Dr. Keith Ablow’s Fox News Piece On Chaz Bono? Don’t Let Your Kids Read It!
I advise parents to not allow their children to read Dr. Keith Ablow’s Fox News piece titled, “Don’t Let Your Kids Watch Chaz Bono On ‘Dancing With the Stars’.”
Here’s why: Many of the children who might be reading will be establishing a sense of self which includes, of course, a sexual/gender identity. Some will be girls becoming comfortable with dramatic changes in their minds. Some will be boys coming to terms with integrating the dawn of manhood with exquisite feelings of vulnerability. Young readers will include tomboyish girls and sensitive, less stereotypically “masculine†boys. They will also include children who have sustained the losses of loved ones and are wrestling with depression, perhaps wondering who they are absent their deceased mothers or fathers.
Why subject them to anything as homophobic, transphobic, hateful, unscientific, or just plain poorly crafted as a Dr. Keith Ablow piece on yet another topic he clearly mishandles and appears ill-equipped to author? Reading the un-scientific, unsubstantiated pop-psychology opinions of a man who repeatedly attacks members of the LGBT community, (and also, women in general,) is likely to confuse your children as to who they really are: caring, sensitive, young minds who shouldn’t be subjected to hate- and fear-mongering from the likes of Fox News or Keith Ablow.
The last thing vulnerable children and adolescents need, as they wrestle with the normal process of establishing their identities, is to read nonsense masquerading as scientific insight fed to a captive crowd by someone whose search for an identity culminated with a gig on Fox News writing about “the removal of…breasts, the injection of steroids and, perhaps one day soon, the fashioning of a make-shift phallus to replace [a] vagina.”
Where am I going with this? Why, the above paragraphs are merely taken, almost verbatim, from Dr. Ablow’s recent piece at Fox News that, once again, mischaracterizes and delivers false “information” from the anti-gay anti-trans misogynist who should not be taken seriously by any child, much less by any adult charged with the awesome responsibility of raising a young person.
Ablow also ludicrously writes,
It is a toxic and unnecessary byproduct of the tragic celebration of transgender surgery that millions of young people who do watch “Dancing with the Stars” will have to ponder this question: Maybe my problems really stem from the fact that I’m a girl inside a boy’s body (or a boy inside a girls body). Maybe I’m not a tomboy; I’m just a boy! Maybe I’m not just being bullied because I’m a sensitive, reflective young man interested in flowers, not football. Maybe I’m not just uncertain about my sexuality. Maybe I’m a girl! Maybe all this angst and suffering I’m feeling as I emerge into puberty and pass through it isn’t just because I’m changing, but because I should change completely—and have my breasts removed or my penis amputated!
It would be wrong to think that gender dysphoria cannot be kindled by celebrating those who have undergone sexual reassignment surgery. Human beings do model one another—in terms of emotion, thought and behavior. By broadcasting, applauding and mainstreaming the journey of a very disordered person who endured, and likely will continue to endure, real suffering based on extraordinarily deep psychological problems, we suggest that that journey is a smart—even heroic—one to take.
And, disgustingly, Ablow adds,
Make no mistake: I would have gone to the ends of the earth to help Chaz Bono if she had come to me for help.
I would have treated her with dignity and summoned every ounce of my intellect and empathy to explore her psyche with her. I would have pried loose every family secret hidden by the Bonos.
I would have been relentless.
I would have used everything I know about medication to help her.
I would have enlisted the help of every expert I know—some of the world’s best—at everything from endocrinology to hypnosis.
I would have teamed up with a spiritual counselor, if that seemed indicated.
And if all that failed, and if Chaz Bono wanted either to kill herself or to undergo gender reassignment surgery, I would have taken that journey with her, too. I would have talked her parents through the hell of it. We would make the best of it.
Zack Ford at Think Progress says, “[t]his has to be one of the most transphobic articles ever published by a major media outlet.” Agreed.
Remember, Ablow is the Fox News doctor who just three weeks ago suggested that pedophilia is a sexual orientation, like homosexuality. (It’s not. Pedophilia is a psychiatric disorder.) In April, Ablow wrote a highly-​controversial column suggesting that J. Crew CEO Jenna Lyons’ painting her son’s toenails pink amounted to “psychological sterilization.†(Lyons’ son’s favorite color happens to be pink.)
This is not Ablow’s first  ignorant, pop-​psychology attack on Chaz Bono. In May, Ablow penned a column attacking Chaz Bono so viciously, calling Bono “psychotic” and classifying him as “delusion[al]” that Fox actually removed it.
