Hear Brandon Showalter and Jacob Barr talk about discusses the overlap between abortion clinics and the transgender medical industry, critiquing the ease of access to hormone treatments, the long-term health risks, and advocating for truth-based, compassionate support from pregnancy centers.
Transcript
The transcript was automatically generated and may contain errors.
Jacob Barr
So welcome to the Pro Life Team Podcast. I’m with Jacob Barr, and I’m here with Brandon. And today, we’re gonna be hearing his story and how it connects with Prezi Clinics and the, well, in the trans, health space and places like like that. Brandon, would you introduce yourself and maybe just, yeah, share a little bit about your your background and your story, in this connected space.
Brandon Showalter
Well, my name is Brandon Showalter. I’m a journalist with The Christian Post. I have been since the summer of 2016. I’ve done some reporting on the pro life issue, of course. We are an unapologetically socially conservative, pro life publication that values and champions the rights of the unborn here. Those are our core values. I have been reporting on gender ideology for many years.
Started really heavy into this when we did an article series in 2017 where we examined several facets of what gender ideology is, how it functions. Of course there’s the medical piece of this with puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, and surgeries that were being done on young people increasingly planned parenthood being one of the largest dispensaries of cross sex hormones and so you see that overlap with the abortion industry where they’re in on the trans medical stuff as well. But I’ve also done reporting on what’s going on in the prisons and in schools and everywhere gender ideology has made an incursion and that’s pretty much everywhere in our society these days. First did our first season of our documentary podcast generation indoctrination in the fall of 2022. We are about to do our 4th season of that here in about a week or so.
We’ll launch the first episode of that. And last year I also published an ebook which I coauthored with Jeff Myers of Summit Ministry Summit Ministries called Exposing the Gender Lie, How to Protect Children and Teens from the Transgender Industry’s False Audiology, and that’s a free download on christianpost. com.
Jacob Barr
Awesome. Yeah. And this is very timely for, this podcast because most abortion clinics offer, hormone blocks, hormone ads, maybe not the surgery level, but the medication levels are very common, And I would estimate about 70% of the abortion clinics going way beyond the planned parenthood group and then to other abortion clinics. Yeah. So what are your thoughts on, you know, where where these services are being offered if you if you come across that connection as well when it comes to the abortion clinics offering the tran the hormone blocks and hormone ads and maybe even the surgery connections?
Brandon Showalter
Well, I I am also unaware about any sort of references for surgery, but I’m I wouldn’t be surprised. I haven’t examined that aspect of, you know, planned parenthood just to name one outfit. But it’s very easy, very easy to call planned parenthood or go into a planned parenthood or even do a telehealth consultation with plan with your local planned parenthood affiliate to claim to be the opposite sex. Say that you wanna go on hormones within half an hour even and you can be given hormones that that very day, you don’t even need a diagnosis. And I know of of just to give one example, I’ve shared this story a few times and I’ll share it here where I know of a a mother in her fifties who wanted to see how easy it would be. So she claimed to be trans, went into planned parenthood, and they even gave it to her. And they only gave her an informed consent document with some of the risks, took a blood sample and her blood pressure, and that was that.
She did that because her daughter who, I think at age 18 and had some mental health problems including a developmental delay was able to acquire testosterone from planned parenthood very quickly. And she found out about it and she just wanted to see how easy it would be and there’s there you go. I called planned parenthood claiming to be trans and said I was thinking about going on hormones and I asked them, you know, someone told me that, you know, the human brain doesn’t stop developing until your mid twenties. I’m I’m worried about the hormone effects on my brain, something along those lines. Should I be worried about that? And the planned parenthood rep representative told me that sounds like a bunch of smoke coming out of nowhere, something like that. So this is very easy medicalization to acquire.
