is charged, let alone prosecuted and convicted. This has resulted in a significant shift. If you examine crime data from the past 70 years, you will find no similar trend, especially not within a three-year time frame. It has long been known that when people perceive that criminals are unlikely to be apprehended and punished, they are less inclined to report crimes. Additionally, reporting crimes has become more challenging. Mr. Jekielek: You mentioned that many CVS and other similar stores have implemented measures such as placing products behind glass. We have seen this in New York and D.C., but that is not violent crime. Is the overall crime rate increasing across all categories? Mr. Lott: Yes. While the increase in murders is approximately seven percent when compared to before the Covid pandemic, other forms of violent crime have experienced much greater spikes. Additionally, property crime has surged. Police budget cuts have resulted in a shift where law enforcement focuses primarily on severe crimes like murder and allocates fewer resources to other types of offenses. Consequently, instances of these other crimes have escalated. Criminals feel relatively secure in evading capture and punishment, leading to a rise in criminal activities. Mr. Jekielek: That accounts for the lower increase in murder, because the resources are going to the most serious problems. Mr. Lott: Exactly. This is evident in the police response. In many parts of the country, when you call 911, they will ask you, “Is this an emergency?” They’re trying to figure out if the crime is still in progress. If it is, they will dispatch a police car. Otherwise, they advise you to visit the police station to report the incident. This was not the case four or five years ago when a police car would be dispatched for any reported crime. It exemplifies their need to prioritize due to limited resources. Naturally, they always respond to murders promptly, but for some other forms of violent crime, they may not send a patrol. Mr. Jekielek: Regarding the crime of murder, are the reported rates consistent with the actual rates? Mr. Lott: Yes. Murder is the one type of crime that doesn’t have the reporting problem that you see with other types of crime. That’s exactly right. Mr. Jekielek: Please tell us what has happened to police departments. There are a number of stories about turnarounds in certain states and districts. Mr. Lott: Yes, there were a lot of big budget cuts in 2020 and 2021. Recently, there has been a trend of rehiring police officers, but retirements have also been prevalent in law enforcement agencies. It is possible that you may have lost a team member with 15 years of experience, and now you have hired someone who has only been on the job for six months to a year. It is clear that the less experienced officer will not be as effective as someone with 15 years of experience. I would like to address an important issue regarding murder rates. Currently, a significant number of police departments are failing to report data to the FBI. There have been changes in reporting rules starting in 2021, and by 2022, around 92 percent of police departments were no longer providing any data to the FBI. This is a drastic increase from the three percent reported in 2020. Additionally, 24 percent of police departments were only partially reporting crime data. Consequently, less than half of the police departments are now reporting complete crime data to the FBI, a significant decrease from the previous 97 percent. The FBI is compelled to estimate and make assumptions about the missing data, but this approach has its flaws. It affects various aspects of crime reporting, including murder and other violent crimes, as well as property crimes. Mr. Jekielek: Does the FBI database contain these estimated guesses and assumptions you mentioned? Mr. Lott: Yes, exactly. Mr. Jekielek: Why have they stopped reporting? This is a significant shift. Mr. Lott: The Biden administration introduced changes to reporting requirements, demanding more detailed information and increased frequency of reporting. Many police departments found these new requirements burdensome and decided not to comply. In some cases, it seems that some departments are using this as an excuse. Despite crime data being available on their websites, they have chosen not to report it to the FBI. Mr. Jekielek: Are you aware of the specific numbers and the decline in reporting across different departments nationwide? Mr. Lott: Based on the FBI data, we can observe a decrease in reported crimes. However, the National Crime Victimization data presents a different perspective. Not only is their overall measurement different from the FBI, but their reported crime measure also varies. In 2022, while the FBI reported a two percent drop in reported crimes, the National Crime Victimization data showed a 29 percent increase. There are several reasons for this disparity. For instance, some departments now require individuals to visit the police station to file a report, instead of dispatching a police car upon receiving a call to 911. It is important to note that simply calling 911 does not automatically result in police action. For the proper reporting of a crime, it is necessary for an officer to complete a police report. Another issue that arises is the downgrading of crimes in various locations, such as New York City and Manhattan. Alvin Bragg, who has recently gained significant attention, has downgraded 60 percent of violent felonies, predominantly aggravated assaults. This is primarily due to his refusal to prosecute individuals for firearms offenses. The distinction between an aggravated assault, which is a felony, and a simple assault, which is a misdemeanor, lies in the use of a weapon during the incident. By failing to prosecute offenders for weapons offenses, Bragg has effectively downgraded a significant portion of these felonies from aggravated assaults to simple assaults. This manipulation of crime classifications influences the FBI’s crime data, as the FBI only includes aggravated assaults in its violent crime statistics, excluding simple assaults. Consequently, reclassifying these crimes leads to a reduction in the reported crime figures presented by the FBI. However, the national crime victimization data captures these incidents, as it collects information from individuals who have experienced crimes. For instance, if a person reports being assaulted with a gun, the national crime victimization data records it as an aggravated assault, while the FBI’s data does not acknowledge it as such. Mr. Jekielek: Are there other databases that have this incongruence? Mr. Lott: I know about crime data the best. We know that there have been some issues with the FBI reported crime data before. Over time, the national crime victimization data has been deemed the gold standard, as it provides a comprehensive view of total crimes, including ones that go unreported. This data serves as the primary measure of crime rates, considering that a significant number of violent crimes remain unreported. Mr. Jekielek: What about the societal perception of crime? Today, people may feel that crime rates are on the rise. Mr. Lott: You see headline after headline in the news articles that say crime is falling, but people think that it’s increasing. I can give you dozens of headlines like that. Various surveys conducted by organizations like Gallup, Harris, and Rasmussen consistently indicate an increasing fear of violent crime. However, these public perceptions do not align with the FBI’s reported crime data, which suggests a decline in crime rates. As a result, media outlets often publish articles that raise doubt and confusion, highlighting the disconnect between public perception and reported statistics. There is a prevailing misconception among individuals, and they attribute this perception to the news media’s coverage of crimes. They argue that such coverage creates a false impression. You can go to CVS or Walgreens, and people know that three or four years ago, everything wasn’t behind glass in a lot of these stores. They understand that companies enforce these measures for a reason. For instance, when attempting to make purchases, I have personally experienced the need to call a clerk over to unlock a product while they stand by as I review the package ingredients. I empathize with the burden this places on them and acknowledge the associated costs. They only implement these protocols due to the high incidence of property theft. I conducted a study on the geographical distribution of crime within Los Angeles County and have also undertaken similar work in other locations. Over the past few years, there has been a noticeable shift in crime patterns, with crime incidents emerging in zip codes that historically had lower crime rates. Consequently, not only have areas previously characterized by high violent crime rates seen an increase, but safer areas have also been impacted. Mr. Jekielek: Does this trend extend across the board? Mr. Lott: I only have extensively analyzed data from Los Angeles County, I have also examined Cook County, which presents a somewhat similar pattern. Mr. Jekielek: I have come across statistics suggesting that more people are purchasing firearms for self-protection. Mr. Lott: To varying degrees, individuals have become aware that law enforcement has collapsed in our country. Mr. Jekielek: Can you clarify that? When you say law enforcement has collapsed, that’s a very strong statement. Mr. Lott: Right. The decline in arrest rates for violent crimes from 44 to 20 percent in major cities is a staggering drop. These statistics reflect arrest rates for reported crimes. Moreover, the arrest rates for total violent crimes in these cities sit at a mere eight percent, with total property crimes at one percent. What then is the risk associated with committing crime in these areas? It must be noted that not all arrested individuals face charges, let alone prosecution or conviction, so a genuine problem exists. I do not claim that this situation is not worse in other countries. In fact, I recently gave talks in Brazil, where only 9 percent of murders result in the identification of the perpetrator. A mere three percent of murders progress to trial, and convictions are secured in only two percent of cases. Although there may be countries experiencing even more dire situations, compared to the traditional rates in the United States, our rates of apprehending and penalizing individuals are alarmingly low. This issue extends beyond a mere lack of arrests. In many major urban areas across the country, there are prosecutors who refuse to press charges against violent criminals and those involved in property crimes. Unfortunately, this not only demoralizes the police force but also raises concerns about the effectiveness of making arrests. Law enforcement officers are left questioning the purpose of apprehending someone when there is a potential risk to their own safety and the arrested individual is promptly released without charges. Moreover, there are numerous other rules and regulations that inhibit the police’s ability to carry out their duties effectively. For instance, in California, even routine traffic stops are burdened with excessive paperwork. Officers are required to spend around 40 minutes completing forms that even include the need to speculate on the sexual orientation of the individuals they pulled over. However, they are prohibited from directly asking for this information. This process is not only time-consuming but also raises concerns about privacy. As a result, it appears that many police officers in California are conducting fewer traffic stops for offenses such as running stop signs or speeding. It would be interesting to study the data and examine the impact of these rules on traffic accidents. If issuing tickets for running stop signs serves as a deterrent, the reduction in traffic stops could potentially lead to an increase in such cases, considering the rationale behind having laws against these infractions. Mr. Jekielek: Are more individuals arming themselves? Mr. Lott: Yes, there has been a big increase in individuals arming themselves. Presently, there are approximately 22 million Americans with concealed carry permits in the United States. Additionally, we have 29 states that allow constitutional carry, meaning individuals can possess firearms without the need for a permit. In our recent survey, we aimed to gather information on the prevalence of carrying concealed handguns. Pew conducted a similar study in 2017, which found that approximately five percent of likely American voters carried firearms most or all of the time. Our survey indicated that this number has risen to about 15 percent as of 2023. Therefore, we have observed a substantial threefold increase in the number of individuals carrying concealed firearms between 2017 and 2023. This demonstrates a clear response from the public to the existing situation. There are varying concerns about violent crime across different states, such as California, New York, and New Jersey. In these states, the number of individuals carrying firearms is relatively low. However, other states have seen an increase in constitutional carry laws in recent years due to the rise in violent crime during the Covid pandemic. Approximately 20 states temporarily ceased issuing concealed carry permits during this time, leading individuals to realize the importance of not depending solely on government permission to exercise their right to carry firearms. The potential risk of future disasters