Connect with us

COMMENTARY

‘Radical Gender Ideology’: Mike Pence Goes to Iowa to Attack Transgender Children in the Name of God (Video)

Published

on

Less than one month after the January 6 insurrection Mike Pence made one of his first moves as a former vice president: he joined Young America’s Foundation as a Ronald Reagan Presidential Scholar. YAF, a decades-old youth outreach group designed to influence high school and college-aged conservatives, boasts alumni like Trump architect of child separation policies Stephen Miller. It has received millions from the DeVos family, and has a chapter that was listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Last year far-right Daily Wire political commentator Matt Walsh gave college speeches sponsored by YAF, attacking “radical gender ideology” – right-wing talk for supporting the rights of transgender people. Walsh, 36-years old, has built his career on the backs of LGBTQ people – so much so his Wikipedia page says “Known for: Opposition to the LGBTQ+ movement.”

It wasn’t long before Pence embraced the battle against “radical gender ideology,” including in a speech at Catholic University in November.

He did so again on Wednesday, again dipping his toe in the water that is Iowa, the proving ground for Republican presidential candidates, in a speech filled with fear-mongering, false claims, and biblical quotes, denigrating transgender children by saying: “Instead of encouraging a tragedy of a broken ideology from the left, we should teach every child that they are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God.”

“You all know the arguments against this transgender ideology,” Pence told his audience. “It’s harmful to our kids. Oftentimes those that medically or surgically transition as children see no health or quality of life benefits and it’s often much worse,” he said, falsely.

RELATED: Mike Pence: Americans Have No Right to ‘Freedom From Religion’

Pence, who identifies as “a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican – in that order,” didn’t make that declaration as he addressed a small group gathered inside a local Cedar Rapids pizza parlor.

But he did declare, “radical gender ideology has slipped into our classrooms, teaching children to hate their own bodies and furthering the notion that it’s possible to transition from one gender to another. And worst of all, I don’t need to tell you here, some school district parents are helpless to stop this from happening.”

“Across the country,” Pence continued, “parents’ rights are being trampled by a politically correct nanny state that’s ruining our schools and telling parents they have no role in their child’s education.”

Pence had a game plan: he didn’t just happen to show up in Iowa on Wednesday because he was in the area. He targeted Cedar Rapids because a local school district is fighting in court to keep its policy supporting transgender students. And he showed up on Wednesday because there was a closely-watched court hearing in St. Louis, focused in part on an Iowa school district’s policy on transgender children and he wanted to be certain to show parents he is their fighter.

That school policy in part “recognizes students’ chosen name and gender identity, a policy that a group of parents say violates their constitutional rights,” as Courthouse News explains.

RELATED: Mike Pence Chooses Right Wing Religious Org Tied to Anti-LGBTQ Hate Group to Host His First Post-VP Speech

“Parents of Iowa schoolchildren, Republican state legislators and advocates for recognizing LGBTQ rights are clashing at school board meetings and state Capitol hearings over whether some schools have gone too far in protecting transgender students – even from their parents,” CN’s report explains.

“That clash came into sharp focus during oral arguments Wednesday morning before the Eighth Circuit in St. Louis, where a group of parents are asking the federal appeals court to block a Linn-Mar [Iowa] Community School District policy designed to respect the wishes of transgender students who don’t want to be identified by their gender or name given at birth – including directing school officials to use students’ chosen names at school and in school records – without necessarily informing or consulting with parents.”

The former vice president who is also a former Indiana governor, former GOP congressman, and former right-wing radio talk show host, on Wednesday focused what he called “radical gender ideology.” In fact, Pence used the word “radical” eight times. The word “God” four times. He used the word “family” eight times. He used the word “child,” “children,” “kid,” or “kids” 25 times. And the word “parent” a whopping 32 times, more than once a minute in his speech than ran less than 20 minutes.

Pence blamed Democrats for forcing Republicans to wage a battle against allowing transgender children to have dignity, support, and autonomy.

“You know, it wasn’t our choice to start the left’s culture war, and now we have no choice but to win. And we will win,” Pence promised, to applause.

Courthouse News also notes, “As a measure of how intense the fight over this issue is not just in Iowa but nationally, 66 friend-of-the-court [amicus] briefs were filed with the Eighth Circuit, including by 18 states. All but five opposed the Linn-Mar policy.”

One of those 66 briefs came from a group associated with Mike Pence, which he made sure to tell parents. After promising parents “we will win,” Pence said: “The next step on the road to victory began here in Iowa and it continued in Minnesota today,” referring to the St. Louis court hearing.

“Great organization here in Iowa called Parents Defending Education recognized what was happening in the Linn-Mar Community Schools and took the matter into the courts. And today as I visited Minnesota, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals was hearing the case and I couldn’t be more proud,” he boasted, “that our organization, Advancing American Freedom rounded up more than 20 pro-family conservative organizations in America. We intervened in the case with an amicus brief and we’re gonna fight for parents’ rights all the way to the Supreme Court, if need be.”

(Filing an amicus brief is not “intervening.”)

“The case was brought to stop the school here in Iowa from implementing a radical transgender policy,” Pence bellowed, stressing the word “radical.”

Pence then moved to a biblical reference to denigrate transgender children.

READ MORE: Legal Experts: Fulton County Grand Jury Report Means ‘Trump Likely Committed Crimes’ and ‘Expect Charges to Follow’

“The policy is designed to facilitate students’ gender transitions, without the knowledge of their parents. It also is designed to punish other students who fail to use a student’s preferred pronoun or to punish students who voice opinions on transgender issues that are out of step with the radical left, even if that proceeds from a religious conviction that male and female, He created them,” Pence said, directly quoting the bible’s Book of Genesis.

