SiriusXM podcast host Megyn Kelly sounded off on Fox News Tuesday for airing a glowing segment of a family raising a transgender child.
A segment of the Whittington family aired on the network’s program “America’s Newsroom” Friday to celebrate Pride Month, covering the story of 14-year-old Ryland, a biological boy who transitioned into a girl at an early age. The parents, Jeff and Hillary, supported their child’s transition at one point saying they would “rather have a living son than a dead daughter.”
Kelly told Newsmax host Eric Bolling that Fox set a “dangerous trope” by promoting the family’s child as the way for all families to handle their kid facing an identity crisis. She said 70% of young children suffering from gender dysphoria will grow out of it if the parent takes no action.
“There’s room for some reporting on this. There is room for reporting on how do I identify what’s real, what’s not, how to be supportive, how not to do anything drastic until you know. The problem is the Fox News channel mission is not to do reports that sound like MSNBC,” she said. “The Fox News channel mission is to make sure they include the context that gets ignored by all of the other stations.”
“And in 2022 in particular, we know there’s a lot more to this story. And it is irresponsible to put it out on the air like this as celebration without flagging parents out there who are going through this, the significant downsides of jumping onto this without making sure you’re in that very, very small percentage of cases where this gender dysphoria might actually be a thing.”
She said the segment’s aired a “dangerous trope” pushed by LGBTQ activists to “shame parents” who do not interfere with their child identifying as a member of the opposite sex. (RELATED: ‘This Has Gone Too Far’: Transgender Psychologist Reconsiders Work With Trans Youths)
“To not flag the significant downsides of what happens to these kids when they’re put on puberty blockers, when they’re put on cross-gender hormones, by the way when that’s done to girls, they’re sterile, they can’t have children anymore and you can go down the list. It’s irresponsible to their mission. I don’t expect any of the mainstream press to do it, although they should.”
Bolling noted the number of adults pushing the LGBTQ agenda on children, particularly in school. The percentage of American youth identifying as trans has nearly doubled from 5 years ago. Kelly said an increasing number of parents are forcing a “left-wing” political agenda onto their children.
“We’ve lost our minds on this issue,” Kelly continued. “It’s become a political issue almost, it’s like the politics of it have taken over the actual issue of it to where now you know if somebody’s calling their child a theyby instead of a baby it’s going to be some far-left woke progressive who’s got some political agenda they’re working out on their kid. And it’s abusive. And now what we’re doing is hiding facts from parents who have an absolute role in this. Teachers who have their own agenda trying to push it on children when it comes to sex and gender. Things that they should not be coming anywhere near.”
She argued a child’s issue with sexual orientation or gender identity is not a teacher’s responsibility to handle. She then concluded that the push for “tolerance” has resulted in abuse to children and parents.
Studies show that 80% of children on average grow out of their gender identity and do not continue into adulthood as transgender, according to Transgender Trend.
Doctors have prescribed puberty blockers to children suffering from gender dysphoria, though it has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), nor is there enough research to conclude the long term negative effects of injecting hormones into children to pause puberty, PBS reported. Testosterone and estrogen, which are blocked by the medications, contribute to a child’s neurological and bone development.
A March 2021 National Institute for Health and Care Excellence comprehensive review found no evidence that hormone and puberty blockers are helpful to children suffering from gender dysphoria.
Alabama became the first state to criminalize the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and sex reassignment surgery on minors in April.