or government shutdowns further emphasized the need for self-defense measures. In light of the above, the concept of individuals carrying firearms acts as a deterrent against criminal activity. Much like the effect of higher arrest rates, conviction rates, and prison sentences in discouraging criminals, the knowledge that potential victims may possess the means to defend themselves also makes criminal acts more perilous. As a former Chief Economist for the U.S. Sentencing Commission in Washington, I have encountered numerous trial transcripts highlighting the decision-making process of a criminal. Perpetrators often discuss selecting targets based on perceived vulnerability. For example, they would avoid targeting armed criminals or individuals with known firearm possession, preferring easy victims such as solitary women crossing dimly lit parking lots late at night. In order for self-defense measures to have a significant impact, it is crucial that those most at risk of becoming victims of violent crime are the ones carrying firearms. States like Illinois, where acquiring a concealed carry permit can cost up to $450 in fees and training expenses, lead to suburban residents obtaining permits, although they do not face the same risks as individuals in higher-crime areas. To effectively reduce crime rates, it is necessary to ensure that those facing the highest risk of violence have the means to protect themselves. My research suggests that low-income black individuals are among the demographics that benefit the most from exercising their right to carry firearms. People living in high-crime urban areas are most likely to be victims of violent crime. My research also shows that individuals who are physically weaker, such as women and the elderly, benefit the most. It is important to note that the majority of attackers in these cases are young men, and there is typically a significant strength difference between a man and a woman. Thus, the presence of a gun represents a much greater relative change in a woman’s ability to protect herself compared to a man. In my research, I have found that the most vulnerable individuals in society benefit the most from having the option to protect themselves, especially when law enforcement resources may be limited. Mr. Jekielek: Are there reductions in violent crime in states that have adopted constitutional carry? What about states that have concealed carry? Mr. Lott: When states switch to constitutional carry, we often see significant drops in violent crime rates since a larger number of people are likely to carry firearms without a permit. Unfortunately, we do not have specific data on the number of permits issued in these states. However, in states that rely solely on issuing permits, as the percentage of the adult population with permits increases, we also observe decreases in violent crime rates. It is particularly crucial to consider who is carrying a firearm. Lower fees and costs for obtaining permits often result in more minorities and individuals from low-income backgrounds carrying, which has a substantial impact on reducing violent crime rates. For more information, individuals can visit our website at crimeresearch.org, where we have peer-reviewed academic research and an annual report on concealed carry permits by state. We have been conducting this research since 2013 and have been able to track the relationship between permit issuance and violent crime rates over time. Mr. Jekielek: Does the cost of obtaining a permit play a major role in these changes? Mr. Lott: The cost of a permit does have a big impact. When the price of a permit increases, people tend to purchase fewer permits. For example, in Illinois, where the cost of obtaining a concealed carry permit is $450, only about four percent of the adult population has one. In neighboring Indiana, where there is no charge for a permit or the associated background check, approximately 23 percent of the adult population has a gun permit. This stark difference can be attributed to the lower cost and accessibility of permits in Indiana, leading to a higher number of individuals, particularly from low-income and minority communities, obtaining permits. It is interesting to note that those who benefit the most from the ability to carry firearms are the ones who frequently choose to do so in Indiana, as compared to Illinois. In Illinois, despite having concealed carry laws in place, it is unlikely to observe a significant decrease in violent crime rates, especially when considering that the four percent of individuals who legally carry firearms are often wealthy residents residing in low-crime areas. Mr. Jekielek: John, how did you become such an expert on this topic? Mr. Lott: I have a Ph.D. in economics, and economics has a couple basic ideas. But one of the ideas is that incentives matter. If something is more costly, people do less of it. If they get greater returns, they do more of it. That applies not only to the price of apples, it also applies to crime. If crime becomes riskier for criminals to engage in, they commit less crime. It’s not rocket science to me. Throughout my career, I have extensively studied crime, starting with my doctoral research. Moreover, I have served as the chief economist for the U.S. Sentencing Commission and held senior advisor roles for research and statistics in the Department of Justice, specifically within the Office of Justice Programs and the Office of Legal Policy. My involvement in these governmental capacities allowed me to engage with data compilation experts, presenting me with a deeper understanding of data definitions and collection methodologies. Mr. Jekielek: But you didn’t come into this expecting to find these results. Mr. Lott: That is correct. Additionally, I must mention that the issues associated with FBI data vs. national crime victimization data have arisen fairly recently. Therefore, it is unlikely that our conversation would have discussed these problems five years ago. Mr. Jekielek: Turning our attention to regions like California and New York, where crime rates have been increasing despite strict firearm regulations, what are your thoughts? Mr. Lott: You raise a valid point. Crime rates are indeed rising in numerous locations, including California, Illinois, and New York. It is ironic, though, that while these states seem determined to ensure that the legal system does not pose substantial risks to criminals, they also impose severe restrictions on the ability of individuals to defend themselves. In essence, they adopt a consistent stance by avoiding any measures that could potentially make it risky for criminals to commit offenses, be it due to the response of law enforcement or private citizens. Given these circumstances, it is unsurprising to witness a surge in criminal activities within these jurisdictions. Mr. Jekielek: Have you engaged with individuals who subscribe to this ideology? Mr. Lott: I attempt to engage in debates with individuals, but it proves to be quite challenging to find people willing to discuss either the topic of guns or crime. I have had the opportunity to listen to various prosecutors, and it surprises me when they assert that abolishing prisons would have no impact on crime rates. However, the evidence contradicts this notion. If individuals are not held accountable for aggravated assaults, we can expect to see an increase in such offenses. Mr. Jekielek: Your data supports this conclusion. Mr. Lott: Yes, my data does support this conclusion. However, it is something that most people seem to recognize intuitively. Anyone who has children knows that without guidelines and consequences for their actions, bad results uwill follow. This seems like common sense to me, perhaps due to my background as an economist. It is not overly complex. Mr. Jekielek: Have there been significant policy shifts in certain states recently? Mr. Lott: Absolutely. Many states have experienced considerable policy changes in the past few years. The number of constitutional carry states has increased significantly . Mr. Jekielek: Have there been any surprising developments? Mr. Lott: There are a couple of reasons behind this. During the Covid pandemic, several states suspended the issuance of permits. People realized the importance of being able to carry a weapon when necessary and not being restricted from doing so by the government. Additionally, there were cases where women were being stalked or threatened. Waiting 90 days to obtain a concealed carry permit was simply not feasible. In Connecticut, the process could even take up to a year, but the danger they faced was immediate. If they had to wait 90 days, they could end up becoming victims or experiencing other forms of harm. Also, constitutional carry has basically been a continuation of a trend. When states initially adopted concealed carry laws, they often imposed high fees and stringent training requirements, along with various restrictions on where one could carry. Gun control advocates made dire predictions about the consequences of such legislation, but their credibility suffered when those predictions did not come to pass. In response, some of the gun-free zones were eliminated, fees were reduced, and, in the case of Texas, fees were lowered from $140 to $40 in 2012 and 2013. All Republican legislators supported the fee reduction, while nearly all Democrats opposed it. Consequently, the shift towards constitutional carry is essentially an extension of an existing trend. Mr. Jekielek: You’re describing a situation where states implement policy changes and evaluate the resulting data to determine if any problems arise. Mr. Lott: They learn through the process. With each change, gun control advocates consistently warn of impending disaster. However, history has shown that their predictions are often proven wrong. Many states have gradually loosened their gun control rules, despite these dire warnings. Eventually, these states cease to pay heed to such pronouncements. Mr. Jekielek: Are there any states that have recently gone to constitutional carry that you might not expect? Mr. Lott: Two recent examples are South Carolina and Louisiana. In fact, states from New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine in the Northeast, to Arizona, Alaska, Florida, and Georgia have embraced constitutional carry. Ohio was also a somewhat unexpected addition to this list. The Midwest is represented by Ohio and Indiana, and the southern states, including Tennessee and Kentucky, are fully on board. However, North Carolina and Virginia are still holding out. Depending on this year’s gubernatorial election, it is quite possible that North Carolina will follow suit. Mr. Jekielek: John, this has been a wonderful conversation. A final thought as we finish up? Mr. Lott: If you want to reduce crime, you have to make it risky for criminals to commit crime. Mr. Jekielek: John Lott, such a pleasure to have you on the show. Mr. Lott: Thank you very much for having me. I greatly appreciate it. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Donald Trump is the projected winner of the 2024 presidential elections. We’ll discuss the results from Nov. 5 and where events are headed in the run-up to the Jan. 20 inauguration in this episode of Crossroads. Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.    🔵 Watch the full episode HERE 👇   https://ept.ms/4elozAP Stay Informed. Stay Free. https://www.joshphilipp.com/

The 2024 election has officially been decided and President-elect Donald Trump will be the 47th president of the United States—becoming only the second president in U.S. history to serve 2 nonconsecutive terms. The victory that Trump scored on election night was sweeping. Join host Roman Balmakov on this week’s episode of “Facts Matter.” Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. 🇺🇸 Epoch Times $1 Full Access Special Offer: https://ept.ms/RomanSale

The Department of Justice is reportedly looking to wind down the criminal cases against President-elect Donald Trump after his historic victory in the 2024 election. In other news, Vice President Kamala Harris has officially conceded the election to Trump. We’ll discuss these topics and others in this episode of Crossroads. Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.   🔵 Watch the full episode HERE 👇   https://ept.ms/3V60AyP Stay Informed. Stay Free. https://www.joshphilipp.com/