I decided to reach out to Michael Silverman, who has offered advice and opinion to The New Civil Rights Movement before. Silverman is the Executive Director of the Transgender Legal Defense And Education Fund, based in New York City. I share his comments to me with you in their entirety:
Ablow’s opinions on transgender Americans are toxic and extreme. Under the guise of providing medical information, Ablow works overtime to fuel hatred and misunderstanding. Despite being called a doctor, his opinions aren’t medical opinions at all. They are plain old bias. He cites no medical support for his views because none exists. No credible medical professional shares his extreme opinions, which should have no place in mainstream media.
The real facts are these: Every credible medical expert recognizes that access to proper medical care, including hormone therapy and surgery, is essential for transgender people. The American Medical Association calls Gender Identity Disorder a “serious medical condition†and has concluded that “mental health care, hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery… are recognized within the medical community to be the standard of care for treating people with GID.â€
Ablow has gone off the deep end. His warning to parents that their boys will want to become girls (and their girls boys) if they watch Chaz Bono dance suggests that it is Ablow who needs psychiatric intervention. As any real medical expert will tell you, Gender Identity Disorder is a medical condition. You’ve got it or you don’t. And if you don’t, you’re not going to get it, no matter how hard Chaz works to perfect his dance moves.
Tuning in to watch Chaz get his groove on? It’s not a threat to the collective gender of our nation’s youth. It’s a teachable moment for parents to help their children understand one of our country’s most misunderstood and marginalized groups. If we’ll see anything as a result of that, perhaps it will be fewer little Keith Ablows running around, sucking the oxygen out of what should be a moment for real conversation about transgender Americans’ place at our collective national table.
I couldn’t have said it better myself. Pity we can’t say that for any of Ablow’s work.
Editorial Note: To be clear, a portion of the above is taken almost verbatim from Ablow’s offensive piece at Fox. I advise caution in reading it as your head may explode.
Enjoy this piece?
… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.
NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.
Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.
 |
The Trump administration is once again drawing criticism during LGBTQ Pride Month—this time for defunding the LGBTQ youth-specific branch of the national 988 suicide hotline, which has supported 1.3 million LGBTQ+ young people since its launch in 2022.
Known as “988 Press 3 Option,” the LGBTQ crisis line has been operated by The Trevor Project—a nonprofit serving LGBTQ+ youth in crisis—since 1998. As the nation’s first suicide prevention helpline dedicated to LGBTQ youth, it will continue to operate independently, but it is being removed from the federal government’s 988 system.
The “Press 3 Option” support for LGBTQ+ callers “was established in 2022 based on a recognition that gay and transgender people experience distinct mental health issues — often driven by family rejection and societal discrimination — and have disproportionately high suicide rates,” The New York Times reported.
READ MORE: ‘Make Asbestos Great Again?’: Trump Slammed for Move to End Ban on Russia-Tied Carcinogen
“On July 17, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline will no longer silo LGB+ youth services, also known as the ‘Press 3 option,’ to focus on serving all help seekers, including those previously served through the Press 3 option,” read a statement Tuesday from the federal government’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
CBS News reports it is “unclear if staff for the specialized option 3 care line will be cut or moved to the general 988 line.”
“This means that, in 30 short days, this program that has provided life-saving services to more than 1.3 million LGBTQ+ young people will no longer be available for those who need it,” said Jaymes Black, CEO of The Trevor Project, in a statement Wednesday. “Suicide prevention is about people, not politics. The administration’s decision to remove a bipartisan, evidence-based service that has effectively supported a high-risk group of young people through their darkest moments is incomprehensible.”
Black called the decision to announce the shutdown during Pride Month “callous,” and blasted the federal government for removing the “T” in LGBT, writing: “Transgender people can never, and will never, be erased.”
But as The New York Time3s also reported, “the White House Office of Management and Budget has previously described the hotline’s L.G.B.T.Q. section as ‘a chat service where children are encouraged to embrace radical gender ideology by ‘counselors’ without consent or knowledge of their parents.’ That language reflects the Trump administration’s broader efforts to eliminate services for and legal recognition of transgender people.”
Earlier this month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the un-naming of the USNS Harvey Milk, a U.S. Navy ship named for the assassinated veteran and LGBTQ activist who was the first openly-gay man to be elected to public office in California. The decision to announce the plan during LGBTQ Pride Month reportedly was intentional.
RELATED: Pride Month Purge: Pentagon Chief Defends Renaming USNS Harvey Milk and Trans Ban
Critics are blasting the decision to end federal funding for the LGBTQ+ option for the 988 suicide prevention hotline.