People have this idea that, oh, you have to go through a psychiatric, you know, protocol or an evaluation and have lots of counseling before you go down this road. No. It’s very easy. You can it’s it’s unregulated experiment on very vulnerable people. Abigail Schrier, the author of the 2020 book, was kind of a watershed book, irreversible damage, published an article about how these young people were being cash cows and she had a whistleblower from planned parenthood that she confirmed that they worked there and they were giving I think 1 or 2 people in the clinics their everyday for hormones, something like that. And the only time they’d ever said no to anyone who was in there looking for hormones was a drug addled man, a young man who they said until you get some substance abuse counseling, we’re not gonna sign off on these hormones. But everything every other time, they gave it the green light.
So it is alarming in terms of the connection on why they’re in on it. I think money is probably a big motivator. If abortions are down, this is another income stream for them. I in this from a spiritual level, I can just kinda see the connection. A lot of people I work with a lot of people in my own reporting who are very supportive of abortion rights, and I I’m obviously a pro lifer through and through, but, they they they don’t like to conflate the abortion issue and the trans issue because they prefer to keep them entirely separate. As a Christian, however, I can’t help but see the connection that this is just kind of a spirit of death and destruction that connects both things. But, you know, it is even some of the most ardent advocates against this transmedical stuff actually do support abortion enthusiastically.
So it’s it’s a very strange space, this is, but I just gotta try to keep my eye on the ball.
Jacob Barr
Yeah. And and what’s interesting, I think that it it’s a it’s a it’s an ongoing revenue generation space for as a cash cow because someone that gets hormone blocks or hormone ads, it’s not like a it’s not like a one time surgery, it’s actually like a a commitment. Probably, you know, month after month, year after year, it’s an ongo because, you know, someone’s body creates and naturally creates a certain hormone, and to change that requires blocking and adding.
Brandon Showalter
Well and it’s and it really is an unregulated experiment and I’ve I’ve spoken with, this was not so long ago, a detransitioner who had been on the hormones for a while and had tremendous problems with her kidneys. And now so now she’s detransitioning and she’s now with some good endocrinologists and doctors, other doctors who are trying to help her but even they, even though they’re really good and they’re not furthering this madness, they’ve told her basically we don’t know what to do. Because we don’t have data sets, they don’t have good numbers to work with. Every person who has gone on these cross sex hormones, they take different dosages and so it affects the human body, you know, very differently per person to person. So there’s they’re struggling to know how to best help her. They’re doing their best, monitoring her hormone levels, taking blood samples and tracking things as best they can. But, they are enslaved to the medical industrial complex, if you will, because once you go on these hormones and in order to keep the illusion going that you are the opposite sex, you will be a medical patient for life.
You’re kind of enslaved to it.
Jacob Barr
Yeah. That that makes sense.
When it when it comes to well, when it comes to the Prezi Clinic work, sometimes there’s Praising Clinics located right next door to an abortion clinic, planned parenthood or a different abortion clinic. And the idea is to offer hope, help, and healing to people who may be going into that place of destruction and divert them or intercept them in order to have them receive true help. And and for a long time, you know, the worst damage being done, well, was and is tied to abortion, but it’s hard to say that, you know, the services that they’re rendering to women or men by altering their biological makeup, making it so that they can no longer have a family. They can no longer they’re more likely to have, suicide in their future or things of that kind of, you know, dark, you know, darkness. How would you what are your thoughts on and, you know, helping, you know, what what what would you say to someone who’s located next to an abortion clinic who’s looking to try and offer hope, help, and healing? And when it comes to the people coming in for transgender medical slash services, you know, or, you know, medication slash services, what would you say say in that space to the to those people located next door?