Brothers Josh and Nick Alexander are evangelical Christians who have become known in Canada for taking vocal stances against COVID-era mandates and gender ideology in schools. They were highly active in Canada’s Freedom Convoy and the Million March for Children, a walk-out protest against gender ideology. They’ve been arrested multiple times and faced major backlash for their activism. Watch the clip: Josh Alexander was suspended and ultimately banned from physically attending his Catholic high school after protesting against transgender individuals using the bathroom of their choice and saying that there are only two genders. 🔴 WATCH the full episode (56 minutes) on Epoch Times: https://ept.ms/S0213JoshandNick FULL TRANSCRIPT Jan Jekielek: Josh and Nick Alexander, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders. Josh Alexander: Thank you for having us. Nick Alexander: Thanks for having us. Mr. Jekielek: You were both involved in the Freedom Convoy protests a couple of years back and other significant social issues that have been bubbling up to the surface across Canada. What is your reaction to the federal court in Canada deeming the invocation of the Urgent Emergencies Act by the Trudeau government to be against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? How do you react to that, Nick? Nick: We’ve all known that it is in violation of our Constitution and our Charter of Rights. This ruling sets that in stone and makes it apparent to the whole world how corrupt our government is. Mr. Jekielek: What about you, Josh? Josh: I was with Chris Barber in the lead truck of the Freedom Convoy. He was on trial with Tamara Lich when we got that call informing us that the federal court had made that decision, and it was definitely encouraging for us to see that. It is what we expected. But we now see the federal government saying they’re going to appeal that decision. It will be interesting within the coming weeks to see how well written that decision was, and if the government will be able to critique it very much. Mr. Jekielek: Absolutely. Chris Barber and Tamara Lich are charged with mischief, and typically this does not require a long, drawn-out, high-profile trial. What is their status? Josh: They’re currently on trial right now in Ottawa, and it’s taking longer than most murder cases would. I got to sit in for a bit of that. It’s ridiculous how long the trial is taking and the steps that the Crown has taken to prove their guilt. These two were actually obeying the Charter and staying true to their nation’s values in a time of crisis. I’m definitely glad that they are still doing well. Tamara and Chris are encouraged and they’re fighting strong. Not only them, but also so many others that are on trial right now, including a friend of mine, Erin Aldridge. At the convoy, he was known as the shirtless guy. He went around the entire convoy without a shirt in -30C (-22F) weather in the winter. Mr. Jekielek: He survived somehow. Josh: He survived, but his sentencing will be on February 15th. He’s been found guilty of a lot of stuff, so this hasn’t stopped. We have this court decision that is encouraging, but we also have to recognize that a lot of people have been persecuted. We’ve still got the Coutts Four imprisoned without due process in Alberta for two years now, and nobody wants to talk about that issue. Mr. Jekielek: I recently interviewed the journalist, Rupa Subramanya, who did some excellent reporting from Ottawa about the Freedom Convoy protests back in February, 2022. We were talking about the Coutts Four, but neither of us really knew what was happening. Recently, Tucker Carlson was discussing this with Premier Smith of Alberta. Please remind us about this whole situation. Josh: This is obviously the Canadian government overreaching once again. The Coutts Four were at the Coutts, Alberta border crossing during the Freedom Convoy, and they were involved in that demonstration. There were a lot of accusations that came from all that. Actually, I’m not very well versed on everything that happened. But as an onlooker, and I’ve said this before, you are always innocent until proven guilty. I grew up watching old westerns, and there was due process and you could trust the government to be the good guys and the prosecution to act honorably. That is not what we’re seeing here. We have seen the Canadian government, especially in Alberta, actually break the Geneva Convention on some of their political prisoners. This is definitely an issue that needs to be talked about more. Mr. Jekielek: Please qualify that for us. Josh: We’ve recently had an excellent example with Artur Pawlowski. He was held in confinement for the longest time. Actually, they would bring him into the standup steel box, which is about a foot-and-a-half wide, and you can’t sit down in it. You have to stand up, and they would leave him in there for hours. When they arrested him one time, they hung him in the paddy wagon. They shackled both his hands and his feet, and he was hanging in there. He’s a pastor. For those who don’t know, he’s just a pastor that wanted to open up his church and give the gospel. Mr. Jekielek: I remember the viral clip where he says to the police, “Nazis. What are you doing coming into my church?” Josh: Actually, I got to speak in his church last year and I'll be meeting up with him again here in DC next week. But yes, he is just one of the many pastors that spoke out and did the right thing and obeyed the Scriptures and the Great Commission, and they’re now being punished for it. There is some encouraging news in Canada, but you have to be wary of what’s going on behind the scenes. Mr. Jekielek: The Freedom Convoy was the most consequential protest world-wide in recent history. One, it was a protest by Canadians who are known for being mild-mannered. It was a huge, huge convoy that emerged, picked up steam, and people kept joining in all the way to Ottawa. Two, it was an absolutely genuine grassroots movement. Everybody, except the media and the federal government, knew that. It wasn’t some kind of outside interference or non profit-funded thing. No, this was self-funded by the participants. Finally, regarding the Emergencies Act, the federal court has basically said, “No, that was overreach.” But the Emergency Act showed the public that this was not just theoretical—governments can really do this. Nick, what’s your reaction to the after-effects of the protest? How have things changed since that time? Nick: It gave the world a glimmer of hope that people can make a change in the face of tyranny. We saw that right after the protest ended, the mandates actually ended. It shows that when people stand up against a tyrannical government, it can change how the government acts towards the people. But it also showed the level of evil that a government will go to in order to punish people for a civil protest. Mr. Jekielek: You both have a very interesting vantage point. You’re young, and you’ve been on the streets. You’ve had crazy altercations with both protesters and law enforcement. Let’s go back a bit. What is school like in Canada? You know this from your own personal experience, but also from people reaching out to you as well. Please tell us about that. Josh: I was actually homeschooled up to grade seven, and then I went into the public board. In Canada, we have the public board, and then we have the public Catholic board. They’re both essentially the same, although many would argue about that. I’ve experienced both of them. I have to say that the Catholic board was actually more openly radical in their ideology, and I don’t mean that in a religious sense. I mean that in a woke, progressive sense. I went into high school and that’s when the mandates started to come in, and I was openly opposed to them. I would be suspended from school a lot for noncompliance. That was an issue that ended up taking place when me and my friend, Monty Walker, organized student walkouts against mandates, and they spread from Ontario to Alberta, to British Columbia, to Nova Scotia, and everywhere. We did these walkouts. The board would plead with us to stop, and when that didn’t work, they would start disciplining us. Then they called the police on us trying to stop us. That was actually the only time in the last couple of years I can say that the police did the right thing. The principal from my public school called them and said, “We have a student here that’s organizing protests and won’t stop.” They explained to him the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Bill of Rights and our right to peaceful assembly. Then the Freedom Convoy came in, and as students we were involved with that. At one point, according to the federal government, you had to be 18 or older to exercise your right to peaceful assembly. When I heard that, Nick and I plus a few other students all went down to the convoy and helped with some of the gas running. But yes, that was my first experience. Then I left that school board after the mandates got lifted. I just wanted to finish my education in a more polite manner without teachers harassing me nonstop. Mr. Jekielek: How did the teachers harass you? Josh: I would get sent to the office for anything. I could sit down for lunch in an area that they didn’t like, and then I'd get sent to the office. It was personal to them, because I did not go along with the mandates. They didn’t like that, and they would often try to play it off as a disrespect issue. Even my own principal told me in many conversations, “You are a respectful student. You are an award-winning student. We don’t know where you went wrong.” They just wanted me to sit down and shut up about the issue. If it was just that simple, maybe I would have. But I recognized that there was a lot more to this issue than people’s safety and staying six feet away, so that granny would stay safe. Throughout history, we’ve exchanged freedom for safety, and that’s always our biggest mistake. I tried desperately to get students to recognize what was going on, and they wouldn’t. I would make predictions. For instance, early on I said, “There is going to be a mask mandate.” Students said, “No, we have freedoms in this country, and that won’t happen.” Then it happened and they all defended it. They said , “We have to have mandates because it’s for our safety.” Then I would say, “There’s going to be a vaccine mandate.” Then sure enough, there would be a vaccine mandate. I said, “There won’t be just one, there will be multiple mandates.” They just kept happening. Now that this court decision has come out, we’re seeing a change in the narrative where they pretend that all along they thought it was an overreach. It is quite ridiculous. Mr. Jekielek: But that seems positive somehow. Josh: It’s false. Basically, they’re saying that after having called us terrorists. I’ve had articles written about me by accredited journalists calling me a terrorist. You make all these accusations, and then overnight there’s a court decision and everything’s back to normal. Nothing ever happened. Today they might be on our side with this issue, but the next day, if the government tells them not to be, then they won’t be. Either they will really understand it or they will accept what the government says and be warriors for falsehood again. Mr. Jekielek: Talking about gender ideology, Nick, you were at an event with Chris Elston in Toronto where you had an altercation with both counter protestors and law enforcement. Please tell us about that whole situation. Nick: It was on September 22, shortly after the Million Man March which we were helping with and orchestrating across Canada. We were with Billboard Chris in Victoria Park in Toronto. We were doing one of our normal events, our Education Over Indoctrination protests, and we had a decent sized crowd of a few hundred people there. It wasn’t as big as we were expecting, but it was still a decent sized crowd. There was roughly the same size crowd opposing us, just a little less than a few hundred. They were getting very violent throughout the day. It was just escalating, escalating, and escalating. We were on one side of the street, and they took the other side, but the cops just kept pushing our crowd further away. There was a small portion of our crowd that ended up getting left behind, and then surrounded by the woke mob. I went back there and tried to get them to move. I discussed it with the police and said, “We’ve been organizing this event for months. We have every right to be here. You guys know we’re here. We’re the reason you guys are here. We have the right to stand here.” Then the other crowd just keeps attacking us. They have umbrellas they’re trying to stab us with. They come in waves. Three or four of them will rush into you, then the rest of them will come in behind them and try to push us off the sidewalk or onto the street and try to push us out of there. One of them ran over and tried to tackle me. I crouched down and tried to push him off of me. A second guy dives over and takes a swing at me. He was in my peripheral vision, so I couldn’t exactly see what was in his hand, but he sliced me right above the eye. Luckily, I saw him coming in my peripheral vision, so I was able to back out of the hit and avoid most of the contact. I got a cut above my eye, so I was bleeding pretty bad. I looked down at the sidewalk and there’s a pool of blood there. The cops, instead of arresting the guy who attacked me, pushed him back into the crowd. They kept trying to get me to leave, so I’m just standing there. At this point, I’m giving the gospel to the crowd like we always do. It’s really a message of absolute love. The cop walks up to me and says, “You can’t say that here. You can’t do that here.” One of the veterans I was with, Wild Bill, is a good guy. He says, “It’s going to be an honor going down beside you,” and he shakes my hand. I see him, then you can see that something has switched. He knows what’s about to go down. The cops come to surround us, put us in cuffs and drag us off to the paddy wagon. They kept us in the paddy wagon for a couple hours. We were in there for quite a while. Meanwhile, I’m still bleeding. A face cut bleeds a lot, and it was fairly deep. When we finally got to the police precinct, they kept me locked up in the paddy wagon for an extended period of time before one of the officers came up. I was still handcuffed. He put some sort of bandage on the cut. It wasn’t sticking, because there was so much blood, so he wrapped it in a cloth and put a pin on it. Then they took my pin away. They thought I was going to break out. He said that he was worried I was going to break out. I was joking about it. I said, “I can use that pin to pick my handcuffs.” They refused to give me medical assistance for an extended period of