“The ‘pro-life’ party is shutting down suicide hotlines,” wrote podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen.
“When folks are in crisis, this admin chooses cruelty over care—every time. But this is the party of ‘family values,’ right?” observed U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX).
“The LGBTQ+ community faces so much discrimination, isolation, and violence that makes them over 4x as likely to die by suicide. Trump’s decision to end the federal LGBTQ+ suicide hotline is absolutely devastating and it’s the opposite of ‘pro-life’,” noted U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA).
“The Trump Administration is wholly pro-death,” declared The Atlantic’s Dr. Norman Ornstein, a political scientist. “As they fan the flames of virulent homophobia and trans-hatred, they cut out the LGBT suicide hotline. People will die. For them, it is a feature, not a bug.”
CBS News cited these support options:
The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline can be reached by calling or texting 988. You can also chat with the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline here.
The Trevor Project’s trained crisis counselors are available 24/7 at 1-866-488-7386, via chat at TheTrevorProject.org/Get-Help, or by texting START to 678678.
For more information about mental health care resources and support, The National Alliance on Mental Illness HelpLine can be reached Monday through Friday, 10 a.m.–10 p.m. ET, at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264) or email info@nami.org.
READ MORE: Hegseth Sidelines Juneteenth and Its Military History
Image via Reuters
Thousands of Americans die each year from asbestos-related diseases, including mesothelioma—a toll that prompted the Biden administration to ban the carcinogenic substance, long used in roofing materials and auto parts. Now, President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency is moving to reconsider that ban, despite years of advocacy aimed at preventing such deaths.
In the five months that Trump has been in office,”his administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been on a deregulation spree,” Fast Company reports. “So far, the agency’s leaders have expressed interest in rolling back regulations around ‘forever chemicals,’ or PFAS; reversing a cornerstone finding that greenhouse gases are dangerous for public health; and weakening enforcement of coal ash regulations.”
“This latest move by Administrator Lee Zeldin and EPA is yet another alarming signal that this administration is operating without limits as they dole out favors to polluter lobbyists without regard for the health and well-being of people living in the US,” Michelle Roos, executive director of the nonprofit organization Environmental Protection Network, told the Associated Press
READ MORE: Hegseth Sidelines Juneteenth and Its Military History
The EPA’s proposed 30-month delay to examine the ban would “move the nation backward, once again putting lives at risk,” Linda Reinstein, president and co-founder of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization, told The New York Times.
The majority of asbestos imported into the U.S. comes from Brazil, but about a quarter comes directly from Russia, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Russia is the top global producer of asbestos.
Asbestos originally from Russia also enters the U.S. indirectly through other sources.
“Trump’s support for asbestos'” Ars Technica adds, “has been welcomed in Russia, a primary asbestos supplier to the US. In 2018, a Russian asbestos company began marketing asbestos with Trump’s face and a seal reading ‘Approved by Donald Trump, 45th President of the United States.'”
READ MORE: Trump Appears to Confuse America’s Revolutionary War With the Civil War
In 2019, The New York Times pointed to this photo on a Facebook page showing pallets of asbestos stamped with a seal that featured President Trump’s face and the alleged endorsement—a “public relations stunt.”
“Strangely enough,” Fast Company also reported, “Trump himself wrote in his 1997 book Art of the Comeback that he believed asbestos bans were a conspiracy ‘led by the mob, because it was often mob-related companies that would do the asbestos removal.'”
Critics are blasting the decision to reconsider the asbestos ban.
“The Trump administration isn’t just going after ‘regulations,’ they’re going after your health. Who benefits from bringing back cancer-causing asbestos? Russia,” noted U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-NM).
“It’s another pro-Putin policy from Trump. Russia is a major asbestos producer,” wrote Courier Newsroom correspondent Allan Piper.
“What is this—Make Asbestos Great Again?” snarked former U.S. Secretary of State and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
The Atlantic’s Dr. Norman Ornstein wrote simply, “Pro-death.”
See the social media post above or at this link.
READ MORE: ‘Feckless or Complicit’: Hegseth Blasted in Heated Hearing Over Social Media Influencer
Image via Reuters
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, whose work includes scrubbing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) from the U.S. military, is reportedly taking a “passive approach” to the federal holiday of Juneteenth, the day symbolizing the end of slavery. The U.S. military played a pivotal role in actions that led to the holiday.
President Joe Biden, in 2021, signed legislation making Juneteenth a federal holiday, and in years since then the Defense Department has marked the occasion. That year, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin issued a statement that read:
“Juneteenth holds particular significance for the United States military since it marks the date in 1865—more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation—on which Union soldiers, led by Army Major General Gordon Granger, issued the famous General Order No. 3, informing the people of Texas that ‘all slaves are free.'”