Brandon Showalter
Well, I think that I mean, I I have such respect for all those who are helping, mothers who are expect facing unexpected pregnancy, and they’re trying to help them in their hour of need. And one thing I know about those wonderful saints is that they are not afraid to walk with great compassion with with people who who have found themselves in a very difficult spot. And true compassion is anchored to truth. And so if someone walks into your crisis pregnancy center or your pregnancy care center that’s located next to a planned parenthood facility or an abortion clinic where they provide these transgender medical services, I would say one of the things that they really need to do is speak truthfully to them about what the hormones are doing to their body, and you’re gonna have to tell them that we don’t offer those things here because of the integrity of male and female. And a lot of times, you will you will find that people if if someone like that stumbles into a pregnancy care center and they’re looking for help, So many of these young people who have gotten mired in gender confusion, whether they have been sort of swept up into the social contagion aspect of it or they are genuinely confused and dealing with some trauma and confusion for for whatever reason and they come to believe that they are the opposite sex, they’re they’ve been in a milieu in a world where they have never been challenged on any of their beliefs. They have been it it’s been almost like a cult indoctrination about gender. And so it’s actually a very good thing for them to to be challenged to say, no. Well, you we care about your body.
And, you know, so it it may you may hit a brick wall, you may not get through, but the truth has to be told. And someone you just never know when your obedience to speak truthfully and lovingly to someone might cut through the deception, and they will at least hear the truth in a way that they never have before. It’s it really is quite insidious how not only young people who who come to the belief that they are the opposite sex, but their parents psychologically train themselves to shut out any dissenting or opposing views as, you know, right wing Christian bigots or just, you know, science hating, you know, Neanderthals who who who don’t love trans people or something. It’s the narrative sort of comes along with any information that would contravene theirs their beliefs. In fact, it’s so bad that the Associated Press topical style guidelines actually say when you’re reporting on transgenderism, I know this because I’ve done plenty of it, that those who are, you know, expressing caution about blockers, hormones, and surgeries actually use widely discredited research. They are actually gunning for this medicalization in their style guidelines, which should just be about syntax and grammar and kind of advice on how to write cleanly, journalistically. So the indoctrination and the brainwashing with this ideology goes so deep even to the point where they’re training journalists to use their lingo and their and and their beliefs.
And so it’s really important for people who are on the front lines of helping people in a tough spot to know the power of telling the truth because it’s entirely possible that the people they’re speaking to have never heard it.
Jacob Barr
Yeah. There’s a there’s a psychologist who I did, he would it’s probably from 10 years ago. His name was, doctor Lester. And one of the ways that he expressed, you know, a really good way of delivering truth to someone who might have a, might have a mental problem or for those who don’t have a mental problem, and he went through many different scenarios. But essentially, his recipe was empathy, empathy, truth. So you say something to the fact of I understand that this is really hard to go through. I understand, you know, I understand where you’re at.
You have 2 empathy statements, and then you deliver the truth very straight and bold. And the empathy statements, if you simply give the truth straight, someone will naturally wanna resist or put up a defensive reaction. But the empathy empathy coming first is a way of having someone hear it and hopefully having it really impact them and getting past that defensive mechanism that often shows up when you just simply speak truth without the empathy empathy coming first. What’s your thoughts on that?
Like, I know that’s that’s a lot but
Brandon Showalter
I think if our goal is to show compassion to people and we want them to hear what we have to say, lead with love, lead with, you know, understanding, but but do both.
Jacob Barr
Yeah. I
Brandon Showalter
mean, don’t don’t covet or veil the truth either. Obviously, do we don’t wanna be a bull in a China shop and just bracing something. It’s not as though that may never work, but, like, I or I think the other thing to say is ask questions. Well, have you considered this? Did you know about the side effects to these drugs? And, you know, you could risk this and because, I mean, just to return to my earlier example, the Planned Parenthood informed consent document that the 50 the mom in her fifties shared with me, it had some of the risks listed but not all. And so they were deny I mean, people who get that document, they think, oh, they’re just doing their due diligence here.
Not all of the risks were delineated on that that that document. But then that lets planned parenthood off the hook because, oh, you signed this informed consent document. You knew what you were getting into. Well, there was actually more truth that they hid. And so you can ask questions to people and say, did you know that, for example, if you take testosterone for several years, what will happen is that your uterus will atrophy and then doctors recommend a prophylactic hysterectomy, and then you’ll be sterile. You know, they I think the informed consent document might say something like risks to fertility. That doesn’t explain the half of it, you know, what you could what you could potentially, you know, undergo, and there’s a whole lot of other problems.