time. Eventually, they brought me to the hospital after hours. When I get to the hospital the nurse at the front says, “You’re going to have to put a mask on, sir.” I’m in handcuffs at this point, covered in blood, with two cops on either side of me. I’m standing in the emergency room and everyone’s looking at me and it’s a bit of a sight. The nurse says, “You’re going to have to put a mask on.” I say, “I’m not putting a mask on. I’m not doing that.” Security walks up and they say, “No, you have to put a mask on. This isn’t optional.” I say, “What are you going to do? Call the cops?” The cop beside me just starts laughing, because he knows I’m already arrested. Finally, they stitched me up at the hospital. Mr. Jekielek: This is in September of 2023? Nick: Yes, September, 2023. Mr. Jekielek: They were requiring you to wear a mask? Nick: Yes. In early fall, 2023, hospitals in Canada mandated masks again. Josh: They are still mandated. Nick: Yes, they still are. Going back to the facial cut, I asked one of the cops what it was, because I knew it was a blade of some sort. He said that it was a bladed glove, and the other cop told me it was a knife. After I got released and was talking to people that were in the area at the time, everybody seemed to think that it was a knife. But a guy did get arrested shortly after for assaulting another person. He was wearing a bladed glove. Which one it actually was, I don’t know, but I do know that it was a blade of some sort. Mr. Jekielek: How do you explain how law enforcement approached this situation? Nick: It’s interesting you bring that up. What I find so weird about the whole situation is that our crowd who is pro-freedom and against the gender ideology being forced on the kids, our crowd is the same crowd that in 2019 was the Back the Blue crowd. We had Back the Blue patches that we wore, and were very vocal about supporting the police. We always said, “Don’t defund the police. We need our police. We love our police.” The police have essentially responded to this by unfairly restricting the populace who is standing up for right. They’re acting on fear, whether it’s fear of the crowd, fear of the woke mob, or whether it’s fear of losing their job, which we’ve seen happen in Canada. Our parents, both school teachers, lost their jobs because they refused to encourage transgender ideology to their kids. Whether the police are in fear of losing their jobs or whether they’re in fear of the mob, they’re acting out of fear and they’re improperly enforcing justice. Mr. Jekielek: What is the state of the education system? How many people in the school system are actually taking a contrarian position? Josh: In my experience, I’m the only student in Canada in my situation. I believe I’m the only student in the states in this situation. I know there have been other kids that have stood up and they’ve faced consequences for doing so. There’s a girl named Olivia who just mentioned the word biological female in an essay. They gave her a zero grade on it, and they docked all her grades. There are no students that are willing to talk about these issues. A lot of them don’t recognize that these issues matter. A lot of them don’t understand why I do what I do. As far as teachers go, they are worse than the curriculum. Looking at the curriculum itself, I disagree with a lot of the sex ed stuff. I disagree with the way it’s taught and the way it’s addressed. But honestly, the curriculum isn’t even my problem. It’s more the radical teachers that enjoy pushing hysteria upon kids. I’ve had so many teachers ask me this question at the beginning of my first year, the first time ever being in the Catholic board. The first question I get asked on the first paper I receive is, “What are your pronouns?” That sets the tone for the rest of the class. It shows that these students think it’s totally normal. They all write down their pronouns and go on to talk about cultural appropriation and the racist curriculum and systematic racism within municipal government. It’s ridiculous just how much they enjoy pushing a false narrative and how infuriated they get when it is challenged. I have always been respectful, and that’s the only way that we can properly approach these issues. But they lose their composure, especially in the face of somebody who’s respectful. That’s what they really dislike, because it’s easy to discredit someone that’s rude or obnoxious. But when you get somebody that’s respectful and articulate in describing the issue before them, they don’t like that at all. I have received a lot of very irresponsible feedback from teachers. I’ve had so many inappropriate comments. For instance, the first argument that was made against me by my law teacher, after I said that males shouldn’t be in female washrooms and changing rooms, was that the only reason I believed that was because I couldn’t control my hormones. She said that in front of the entire class. That’s totally inappropriate for a teacher to talk like that, especially about a student, in front of other students. That’s how empowered they feel. They don’t think that there are going to be any consequences. I’ve brought these issues before my school board and before trustees. There’s no concern about those kinds of issues. They would rather punish me. At this point, the only allegation against me is that I quoted Mark 10:6, which says, “God created the male and female.” They don’t like that. Mr. Jekielek: How is that an allegation? Josh: They say it was bullying. Nick: In a Catholic school board. He was quoting the Bible in a Catholic school board. Josh: Yes. That has been an issue that has come up several times. In Canada, we have Bill C-4, which bans conversion therapy. It essentially bans certain Scriptures that state the truth about biblical sexuality, so Mark 10:6 would be one of those. Mr. Jekielek: But you’re not forcing anyone to believe that. Josh: I am not. But it’s me in a class with students that identify as something other than what they were born as. When I state my beliefs on that issue, when I quote Scripture, it is considered offensive, and it is considered bullying. That’s the allegation. What actually happened is that I was in the classroom with about 30 students. My math teacher was shouting at me and telling me I can be whatever I want to be, that I should explore myself, and that I might not actually be a boy. I went back and forth with him on this, and the entire class freaked out. They’re calling me a racist, a misogynist, and a homophobe. I have to defend myself while also stating my opinion. One student who I’ve since learned was a transgender stands up, leaves her chair, walks across the class, yells at me, and tells me she can identify as she pleases, and she can be whatever she wants to be. I respond, “Yes, of course you can identify as you please, but that doesn’t change your biology. It doesn’t change the fact of the matter. It doesn’t change reality.” I said that and then I quoted Mark 10:6, and this is where the allegation comes from. I said, “Look, God, create us male or female. You’re either one or the other, and you can’t change it.” That was considered to be bullying. This is in a classroom debate where the teacher is encouraging it. That’s why I’ve been banned from school for two years. Even after that two-year ban is over, I will essentially have an indefinite ban until I apologize for quoting Scripture. Mr. Jekielek: Let’s talk about the Million Man March. Many people here in the U.S. may not know about it, but it’s a significant event for a large number of people. Canada has 40 million people now? Nick: Yes, around 40 million now. Mr. Jekielek: A pretty significant number of people mobilized to participate in many towns and cities across Canada. Please tell us about that. Nick: It was really quite incredible to see parents from all different religions and all different walks of life saying, “We’re sick of our kids being told anti-truths. We’re sick of all the corruption they are being taught. We’re sick of the sexual immorality that is being forced on them. We don’t want this in our school system. Teach our kids something that’s going to benefit them in life. Teach them math and real science, and keep this other junk out of it.” There have been a handful of voices the last few years talking about this. Hardly anybody will bring it up. When you break it down, most parents didn’t know what was happening in the school system. Kids go to school, then they come back home. Parents are busy with work, they make supper, put the TV on, and then go to bed. They are just living a normal life, and probably weren’t aware of what was happening and actually taking place in the school system. What happened with Josh in the classroom brought to light what’s taking place in our school system, and parents weren’t happy. They came from all walks of life from all across the country. We had 10,000 people in Ottawa, and that was just a local Ottawa group. They weren’t from Toronto, because Toronto had another 10,000 people in Toronto. It was the same in Niagara, the same in Barrie, and the same all across Canada from east to west. Every town of any size had hundreds and thousands of parents and students walking out. The problem is that members of the woke mob tend to be a lot more vocal about their opinions, and that leads people to believe that this is the majority and how the majority sees things, when it’s not. The majority doesn’t see things that way. The majority just doesn’t care enough to get involved. It is time that the majority gets involved before society completely collapses. Mr. Jekielek: Do you think this is the beginning of a reaction? Josh: It’s hard to say. I have been to schools where I learned more about how students think. I’ve always wondered about how much different I am from the average student, because I just don’t know. A lot of students can’t relate to me. But I get to go there and watch the student body change within just a few brief minutes. For instance, I was in Calgary on May 17th of 2023, and I showed up for this event. There’s BLM and Antifa protesting outside of a high school because there were students at that high school having a protest in support of me. I went to visit with these students. There were groups there waiting for me, both supportive students and students that were against me. There were a lot that just wanted to see what was going to happen. Then there’s BLM and Antifa. There’s a stone wall separating me and BLM and Antifa from the students. I got attacked. They punched me in the face. They were choking me with a chain around my neck. They’re burning my Bibles and trying to set me on fire at one point. The students are watching this, but I’m totally calm. A lot of the time I have my hands in the air, and I’m actually just trying to engage with students while I’m getting attacked. Then the police come in and they tell me that I’m under arrest and they take me away. As I’m being handcuffed, I’m still talking to students. I’m giving the gospel and I’m offering them Bibles. Then they arrest me and they walk me away. I am even engaging with students from the paddy wagon, and I just wouldn’t shut up. The police are telling me that I need to stop. They wanted to get me on a hate speech bylaw, because apparently, you can’t say anything controversial within 200 meters of a pride group. But these are actually counter protesters to my event. I got to watch how students reacted to all that, even students that were just bystanders and didn’t really support me. They didn’t really know anything about this. About an hour-and-a-half later, I get released under the condition that I don’t return. The police tell me, “If you return, you will be arrested and charged.” I get released and I start walking right back there because I wasn’t finished there yet. I had an event to do and there were students that wanted to meet me and wanted to talk, plus I wanted to give them the gospel. That’s what I did. There was a line set by the police. They said I couldn’t cross a certain line. I couldn’t cross the road towards the school. As I’m about to cross that line, the students that weren’t supportive of me before all came over to me, and they all wanted photos. They were talking with me and asking questions about Jesus on the cross and all these issues. They realized that if I was willing to go to that extent to give my message, there must be something to it. They can relate to me because I’m 17-years-old and they couldn’t really imagine doing something like that, but they can relate to the situation. They actually like it. Students love rebellion. Young people always have loved rebellion, which is why the Left is doing so well in the universities, because they teach rebellion against everything that’s normal and traditional. The mistake that the conservatives make is they try to play center field and they try to get people from both sides. They don’t want to offend anybody. The reason I get a radical response from students is because in this day and age, my message is actually radical and they like that. They don’t want somebody that’s going to play center field. They want somebody that will help them rebel. We have to channel that rebellion into a righteous rebellion. That’s what I try to do. It’s weird that now the born-again Christian kid that is giving Bibles out is rebellious, but that’s a tactic that we need to use. It’s a lesson that a lot of Canadians need to learn. Mr. Jekielek: Please tell us about Save Canada, which is the organization you are promoting. Your brother actually got suspended for wearing a Save Canada hat. Was that a Save