READ MORE: Trump Appears to Confuse America’s Revolutionary War With the Civil War
In 2023, U.S. Under Secretary of Defense Gil Cisneros published a memo on the Pentagon’s observance of Juneteenth.
“In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation confirming that all enslaved people in the confederate states are to be freed. It took two and a half years before General Gordon Granger presented General Orders No. 3 in Galveston, Texas, stating ‘The people of Texas are informed that, by a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.’ For this reason, Juneteenth is also known as Freedom or Emancipation Day for African Americans. This is why we celebrate June 19, 2023 as Juneteenth National Independence Day to commemorate the notification of emancipation to enslaved African Americans and abolishment of slavery in the United States.”
Secretary Hegseth, however, has issued no similar memos or statements. Instead, his office “requested ‘a passive approach to Juneteenth messaging’ for the holiday on Thursday commemorating the end of slavery, according to an email obtained by Rolling Stone,” the news outlet reported.
This year, there is no plan to even “publish Juneteenth-related content online” according to the Office of the Chief of Public Affairs.
So what is the Pentagon under Hegseth allowing, although not promoting?
READ MORE: ‘Feckless or Complicit’: Hegseth Blasted in Heated Hearing Over Social Media Influencer
According to Rolling Stone, “holiday celebrations that build camaraderie and esprit de corps; outreach events (e.g., recruiting engagements with all-male, all-female, or minority-serving academic institutions) where doing so directly supports DoD’s mission; and recognition of historical events and notable figures where such recognition informs strategic thinking, reinforces our unity, and promotes meritocracy and accountability.”
Secretary Hegseth has implemented stringent anti-DEI policies, and “dutifully carried out Trump’s anti-diversity purge, declaring in a handwritten directive, posted to X, that ‘DEI is DEAD’ at the Department of Defense.”
“Those who do not comply will no longer work here,” he wrote.
Last week in a Senate hearing, Hegseth said in prepared remarks (video below), “DEI is dead. We replaced it with a colorblind, gender-neutral, merit-based approach, and the force is responding incredibly.”
Rolling Stone also reported that “Hegseth has claimed that ‘DEI & social/gender theories directly undermine meritocracy and standards. Which, in the military, makes us less ready — and gets troops killed.’”
Watch the video below or at this link.
. @SecDef “President Trump charge me to focus relentlessly on warfighting, lethality, meritocracy, standards, and readiness.
That is exactly what we’ve done since day one.” pic.twitter.com/o2b9hSTTF0
— DOD Rapid Response (@DODResponse) June 12, 2025
READ MORE: ‘Middle Finger to Parental Rights’: SCOTUS Conservatives Scorched Over Trans Kids Ruling
Hegseth Sidelines Juneteenth and Its Military History
‘Make Asbestos Great Again?’: Trump Slammed for Move to End Ban on Russia-Tied Carcinogen
‘People Will Die’: Shock Over Trump Shutting Down LGBTQ Youth Suicide Hotline Is Growing
‘People Will Die’: Shock Over Trump Shutting Down LGBTQ Youth Suicide Hotline Is Growing
‘Make Asbestos Great Again?’: Trump Slammed for Move to End Ban on Russia-Tied Carcinogen
Hegseth Sidelines Juneteenth and Its Military History
Trump Appears to Confuse America’s Revolutionary War With the Civil War
‘Feckless or Complicit’: Hegseth Blasted in Heated Hearing Over Social Media Influencer
News4 days ago‘Spending Like Drunken Sailors’: ICE $1B Over Budget Ahead of New Trump Deportation Surge
News3 days agoDr Oz: Americans Must ‘Earn the Right’ to Be on Medicaid
News3 days ago‘Stephen Miller Gets His Way’: Trump Slammed for Farm Workers Flip-Flop
News4 days ago‘Buffoonery’: New Senate GOP Budget Slashes Medicaid Even Deeper Than House Bill
News2 days agoTrump Appears to Confuse America’s Revolutionary War With the Civil War
News3 days agoTapper Tells Ex-Viewer Trump’s Behavior Is More About ‘Personality’ Than Cognitive Decline
News4 days ago‘Gas on the Fire’: Trump Blasted for Targeting Blue Cities and ‘Radical’ Dem Politicians
News4 days ago‘Kremlin Owned Puppet’ Trump Jets Off to Canada to Defend Vladimir Putin at G7: Critics