And if, you know, it’s it’s been shown as well that there was a big study out of, England, I believe, that, young people are that that people who had hysterectomies, and it’s not just for transgender, but hysterectomies are often linked with a higher percentage of Alzheimer’s, dementia Alzheimer’s, that kind of thing. And so, I mean, if we’re going to be doing hysterectomies for transgender purposes, well, there’s an increased likelihood of that. I mean, let’s let’s let’s be honest with the full range of truly informed consent means that you’re, you’re being told of all of the risks, especially the major ones, and it is impossible to give informed consent if you were being misinformed about the nature of your condition.
Jacob Barr
So as someone who is, well, speaking regularly so when it comes to this area, so, you know, essentially, it sounds like you’re writing articles or you’re interviewing people regularly. Is that true?
Brandon Showalter
For several years, I was a beat reporter, and we I wrote a ton of articles, and I still write some opinion columns. I curate a lot of content now, and I am also working heavily on our documentary podcast. And so I’m interviewing people on the front clinics, including detransitioners, people who have been harmed by this, the families, that’s a big focus for me, the families who’ve been torn apart by this. I appeared in documentaries on these subjects, but that’s the the documentary podcast has been a major bulk of work here.
Jacob Barr
Where have you seen, God’s fingerprints in this work? Or where yeah. Where have you seen him showing up in these stories that you’ve been listening to or reading about?
Brandon Showalter
Well, I think if there was if there’s a silver lining or to use your phrase God’s fingerprint is that I’ve been in touch with more and more people who are not religious or Christian at all, but are affected by this, and they are looking for truthful sources of information. And so they find the Christian Post, they find my reporting, they find my podcast, they find the documentaries that I’ve been in because they’re just scrambling. Google hides, you know, the search engines, the popular search engines hide information. Twitter used to be bad before Elon Musk bought it. They would suppress any information that was critical of this. And so they had to scour the Internet very deeply and they they finally stumbled upon the resources that I and my colleagues have been working on to provide for ed for educational purposes. And so that’s been a really neat thing to be able to have conversations with people who never thought they would be reading anything on the Christian Post.
And the truth is is that God is at work in the lives of people. There are, you know, young people, some of whom come from Christian families that got mired in gender confusion, others who did not, but are finding are finding the Lord. It was Christians and pastors who cared for people and led them to the truth. And in the last season of my podcast, one of the episodes we spoke with, 2 detransitioners, one of them, was going to a progressive church that actually sort of helped encouraging it disgracefully. They encouraged him down this road of transitioning, but it was a Pentecostal pastor who led him back to the Lord and he’s now walking a a faithful journey. It’s it’s hard, but, you know, that god is redeeming all things. And even though he had undergone an orchiectomy, had his testicles amputated and has suffered greatly and continues to suffer, god is moving in his life and he’s picking up the pieces and moving ahead.
So there’s not no one is beyond redemption. We we believe that god’s arm is long. I wish, you know, I I I I so hope and pray that this medical scandal can come to an end as soon as possible because there’s just so much so much suffering out there needlessly so, but he’s working in the midst of it, and so those are his fingerprints.
Jacob Barr
Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. If I would have asked, you know, where is the fingerprints of evil or Satan, it would have been pretty obvious and, you know, large in this space. And I think God’s fingerprints seem to be connected to the healing and the restoration. It sounds like basically what you’re saying, which is which is part of his yeah.
Who he is. He’s offering help and he he you know, healing and restoration, just like he’s talks about in the bible. One one of my favorite verses, is well, I’ve been thinking a lot about Psalms 23 over the last 4 months. And, one of my favorite verses is verse 3, which is he restores my soul. And to me, I feel like that just speaks volumes in such a in such a deep deep deep pass deep verse for for so few words. And, it seems like that reflects the fingerprints that you’ve seen is that people are getting restored.
Brandon Showalter
No. For sure.