Canada event that you were talking about earlier? Josh: Yes. Mr. Jekielek: There are a few different elements here. There were traditional Muslims at the Million Man March. There were classic liberals at the Million Man March. There were all sorts of people. Obviously your faith is very important to you. You both have mentioned that in no uncertain terms. There is part of the movement which is about freedom and then there’s part of the movement which is about spreading the gospel. Save Canada could be a provocative message to some people. Save Canada from what? Please tell us about that. Josh: At that march, it was the first time I had ever seen this. There were Orthodox Jews and there were Muslims. There were Christians and there were Catholics and there were Sikhs. There was everyone you could imagine at that march. In my belief, it is because all morality stems from God. That’s the idea of morality, which comes from the idea of God. He is the pinnacle of the moral hierarchy. That truth is going to be pulled into every religion, but it all comes back to the truth of morality and where it originates. Muslims are some of the most disciplined people you will ever meet, and they have outdone the church on almost every level. There is a lot that can be learned from them about discipline and about being a unified people. They have really helped. There was a gentleman we worked with a lot, Kamel El-Cheikh. He is a Muslim and a parent that said, “Look, enough is enough. I want to join.” He met me on June 9th in Ottawa, and we worked together on the Million Man March. A lot of this definitely stems from religion, if not all of it. My argument is that the Save Canada message is a very generic message. It can be used on any issue. It actually came out before the Freedom Convoy and then led up to the mask mandate issue. It was a young man in Nova Scotia that wore the Save Canada hat for the first time. He just went to a little rally on Citadel Hill and the police arrested him. Mr. Jekielek: Why is wearing a Save Canada hat an arrestable offense? Josh: This happened more when the lockdowns were in place and you weren’t allowed to demonstrate. Anyways, I got to know that guy and his group. It was passed off to us a year before the Freedom Convoy, and since then we have been running this organization. I like it because it refers to our politics and our social issues, but it also refers to the state of our nation. I always say politics is symptomatic of the state of our faith in our nation, because if we were a moral nation and a righteous nation, we wouldn’t be in this condition right now. My favorite book in the Bible, Proverbs, talks about what happens to the foolish man and the evil man, and then what happens to the prudent man. That is so true, and I’ve seen it at work in my own life. We need to have faith in that and recognize that those who rely on falsehood and who campaign on falsehood are going to fall. We need to recognize that and have hope in that and be bold about our faith because there’s going to be a time when we will have to answer for our actions on earth. Did we stand with the fools that stood on falsehood and who built their house in the sand, or are we founded on the rock? Mr. Jekielek: Please tell us about the situation where your brother was suspended for wearing a Save Canada hat. What happened there? Josh: The hat was controversial but not to the point where anybody really cared. I wore it for all of my time in high school. I wore that hat leading up to the convoy. Even after the convoy, nobody really cared. It did not become an issue until that viral video of me being arrested outside my high school wearing that hat. It has also been a key partner in our messaging over the last year about gender ideology. That’s where we really hit them, and they didn’t like that. Any student within the schools wearing this symbol suggesting that they support me or my narrative would be kicked out. I get messages all the time. My little brother saw that Nick got knifed and he thought he would wear the hat in support of us on his next day at school. Yes, they showed up and brought him into the office and told him he should take it off. He asked why, but they couldn’t really explain why. They just said it was controversial and they didn’t like the branding. They said it was too political, which it is not, as we just explained. It’s really not a political message. There should be nothing wrong with the message, “Save Canada.” Whatever side of the political spectrum you’re on, you should recognize that Canada is in peril. It’s no longer what it used to be. You would not think it would be too offensive to say, “Save Canada.” But apparently it is, so they’re kicking students out for wearing my hat now. Mr. Jekielek: Your parents obviously played a role in you being here today and everything that led up to it. Please tell us about your relationship with your parents. Nick: I have a very good relationship with both my mom and my dad. They made a lot of sacrifices growing up to make sure we were raised right and raised in line with the Word of God. They did everything in their ability to assure that we would grow up to live righteous lives. They talked about the gospel from a very young age, essentially from day one. I was three days old when I was first in church and heard the gospel, the importance of turning from our sins to Jesus, the importance of repentance, and the importance of living your life in a walk with Christ. They have very heavily influenced our lives. Yes, Save Canada wouldn’t exist without them, that’s for sure. Josh: For someone to hear us talk about our parents with respect to these issues, they would just say, “You’re just a bunch of indoctrinated kids,” but that’s really not the case. My parents didn’t want me in the education system because that is indoctrination. They wanted to teach us how to think and not what to think. They have presented us with the evidence and allowed us to decide for ourselves. When the truth is before you, it’s not that complicated. I’m very thankful for my parents and the sacrifice they made to keep us out of school and to homeschool us, but not only that, to now watch them lose their jobs because of it. My dad was one year away from his pension, and that has all been stripped away from them because they chose to be Christians. I was asked a question at my school board hearing. I was before a bunch of lawyers at the school and they were trying to find out whether I was really guilty of what I’m being accused of. Mr. Jekielek: What is that, by the way? Josh: Bullying. Mr. Jekielek: Yes, okay. Josh: I’m sitting before this board and I got asked a very strange question. They asked me, “Do you believe your principal, Derek Lennox, actually believes what he’s saying?” I said, “No, I don’t believe you can be raised with morality and be totally okay with not standing up for the vulnerable, and leaving teenage girls to have to undress in front of boys. No, I don’t believe that’s okay.” I said, “My parents don’t believe that’s okay either. They made a very different decision than Mr. Lennox.” I said, “The reason for that is because they’re Christians.” The room kind of went silent. This is in a Catholic school board room, and they did not like that. I said that in order to stand up. In order to take a fall for what is right, you have to be sure of that and you have to be in a relationship with Christ. I’m proud to have been raised in the family that had that. Mr. Jekielek: How has this affected your family as a whole? Nick: It has shaken it up, and my parents have lost their jobs. It’s changed the path we were headed down. But at the end of the day, not a lot has changed, because we’re still grounded in Christ. He’s our soil, he’s our rock, and we’re still grounded in truth. We’re still grounded in His word. We know that when we stand before the throne at the end of our lives that we will have done what is right. We have to pay for earthly things, but righteousness also has a price, and freedom has a price. Everything has a price. At the end of the day, it’s worth paying. Mr. Jekielek: Josh, You mentioned there aren’t a lot of kids doing what you’re doing. But at the same time, there seems to be a shift. You’ve been talking with young people across the country. Do you see a shift happening? Josh: To an extent. This goes back to how the narrative changes as the truth comes to light, then everybody acts like that’s normal. Students are starting to recognize the truth. They are starting to realize that maybe I’m not the radical, hateful bigot they thought I was, especially when they actually get to talk to me in person and see my actions in the face of both injustice and tyranny. But I truly believe that without seeing the full truth, our nation won’t be able to turn around. Canadians are known as being very polite, but that turns into being docile very quickly. You can be polite and you can be respectful, but you also have to be bold. That’s where we need to see a change. It’s not just in Canada. I’m an American as well, and I get to meet with American students and see what’s going on there. Honestly, it’s not much different than Canada. Canada is just a few months ahead of America and it’s sad. I go to the states thinking that there’s hope and there is. It’s definitely not too late to fix America, but I see the same symptoms. The world in general is headed in a very bad direction. The only thing that can change that is an actual recognition of what is true to the core. I’m willing to stand for and to die for my faith. If it’s not worth dying for, then it’s not worth living for. Mr. Jekielek: You grew up in a Christian household, your parents instilled these values that you’ve been describing, Nick. Was there some moment where you decided, “Yes, I’m on board with this”? Did you have to make that choice, or was it always obvious? It’s always very interesting to me how people come to their faith. Josh: I can’t remember an exact moment where I decided this was true. I don’t have an amazing testimony about how I came to faith. I was at a fairly young age when I recognized that, and I’ve only grown since then. But I would also say that the Bible talks about how we are to die to our sin every day. Every day we are supposed to make that decision, “This is what I’m going to stand for.” Every decision we make in our lives, it should be with that in mind. With each challenge that is put before us, we have to make that decision every time. Nick: For me, I was about 11-years-old. I grew up in a Christian home. I was well aware of the story of the gospel and I was aware of it all. It just didn’t have a huge effect on me personally. I remember that I was 11-years-old and at a gospel tent meeting. The preacher was preaching. I believe he was using a certain chart depicting the broad road and the narrow road. It’s a chart that a lot of gospel preachers use. I remember sitting there and it struck me, “I’m a sinner. Right now I’m in my sin before a holy God.” Mr. Jekielek: In highly secular societies, like the U.S. and Canada, religious faith is often portrayed as being some kind of indoctrination, and that it’s not something people come to naturally. That’s my observation, and if you disagree, please tell me. This program is about people who are challenging some of the grand narratives of the day, many that are false. People come to their strength in different ways. For some of them, it’s just obvious that this is what they have to do. Sometimes they find it in God, and other times they find it in other places. Josh: I believe that morality can be found. I have a lot of secular people that I’ve met that are willing to stand up more than Christians. It can’t be through indoctrination. It has to be a personal choice that this is the truth. That can come from people that aren’t religious and it has happened many times throughout history. Many of the greats were atheistic or didn’t believe in Christ’s death on the cross. Whether you are a Christian or not, everybody recognizes that there is evil. You will have all these scientists and these secular figures talking about the common rule, and that every equal has an opposite. If we know that there is evil, we have to recognize that there is good. There is a pinnacle of morality. Mr. Jekielek: We were talking about the situation in schools. From the perspective of someone who was just recently in school, what does it look like? Nick: It’s weird because physical relationships are a dying thing. They have been replaced by social media. Snapchat is probably the tool that’s most used where both sexes seem to be getting satisfied from social media. It’s a very, very strange situation. Josh: It’s a mess. You'll have these circles where promiscuity is encouraged and it’s all they work on. Then you have the pornographic group. They just send nudes and they try to make any kind of offer, but I don’t want that. I’m waiting for marriage. That’s one of the greatest things that our society has lost. It’s the greatest bond between a man and a woman. God gave the gift of marriage. It’s something that’s been lost and it’s been perverted, and we need to change that. Mr. Jekielek: It’s very hard to find people who can talk credibly about the impact of pornography on our society. It has a profoundly destructive effect. How common is it among high school people? Nick: With the vast majority of males, I'd say up into the high 90th percentile are into pornography. Josh: It’s rampant, and it used to be something that people were embarrassed by. The only place you could get it was maybe the gas station, but that’s no