And, you know, we are he does restore our souls and yet he also I mean, we see in the ministry of Jesus, he heals bodies too. And I I’m I’m going to believe for miracles of healing beyond what I mean, even, you know, good doctors are helping. I I we serve a supernatural god and Yeah. Yeah. So I’m I’m believing that he will restore souls and bodies. He’ll bring, you know, our spirit like he it’s an all encompassing deal. The lord brings healing to us when we surrender to him.
So it is it is great. I I feel Psalm 23 as well. He does restore.
Jacob Barr
You know, in my at my church, they we’ve we’ve talked recently about how the the soul encompasses, like, mind and body. Like, the the soul is, sort of like your whole person, and the the body is included in that and that and how we look at it. Not everyone may agree with that, but that’s one way to look at it at least, is that the soul is like this, you know, who you are as a complete, and that and the body is part of that. And, not that I’m an expert on that on that word, but I I feel like, yeah, body is very much part of, like, who you are at least, and then the soul encompasses, like, your core, you know, really your core, and maybe all all that you are.
Brandon Showalter
We’re integrated. Yeah.
Jacob Barr
Yes. We’re we’re rich.
So what, what what have you found that’s been encouraging? So how would you, you know, so I feel like there’s sidewalk counselors trying to intercept. There’s crazy clinics located nearby and trying to intercept traffic from going into this damage. And Planned Parenthood in a nutshell has increased your scope of evil from just targeting those before birthdays to those who are now in juvenile ages, whether it’s, you know, elementary all the way through, teens and maybe even early twenties, but they eventually have, like, you know, this is like a new attack on young people. So what would you find incur how would you encourage those who are trying to connect with these people who are being targeted for damage, how would you encourage them to what what are your thoughts? Or, like, what are your top thoughts when you think about ways to encourage them who are next door or on the sidewalk or trying to intercept and redirect people from going into the dangerous direction.
Brandon Showalter
Well, I again, I would just reiterate the importance of telling the truth, and you are finding transgender minded people going into these places. And so people need to be educated about, it’s not just, it’s not just a crisis pregnancy that they may be facing. It it could be something else. And so it’s important to educate yourself about the issue, and have something to say. And to, I mean, the gospel says to always be ready to give an answer for the hope that you have, and so that’s always good advice. But I think people are are gonna have to if you’re training people to counsel people on the sidewalk to reconsider what they are doing or what they are about to do, it may not just be about a crisis pregnancy. It’ll be about, you know, long term damage to their bodies, hormonally and if if indeed planned parenthood and others are doing surgery referrals, potentially surgery.
And I I wouldn’t be at all surprised if I haven’t looked recently, but it wouldn’t it’ll I’ll be surprised if there are referrals for double mastectomies or hysterectomies or other other surgeries. And so, it’s all kinda connected in one big beast, if you will. So educate your your sidewalk counselors and there I mean, I actually know of other people who they don’t do it outside of, Planned Parenthood facilities, but they just go on the streets with sandwich boards and they talk to strike up conversations with people about gender ideology and saying, are you realizing what’s what’s being taught in the public schools about how they’re teaching children they can choose their sex and they can identify into a woman’s sports category and the the media the mass media by and large still is not allowing these ideological, you know, discussions to be happening. They they are actually, I think, enforcing the narrative of gender activists. And so because of that, people have had to circumvent the press and strike up conversations unconventionally, including on the street wearing sandwich boards and outside planned parenthood clinics. And so do whatever you can, reaffirm the truth of being made male and female in the image of God, be led by the Holy Spirit, but just know that this is an issue that you as a crisis pregnancy center person or a or a or a sidewalk counselor are very likely to face because this is these these two things are happening together, you know, in planned parenthood settings.
Jacob Barr
And this next next question seems really basic to me, but I don’t know the answer to it. And that is, do you think or know if people receiving hormone blocks and hormone ads are physically going in to a facility to get those every x number of weeks or x, you know, maybe every month or whatever that routine might be or that regimen. So maybe the people who are outside of that clinic, they actually might see the same person month after month or every 3 weeks. So whatever that regimen might be. What what are your thoughts on that reoccurring visit that might be taking place?