longer the case. It’s open to anybody. It’s a private thing that you would think they would be embarrassed by, but that’s not the case. I was in my math class again, and they were talking about pornography. I was shocked by girls and guys openly talking about what they watch, how much they watch it, when they watch it, and the most recent time they watched it. I was shocked. I always knew it was a raging issue, but I didn’t know it was something they didn’t even recognize as a problem. They aren’t embarrassed by it. They are totally okay with it. Nick: It also explains why our population is so docile and weak when it comes to tyranny. There’s a Latin word, virtus. It defines warrior virtue, bravery, honor, and courage, something that is completely lacking in our society. But looking back at the ancient Greeks and the ancient Romans, that was what their society was built upon. The men were warriors, and that’s what made them so great. That’s what made so many great accomplishments in their society. Men get this desire to conquer fulfilled by pornography. I believe it has an effect and is one of the reasons for our weakened, docile society. Josh: James O'Keefe released an interview with somebody from PornHub and the guy admitted that they have branding in there and they have techniques to try to open people up to new categories, and it just furthers the sexual perversion of our country. Beauty inspires men to greatness, but when you remove the tradition in beauty and you remove the elegance and just make it only the physical beauty and not the heart, it becomes really lame. Mr. Jekielek: There’s something profoundly broken with how young people are forming relationships affected by this pornography. I can’t imagine how destructive an impact that might have on relationships. It is desensitizing, which is related to what you were talking about just now. You both paint a very dark picture. On the other hand, you’ve inspired a lot of people, Christian and otherwise, to be more vocal about their beliefs and stand up for what they believe and say it publicly. As we finish up, let’s talk about the reactions to your work and what Save Canada is up to next. Josh: Yes, we’ve definitely seen a change in the way that the nation has responded to us. People are starting to accept our narrative and it’s become more of a talking point. For the longest time, politicians wouldn’t discuss this, and now here we are. Mr. Jekielek: Just to be clear, what won’t they discuss? Josh: Gender ideology, and also the destruction of our once great nation. I look at that and I recognize that there is so much fear in both the people and the politicians that needs to be addressed. But I also see that one 17-year-old kid’s voice can mean a lot. One 19-year-old firefighter, the youngest in the department, his actions that cost him his job can mean a lot. They can set in motion quite the testimony across the nation and make a difference. It will never be recognized, but that’s not our goal. The fact of the matter is it has changed the way social issues are addressed in Canada, and we aren’t going to stop. In fact, on February 16th, we have the third Education Over Indoctrination rally coming up in Ottawa. We’ve had quite a bit of success with those in the past. I’m looking forward to that one. Mr. Jekielek: Josh and Nick Alexander, such a pleasure to have you on the show. Josh: Thank you very much. Nick: Thank you for having us. Mr. Jekielek: Thank you all for joining Josh and Nick Alexander and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. I’m your host, Jan Jekielek. 🔴 WATCH the full episode (56 minutes) on Epoch Times: https://ept.ms/S0213JoshandNick Epoch Original DVD collection:

Today is Election Day, but it’s likely that the final results of the elections would take some time to tally. Both political parties are preparing for the post-election challenges, which are likely to include lawsuits. Along with this, states and cities are also preparing for potential protests. We’ll discuss these topics and others in this episode of Crossroads. Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.   🔵 Watch the full episode HERE 👇   https://ept.ms/40T8hMv Stay Informed. Stay Free. https://www.joshphilipp.com/

“We were bullying people into these concepts. It was an ideological bullying across the medical spectrum. And as you pull out of medicine, you see this in the schools, in journalism, in peer-reviewed publications—it’s everywhere.” In 2018, Jamie Reed began working as a case manager at a pediatric gender center. But after witnessing firsthand the irreversible effect that “gender-affirming care” was having on children, she decided to speak out. “At the end of the day in these centers, nobody was the responsible one. So, the therapists would write a letter thinking that the endocrinologist was making the decision, the endocrinologist would say, ‘But the therapist wrote the letter.’ And then they would all go and say, ‘But the parents are making the decision,’” says Ms. Reed. She was recently instrumental in Missouri state legislation to extend the statute of limitations for those harmed by gender treatment. That fear of liability, claims Ms. Reed, was enough to close her former gender clinic. Watch the video: “I was complicit, I worked in an industry that was harming children. And the thing that I have to grapple with every day is making amends for that and trying to address the wrongs that I participated in,” says Ms. Reed. Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. FULL TRANSCRIPT Jan Jekielek: Jamie Reed, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders. Jamie Reed: Thank you so much. Mr. Jekielek: It’s been a year since you announced that you were going to blow the whistle on the pediatric gender clinic at Washington University. A lot has happened since then. What is it like to become a whistleblower in this field? Ms. Reed: Surprisingly, it has been very positive. This is a great cultural moment when this is a topic of huge interest to the American public. There are so many thoughtful, intelligent people who are discussing this, debating this, and having courageous conversations every day. I’ve really been welcomed into this network and circle of people. Mr. Jekielek: The clinic has now closed, so that has been a significant change. Ms. Reed: Yes. It was a bit of a process. In the state of Missouri, they did introduce some legislation. Similar legislation had been introduced for a few years previous to my whistleblowing. But after that occurred, the legislation was working through. The state of Missouri passed a law to impose a four-year moratorium on any new pediatric patient starting a puberty blocker, cross-sex hormones, or having surgery. There was a grandfather clause, so that anyone who had already been on these treatments could continue. One of the things the legislature did is to increase the limit of time where somebody could sue if they were harmed by treatment. In most states this is really limited. It’s maybe one or two years. They increased the limit of time, and just that fear of liability closed the center. Most of the centers in the state of Missouri that were offering pediatric care have ceased to do so because of the extended period of time for liability. Mr. Jekielek: It’s incredible what a small change in legislation can do. Ms. Reed: It’s a small change, but it’s also interesting for the narrative. Because the narrative is that these are safe, effective treatments, and good long-term care. If that were the case, then nobody would be afraid of an extended period of time for malpractice. Mr. Jekielek: I read the affidavit you provided to the Missouri Attorney General. It’s utterly shocking. You were working at this clinic, and fully bought into the whole approach at one point. Please tell us how you got into this field. Ms. Reed: I’ve spent years working in social work doing case management, working with individuals who are coming into their own for age, being a teen, and learning how to navigate adulthood. I was working with young adults who were HIV-positive. There is a big overlap for some trans people and HIV, particularly for trans women who experience high levels of HIV infection. I was finding that a lot of the individuals that I was working with were trans-identified, so I became an expert in trans issues within that setting. I was really good at helping people with things like legal name change and gender marker change. I understood these systems. I was looking at resources and ways to help people. This position came up working in the pediatric center and a number of people came to me and said, “You should apply for this. This really seems like something that you would be really good at.” I applied and was hired in 2018. The center had only been open for a year. I was the second person to take on the role of the case manager in the center, and really probably only one of two people in the entire state of Missouri to have such a role. I really did go into this believing that we were going to alleviate suffering and help young people become their true selves and embody their truth. Mr. Jekielek: That is the core idea behind this ideology. If you help young people early on as they are questioning their gender identity, and if you deal with that early on, then you will have a healthy, happy person on the other side. That’s the core idea, would you agree? Ms. Reed: Yes, that’s the core idea behind the whole concept. Mr. Jekielek: Everything I’ve been learning over the last several years tells me the opposite is true. Ms. Reed: Yes. If you really start to look at where these treatments came from and evolved, and how we came to even be interfering in the pediatric body, you start to really question the whole model of care itself. When I started at the center, I didn’t know the history of how this developed out of something called the Dutch Protocol that came out of the Netherlands, and how truly revolutionary it was. Without a lot of good quality research, it was to start blocking puberty in a healthy developing body and go from a puberty blocker to a cross-sex hormone in a pediatric child’s body. As I worked in the center and began to understand more about where this came and what we were seeing in the population, so many truths about the treatment just weren’t holding water. Mr. Jekielek: One of the things that is in your affidavit is that in the Dutch model they excluded young people with psychiatric comorbidities. Whereas, in your work setting, almost every prospective patient had serious psychiatric comorbidities. Ms. Reed: Yes. The Dutch were excluding individuals with severe or concurrent mental health issues, but they were also excluding patients who did not have lifetime gender dysphoria. Part of their protocol was that people had to have been experiencing gender dysphoria from a very, very young age. In this cohort in the United States that is presenting in these clinics, there is a huge number of teenagers who do not have any lifetime or early onset gender issues. There are teens who have learned enough to say, “Oh, but I have been experiencing this from an early age.” But we see this disconnect where they are claiming this, but there’s no real family history of it. In medicine, you want to not only trust, but also to verify. Somebody may tell me, “I’ve had this since my earliest memories,” but yet you can find nothing in their medical records. There was nothing recorded where they came to a pediatrician and mom had a conversation saying, “I’m concerned about my child’s gender presentation.” There is also nothing documenting this from a kindergarten teacher. There is a really significant number of teens who are coming forward at age 15 and 16 with these presentations where we just don’t see any history of it. In the early research, these are patients that were always excluded. These were not patients that were included in these early treatment models. Mr. Jekielek: What were you thinking? You believed you were stepping into something that could be helpful to young people. Please explain to us the mental state, or the reality, or the core assumptions of a person that believes they’re helping people with this gender medicine. Ms. Reed: There are a number of themes that you see in pediatric gender medicine. At these centers, there are doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers who really do have strong beliefs about helping young people. They see them suffering. A lot of these doctors are young doctors, and they’re newer in these fields. One of our doctors was directly out of residency and he was named a co-director. There is an intentional practice of hiring people directly from my community into these centers. They’re hiring individuals who are from the LGBT community, and that’s intentional. It also creates these feelings where you cannot go against these narratives, because you’re going against your own tribe. You’re going against your own people if you step forward and say, “I don’t see this working the way that it was sold. I see people being harmed.” One of the reasons why there are so many lesbian, gay, bi adults working in this field is because they experienced gender questioning and confusion as a young person. For many lesbian, gay, and bi people it’s just part of our growing up. We experience gender in different ways. We are tomboys and what used to be referred to as sissy girls. We experience gender differently. Part of the problem is that we see ourselves in these kids, yet, we have no good way of diagnostically differentiating who of these patients would just grow up to be a gay person, versus