Brandon Showalter
It’s it’s possible there are reoccurring visits. I mean, I don’t know how it all works whether you just sort of go in there and get your prescription one time and then it can be refilled so you then just go to the pharmacy and get it. I’m not sure how it all work.
Jacob Barr
That might be how it works.
Brandon Showalter
But then you might have, like, after a couple months, you have to re we get it done. I I don’t know the timetables for every person and not everybody has the same dosage, and so I’m sure there are some variables. But it’s possible that you’ll see some repeat people. It’s possible.
Jacob Barr
Yeah. That makes sense that they would
Brandon Showalter
dependent on it. You’ll be dependent on those drugs.
Jacob Barr
Yeah. They probably have to get a prescription refill, but they probably could do that over the phone or over the Internet. Telehealth. They probably don’t have to make it yeah.
Brandon Showalter
This is happening via telehealth, unfortunately. So you won’t see them on the sidewalk.
Jacob Barr
That’s interesting. Yeah. Well, so as we as we wrap up, what are your final thoughts that you would you would like to share that, you know, maybe I didn’t ask you about or something you think that would be really important to, you know, that I should have asked you about perhaps. What what are your final thoughts as we wrap up?
Brandon Showalter
Well, I would just say for all those who are, again, serving in pregnancy centers and they’re right there on the front lines meeting people right where they are in a moment of need, it’s important to be educated on these issues. It really you I I would urge everyone, even though you may never thought you would have to deal with something like this that seems strange, sometimes just the times change and we are forced with things that we never signed up for on career fair day at school.
And so you’re going to be facing this. And so it’s important for you to to know about how all of this functions and the indoctrination the indoctrination that has happened to a generation of young people who you’ll be attending to. And so if you’re looking for educational resources, I would just point everyone to, my free ebook, which is a free download, called Exposing the Gender Lie, and that is available for free at christianpost.com/ebook/genderhyphen lie. The documentary podcast that I’ve been mentioning can be found on our landing page which is generation indoctrination. com. That’s also available on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Of course, we have frontline news coverage here. I’m not like I said, I’m not doing so much fee reporting anymore, but our we’re staying on it. Our reporters are covering gender issues as they emerge in the news, so stay current with that. And if you really wanna know what this is like for families, I would just recommend one of the documentaries that I was featured in, and that’s can be found at deadnamedocumentary. com. You’ll get a clue as to how this not just, you know, damages the individuals who are the victims of this experimental medicalization, you’ll see how it disrupts their families. We know that abortion does that too, but the gender stuff even more so I think, because of how it fractures relationships between parents and children.
Jacob Barr
Wow. Thank you so much, Brandon. Would you close out our podcast with a prayer with the idea that those who are listening will join in as you pray. They may pray they’ll pray with you.
Brandon Showalter
Sure. I’ll pray with you. I’ll pray right now. Heavenly father, I, I just lift up every pregnancy care resource center and crisis pregnancy center For all those staffers who are listening, just that you would bless and establish the work of their hands. Lord, bring them favor. And I pray, Lord God, that the anointing of the Holy Spirit would be on them to minister to people who are gender confused, who find themselves inside of these care centers, that they would know the words to say, that they would speak words of life, words of healing, words of freedom, that all the people they serve would know that they are made male and female in your image and that there is nothing wrong with their physical bodies, that whatever trauma or whatever confusion beset them, that these that these saints who work so diligently to help people in a very tough spot would would minister in the power and the love of the Holy Spirit, that the Lord Jesus Christ would just manifest himself in those interactions. And I just pray for all those who counsel on sidewalks that a similar thing would happen, that your love, Lord, would just permeate their being, and that you would bring deliverance and healing to these poor people who’ve been led to believe a lie.
We just pray all these things in Jesus’ mighty name. Amen.