who might experience more of a lifelong gender-questioning pathway. Mr. Jekielek: Which, by all accounts, is extremely rare. Ms. Reed: Yes, that is extremely rare. Honestly, if you looked at earlier data, most of these kids are gay kids. One thing I struggle with is that we are taking away sexual function and fertility from our younger people. That is hard to face as an adult who has had biological children, who has been able to find comfort in my own gender and sex. We’re making these decisions and we’re taking this away from children. Mr. Jekielek: We’ve learned over the last few years about the power of social conformity and the need to belong that ultimately can take over rationality. As you pointed out moments ago, the effects on these kids can create a life of suffering. Is that oversimplifying it? Ms. Reed: No. We were not just in an ideological bubble, we were backed up by the university. Our culture right now is upholding places like these as if they are somehow sacred and not to be questioned. We didn’t just run the pediatric gender center. We infiltrated into other medical divisions. We had the audacity to go in and train these other divisions so that they would start to take on the language. In my training I would directly say, “We’re not here to be the language police. But you can’t say certain things to your patients. You have to use whatever pronouns your patients come forward with. You have to change the charts to update how they’re identifying.” We were going into these medical systems like tentacles to shift things all across the board. When we first did these training sessions in 2018, there was no pushback. The audience would be like, “Oh, they know everything. They’re so great.” By the end of 2022, other medical professionals were slowly starting to recapture what they already knew. They were starting to push back and ask questions. They would say, “Is there a line anywhere? Do we just affirm anything these children are saying?” Part of the complicity that I still feel is that we were bullying people into accepting these concepts. It was ideological bullying across the medical spectrum. As you can see in medicine, in the schools, in journalism, and in peer-reviewed publications, if you question this gender medicine, you’re the worst of the worst. You’re transphobic. You’re homophobic. You’re a Nazi. It’s just remarkable how quickly all of these systems were captured. Mr. Jekielek: I’m going to read something about the center that I found, “The center tells the public and parents that it makes individualized decisions. This is not true. Doctors at the center believe that every child who meets four basic criteria; age or puberty stage, therapist letter, parental consent and a one-hour visit with a doctor, is a good candidate for irreversible medical intervention. When a child meets these four simple criteria, the doctors always decide to move forward with puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones. There were no objective medical tests or criteria or individualized assessments.” How is that even remotely possible? Ms. Reed: Those were some of the basic scientific questions that began to really trouble me. In medicine there should be a differential diagnosis done. Everyone presenting just statistically cannot come through to the other side meeting the differential. It’s almost like if everybody said, “I have rheumatoid arthritis,” and then everyone that self-diagnosed and presented that claim came out the other side with treatments for rheumatoid arthritis. We had set up a system where children were basically fulfilling the role that we used to give to doctors that had the training to provide a differential diagnosis. What was so challenging was seeing it continue to fall on the kids. I would watch parents basically turn to their adolescents, who are struggling or in so much distress and say, “Do you know that you have to be sure about this? Are you really sure?” At the end of the day, everybody just looked at the kid. As a parent, I know children are even more anxious and struggle even more if the adults in the room don’t tell them that they’ve got this covered and say, “We’re the adults. We make the decisions. It is not on your shoulders.” We have created a medical system where we have put all of this on the kids. Imagine if you’re a kid and you say, “Yes, this is it. I know this is the treatment that I need,” and then you find out 2, 3, or 4 years later that it’s not. Then there is so much pressure on them to continue, because we have allowed them to make that decision on their own, a decision that should have never been theirs in the first place. Mr. Jekielek: There’s the incredibly heartbreaking anecdote about the young girl who asks to have her breasts put back on after a double mastectomy. I don’t even know what to say about that, but horribly misled and abused comes to mind. Ms. Reed: It was a failure on the part of so many individuals to allow her to have that surgery. But the thing that just was such a gut check was on the backend. You have a patient calling within three months of surgery reporting this, and the surgeon couldn’t even bother to take the call or call them back. The person who actually removed this healthy tissue from this person couldn’t even be bothered to pick up the phone and call them back and hear their pain and acknowledge it. It was pushed off on myself and our nurse to do this follow-up. The hubris and the lack of willingness to see the harm that one did was horrible. Mr. Jekielek: What kind of accountability followed that scenario? Ms. Reed: There was no accountability. The university and the hospital administrators had no accountability. This made me realize that this was not an individual patient failure, this was a systematic failure, because this patient met the criteria. They had the letter from a therapist and had worked with the therapist ahead of time. They had met with the organization called WPATH [World Professional Organization for Transgender Health]. It just continued to show me that the whole machine was broken, not just an individual cog here or there. The only way the machine could spin was to take someone and put them into the treatment path. There were no off-ramps at any point. Mr. Jekielek: You offer a few examples where treatment was declined for some very arcane reason. But this is a systemic problem and everyone gets pushed in the same direction. Is it just that people believe so deeply that this is what everybody must do? There are financial and incentive structures and I’ve spoken with people on the show about that. Do you understand how this works? Ms. Reed: There are a few elements that are hard for individual doctors within these systems to pause. At the center that I worked in, there were basically eight people on the team. There were only two individuals that touched every single chart. The two of us that touched every patient chart and saw every patient started picking up on the trend lines pretty quickly. We were seeing the harms, seeing that a significant number of patients were not doing well, and seeing the 30 percent loss in the follow-up rate. We were having patients start and then disappear. The doctors were seeing the patients who started on a treatment and came back three months later and said, “Oh, it’s wonderful” and then six months later said, “Oh, it’s wonderful.” There were so many patients that they did not even see. A small number of the patients would go through and be happy. But we were pretty much seeing this 30 percent, 30 percent, 30 percent. It was 30 percent saying, “This is great. I’m happy now. It was 30 percent that were having no change in the short term, either for better or for worse. Then 30 percent were really struggling and falling apart. Obviously, the treatments were immediately harming them. Initially, that was almost okay, because you could focus on that 30 percent that seemed to be doing well. The longer I was there, with the patients that at year one were doing well, year two were doing well, year three were doing well, you started to see by year four they were not meeting what we would consider the goal of adolescence, which is growing up. We start them on a puberty blocker at age 13, and the thing we were saying about this treatment is, “We’re making you a happy, healthy kid.” What do we expect from a 16, 17, or 18-year-old? We want them to be getting a driver’s license, maybe having their first job, maybe starting to think about college and maybe starting to progress outside of having a room full of stuffed animals. We want them to be achieving the goals of adolescence, and then move into young adulthood. Even that 30 percent that we were claiming were good were still struggling behind their peers. I was also seeing that their identities were not staying consistent. These were kids who were initially claiming that they were a girl or a woman. Four years later their identity had shifted to some vague non-binary status. The people that tout these treatments claim, “Oh, they’re just on their gender journey.” But as someone who’s been working as a social worker for years, I want to see people progressing through the stages of life, and these kids were just not doing that. I will concede that we have been transitioning humans for probably 40 to 50 years. In the 1960s and 1970s, we started some of these treatments with adults. All of the trans adults that I work with and that I’m friends with today, intuitively always understood their biological sex. They recognized that these treatments were changing their outward presentation to make them feel more comfortable interacting in the world. But they did not have these dissociative concepts about their identity. As adults, we have to talk to the younger kids and the younger cohort about the truth of what biological sex is, what the physical body is, and what can and cannot be changed. I’m a parent with kids who range from age 2 to 15. I’ve interacted with toddlers who will straight up ask you, “Am I a boy or a girl?” They rely on us to explain the reality of biology and sex to them, so that they can ground themselves in the reality of this world. This young cohort really struggles with this group of adults who are lying to them and saying, “No, trans women are women. You are a woman.” They struggle with coming into adolescence and into young adulthood with that narrative, and then coming up against the actual reality of the world, which is that your biological sex does matter. I do support trans adults who find that the best way for them to move forward is to medically transition and to present to the world as a different gender. I recognize that it helps some people. But what has never helped anyone is to try to create this upside down world where biological sex is ignored. For some of these patients, growing into adolescence and then into young adulthood brings this question, “Have my parents and these doctors been lying to me this whole time?” How does that lie affect someone trying to become themselves? Mr. Jekielek: We’re bringing up a whole generation of kids who are insecure in their identity, because they’re told they can be whatever they want it to be. They are told that it’s a spectrum, and you can change it from time to time if you feel like it. Ms. Reed: Yes. Children need a solid foundation, a grounding, and something to fall back on. You go out and explore, but you still have that foundation. If you do not have the foundation, and the foundation of your own physical body in space and time, of course the mind is going to become fractured and then struggle. Mr. Jekielek: How many patients did you see over the three years that you worked there? Ms. Reed: I worked there for almost four-and-a-half years. Nobody is keeping good records and nobody is keeping good data at gender centers in the United States. To actually have a dialogue, we need solid numbers and solid data. Since I left the center, this is one of the things I have been advocating for. I saw close to 1,200 individual, unique patients in my tenure, and we medicalized a significant majority of those. You can look back at the original first pediatric center that opened here in the United States referred to as the GeMS [Gender Multispecialty Service]. Some of the data that I heard was that they were open for five years. In the first five years they medicalized 70 patients total. What is happening now in these centers is this rapid, very quick treatment. Mr. Jekielek: Do you reflect on your own participation in this process for these 1,200 patients? It just must be a difficult thing to deal with. Ms. Reed: It is. I’m a mom and my kids know very little about any of this. But if anything, I hope that my kids can take away that grownups have to be able to acknowledge that they made a mistake. I recognized that mistake probably by the second year of my tenure, and then I spent probably two years within the system trying to see if we could shift the care. We would have case conferences and bring forward patients. I would advocate and say, “This patient does not meet criteria. I have a lot of concerns about this patient. Can we just put a pause on this?” I found myself almost begging or arguing in the case conference. We would have young patients who had experienced sexual abuse or assault. I would ask, “Before we give this patient testosterone, can we ask them to do six months of trauma therapy? Can we see if we could help them to address the trauma first, before we do this irreversible change?” I spent a number of years trying to advocate in that way, and that went nowhere. Then there was this weird fear that if I left, I would simply be replaced by somebody even more ideologically driven. Then there was this liminal space where I thought, “If I stay then potentially I could help some of these kids in some way.” But I was complicit. I worked in an industry that was harming children. The thing that I have to grapple with every day is making amends for that and trying to address the wrongs that I participated in. Mr. Jekielek: On this show, I’ve had a number of people in similar situations. They realized they were part of something that had huge problems. Then they came out and blew the whistle, and then had to grapple with it. That’s a rare thing and should be lauded. We live in a society where a lot of people have been complicit in things they’re not very proud of and will have to deal with it. But hopefully, as a process of healing, they will be admitting such things to themselves. How do we do that? Ms. Reed: It will be a process, and it is about being intentional. The part that I struggle with the most is when people come up to me and say, “Thank you so much for what you’ve done. You’re a hero.” No. I should have done more, quicker, sooner, and differently. A lot of this is asking for grace, giving myself the room for grace, and being willing to ask others for grace. Now I find myself getting really close to a number of young people who have detransitioned, who went through these treatments and are grappling with the medical harms. One of the things that we all can do as a society, and especially doctors in general, is to acknowledge the person in front of us, what we have put them through, and not turn a blind eye. I can’t go back and change the past but I can change every day in my future. That means listening when somebody reaches out to me and wants to sit down with me and tell me their story. I have detransitioners reach out to me and ask me, “Jamie, will you read through my medical records?” Because they know I understand how to do that. We read through the records together and we talk through what I see from the insider’s point of view. I give them a space to be heard and I hope to walk with them in that journey. Because I can’t go back and change it, but I can at least do that and be side by side with them. Hopefully, I can help others, not ignore their existence, and see them as people. I also want to ask the medical community to be brave, acknowledge their existence, recognize them for who they are, and look at what we need to do now. Mr. Jekielek: What you’ve done, you have to live with. But every day is a new day and things can change in an instant if you make that choice. I expect that there are a lot of people out there now that are thinking these kinds of things. I expect you’re probably even talking to some of them. Ms. Reed: I am. Mr. Jekielek: There was a very thoughtful and appropriate process that you went through, which was to become a whistleblower. Let’s talk about this for people that might be thinking about it, and understand that there is some sort of recourse. Ms. Reed: Yes, whistleblowers are a very interesting group of people. You find whistleblowers across all industries. At this moment in time, this industry is going to continue to see a number of them. One of the things that I found really powerful was looking at Britain. There was a clinic called Tavistock in Britain, and there were a number of whistleblowers that came out of that clinic. There were a number of them working together within this bigger group. In the United States right now you have all of these tiny clinics, where if you are feeling concerned or are thinking about being a whistleblower in one of those clinics here in the U.S., you’re going to feel really alone, because you might be the only one on your team. It took so long to get that affidavit at the AG’s office and work with the free press. It took months and months of background work. It was about finding a team, building a team behind me, and having really long in-depth conversations about, “What are you willing to risk? What do you want to risk? What do you want to see happen out of this?” One of the things that I am working on building right now is a coalition of other lesbian, gay, bisexual and adult trans people. We’re calling ourselves the Courage Coalition. We’re trying to build places for other whistleblowers to go, knowing that so many of the people that work in this industry are going to be people like myself, LGBT, knowing that you can land in a place where we can help you find legal representation, and knowing that other people have come before you. The biggest fears that I had of becoming a whistleblower is that I would be completely alone, isolated, and have to step off a cliff, basically. Mr. Jekielek: You would lose your livelihood. You mentioned that you’ve got five kids. Ms. Reed: Right. There are legal protections for whistleblowers, and there has to be. There are so many industries like this where you have to open up a channel for people to come forward and say, “There are harms.” One of the biggest areas for whistleblowers is medicine. With some other industries that are really dangerous, like finance, there are mechanisms in place. Part of it is just being able to link people to the right attorneys and to the right support so that they know that they can be protected in their jobs and so that they have that safety moving forward. We are really working to build that specifically for this industry. Mr. Jekielek: What is the first step for a person who is watching and is thinking to themselves that it’s time. What should they do? Ms. Reed: We’re hoping to fully launch in a month-and-a-half. We will launch a website and launch a safe place to contact. Part of this is documentation, which is tough. You can have a story to tell, but we do live in a situation where you have to have documentation behind you. Mr. Jekielek: You’ve got to have the receipts, as they say. Ms. Reed: You have to have the receipts, which means collecting emails, collecting documentation, and learning how to redact things and scrub out what’s called PHI, private health information, scrubbing things out while still keeping the narratives, the stories, the evidence, and the proof. But one of the things I’ve learned is that your employer is not a safe place to do this. Even if you just Google and look up just general whistleblower statutes, you probably don’t want to go to your internal HR systems. You’re going to need outside support for this. We’re in this really interesting cultural zeitgeist right now. There are so many things about this moment in time, because we have things like social media. We have kids with cell phones at ages 7, 8, and 9 watching an algorithm that pushes them to endless TikTok videos of trans influencers. One of the biggest myths that is being propagated is that suicide will be the final outcome. If we do not affirm or give these treatments, you will have individuals who are committing suicide. I hate to say this, but even the Ohio governor fell for it. But the data doesn’t show this to be true. Again, it’s one of those moments where we have put children in control. We have created a scenario where you literally just gave the script to the kid for how to talk to the adult. If they didn’t already know it, now they’re going to get in the car and they’re going to know exactly what to say to their parents. Children need adults to be adults making decisions, and guiding and leading them. At the end of the day, nobody was the responsible one in these centers. The therapist would write a letter thinking that the endocrinologist was making the decision. The endocrinologist would say that the therapist wrote the letter. Then they would all go and say, “But the parents are making the decision.” Nobody is stepping forward and being responsible, because if somebody started to do that, we would have to recognize that there are patients that we would have to say no to. The thing that was so challenging was that nobody was ever told no. You cannot have a functional medical diagnostic determination if everybody always gets a yes. It’s just not statistically possible. Mr. Jekielek: This is a social contagion. You mentioned a lot of your patients were young girls probably caught up in this social contagion fueled by TikTok, and fueled by social media and the need to belong. You’re not going to be giving medical advice here, but as a parent who might have a kid in this situation, what should a parent do in general? Ms. Reed: This is so challenging. I remember one particular case from when I was screening all of the new incoming families and kids. There was a parent telling me the story where their child went to a summer camp. We think we’re being great parents. We pay the money. We give them this extra cultural thing to do as your artsy, theater summer camp. Day one, Monday morning, the camp counselor put everybody around the circle to do the pronouns. He was telling these kids, “Go around the circle everybody and say what your pronouns are.” This was a five-day camp. By the end of Tuesday, the twelve-year-olds had already said that their pronouns were now they/them. Every day, it was the pronoun game. Every day, it was all about your identity. This is how malleable our children are. By the end of Friday, that child was trans-identified, within five days. The parents recognized it. They said, “On Monday, they weren’t thinking about this at all. But by Tuesday, they were non-binary. By Friday they were trans.” The mom said to me, “I guess I have to support this or else my child will kill themselves.” Mr. Jekielek: They had already bought into this. Ms. Reed: The parents already knew that was the only response they should say. It is so insidious right now for parents. I’ve heard of parents who have literally moved their children out of this country. I know of parents who have been pulling children out of school and homeschooling. I recognize for individual parents, that might be the thing they have to do for their child. But we all have to be willing to go to the school board meeting and say, “Please explain what is happening in our schools.” We have to go to the camp counselor on the Monday morning of the theater camp and say, “Can we have a conversation? Are you going to ask all of these twelve-year-olds what their pronouns are at the beginning of this camp?” Everybody is afraid that if they do that, they will be immediately hit with, “You’re transphobic. You don’t understand. You’re anti-LGBT.” I will tell you as somebody from the LGBT community, it is not anti-LGBT to not be indoctrinating children into this ideology. The kids also told us, “This is a trend.” I had a patient tell me, “This is the new goth in my school.” Figure out what’s going on in your school district and go to the school board meeting. If you walk into a room and everybody picks up a name tag and starts writing their pronouns on it, be willing to say, “No, I’m not doing that.” If you work in a business and everybody’s putting their pronouns at the end of their name you can say, “No, thank you. I’m not participating in this.” You can do that in a loving, caring, and kind way. I just want people to know that you are not a bigot and you can still be supportive of adults who are lesbian, gay, bi, and trans. You do not need to feel like we need to indoctrinate the whole world into this. We need to go back to being able to acknowledge that people have different opinions and it is okay to say, “Hey, we don’t agree on this, but that’s cool. Thanks for sitting down and having coffee with me.” Mr. Jekielek: Jamie Reed, it’s such a pleasure to have you on the show. Ms. Reed: Thank you so much for having me. Mr. Jekielek: Thank you all for joining Jamie Reed and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. I’m your host, Jan Jekielek. This interview was edited for clarity and brevity.

Alongside official polling, some of the key indicators on who’s winning the elections are betting odds, and how many customers are buying red and blue presidential cookies at bakeries in swing states. In this episode of Crossroads, we’ll have a look at where the bets are going between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, and what the “cookie polls” are showing on who may win the 2024 elections. Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.    🔵 Watch the full episode HERE 👇   https://ept.ms/4fikBKA Stay Informed. Stay Free. https://www.joshphilipp.com/

Justices will be hearing oral arguments on whether federal courts can review cases to revoke a person’s visa petition to the United States. We’ll discuss this topic and others, in this episode of Crossroads. Views expressed in this video are the opinions of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.  🔵 Watch the full episode HERE 👇   https://ept.ms/40vBBZ5 Stay Informed. Stay Free. https://www.joshphilipp.com/

The Supreme Court just ruled that Virginia can resume its removal of people on the voter rolls who are not legally allowed to vote. Many states, including Virginia and Texas, are attempting to check the citizenship of certain registered voters and others, in an attempt to eliminate illegal voting. The Justice Department has pushed back on this, arguing that it violates federal law to change voter rolls within 90 days of an election. The recent ruling from the Supreme Court could now have a broader effect on this effort. We’ll discuss this topic and others in this episode of “Crossroads.” Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.  🔵 Watch the full episode HERE 👇   https://ept.ms/3Ao5JLi Stay Informed. Stay Free. https://www.joshphilipp.com/