After mischaracterizing the goals of the policy, Pence declared, “Folks, this isn’t bad policy. This is crazy. And it stops right here right now.”

Pence continued to use language of mental illness, telling parents: “We’re asking the court to end this dangerous integrating policy. Restore sanity and the preeminent role of parents in our public schools not just here in Iowa, but all across America. The hypocrisy of this or the absurdity of this comes into high relief,” he continued, “when you realize the same school district that will provide a gender transition plan to your child without your consent or knowledge still has to get a written authorization signed by you to give them an aspirin. Amazing.”

He then continued his fear-mongering, claiming the schools have, “a secret plan to transition a child from one gender to the other.”

“You know there’s a reason why kids are not allowed to enter into a legal contract until they reach the age of majority without their parent’s permission. That’s because every parent and grandparent knows young people are not psychologically prepared to understand the full consequences and accept the full responsibility of their decision.”

Pence continued his biblical references, saying, “we have to have parents’ rights restored so they can guide, instruct, and protect their children in the way they should go, embracing that ancient principle that if you train up a child and the way they should go when they’re old will not depart from it,” direct from The Book of Proverbs.

It “doesn’t say the government would train up the child, their parents will,” he added. “It is in fact one of the most ancient liberties in existence, the right of parents to direct the upbringing, education and care of their children. Family as a sovereign sphere predates government. We do not co-parent with government.”

Pence ended his speech urging parents to “pray.”

Watch clips of Pence above, his full speech below, or both at this link.

 

There's a reason 10,000 people subscribe to NCRM. You can get the news before it breaks just by subscribing, plus you can learn something new every day.
Related Topics:
Continue Reading
Click to comment
 
 

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.

COMMENTARY

Trump Starts Weekend Early After Griping Workers Get Too Many Days Off

Published

8 months ago

on

June 20, 2025

By

After stalling on a decision in the escalating Middle East crisis and delaying action—some say potentially in defiance of federal law—on the congressionally mandated TikTok ban, President Donald Trump, facing sliding poll numbers, a widely criticized budget bill on the brink of collapse, a looming debt ceiling showdown, and apparent tensions with his Director of National Intelligence, is heading to his Bedminster golf resort for a MAGA dinner and an early weekend likely to include several rounds of golf.

The decision to leave the White House early on Friday comes after he left the G7 early this week, reportedly to make a decision on whether or how to help Israel attack Iran. His former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, jokingly said Trump exited the conference with top world leaders because he was “bored,” The Hill reported.

The President is slated to exit the White House at 2 PM Friday.

READ MORE: ‘People Will Die’: Shock Over Trump Shutting Down LGBTQ Youth Suicide Hotline Is Growing

“With the world on edge, the president’s early departure underscores a pattern critics say reflects misplaced priorities, favoring fundraising and familiar retreats over the day-to-day demands of governance,” MeidasTouch News reported.

The long weekend also comes just hours after President Trump denounced “too many days off” for federal and other workers, a remark he made on Juneteenth, a federal holiday signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2021. Trump had campaigned on passing the legislation to honor and celebrate the day that symbolizes the end of slavery, but made no mention of it this year.

“Too many non-working holidays in America,” Trump decried Thursday evening.

“I know this is a federal holiday.” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday. “I want to thank all of you for showing up to work. We are certainly here. We’re working 24/7 right now.”

This week, in addition to meeting with his national security team, and an “awkward” meeting with players of the Juventus soccer team, Trump presided over the installation of two 88-foot flag poles and the raising of massive American flags at the White House.

READ MORE: ‘Make Asbestos Great Again?’: Trump Slammed for Move to End Ban on Russia-Tied Carcinogen

Trump’s long weekend also comes just one week after millions protested his policies across all 50 states and internationally on Saturday, while he attended a military parade celebrating his and the U.S. Army’s birthdays, and after a tragic political assassination of a Democratic lawmaker and her spouse.

It also comes one week after Trump appeared to make a major about-face, saying farm, hotel, and restaurant workers are valuable and extremely difficult to replace. He suggested that ICE would pause targeting those workers, only to turn around just days later to announce “the largest mass deportation program in history.” The pause on deportations was canceled, leading one notable political commentator and legal analyst, Joyce Vance, to wonder if Trump is actually in charge.

“Who’s running the show?” she asked, suggesting someone may have “countermanded” him on the deportations. “Who’s in charge? Trump or someone else?”

READ MORE: Trump Appears to Confuse America’s Revolutionary War With the Civil War

 

Image via Reuters

Continue Reading

COMMENTARY

‘The Generals Stay Silent’: Experts Alarmed as Trump Politicizes Army at Fort Bragg Rally

Published

8 months ago

on

June 11, 2025

By

Military and political experts, veterans, and journalists are condemning President Donald Trump’s political rally at Fort Bragg on Tuesday, warning he crossed a critical line by delivering overtly political and authoritarian-themed remarks before U.S. Army troops. They also expressed alarm that uniformed soldiers appeared at ease booing his political opponents—another troubling breach of military norms. Some now say the time has come for generals to publicly speak out.

The commander in chief entered the event to “Hail to the Chief,” and as he took to the stage, his “MAGA anthem,” “Proud to Be an American,” played. For nearly one hour, in about 9,000 words, Trump delivered a political stump speech. He attacked his political opposition, Democrats, including President Joe Biden and his administration, California Governor Gavin Newsom (“Newscum”) and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass. He attacked transgender Americans. He attacked the Democratic U.S. Senators who opposed the nomination of Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary, calling them “a very hostile group of people that I think really don’t want to see America be great again.”

He got the soldiers to boo “the fake news” media, and President Joe Biden. He told them the 2020 election was “rigged and stolen.”

READ MORE: ‘Show. Us. The. Plan.’: Pentagon Chief Ripped for Dodging Budget Details in Heated Hearing

He attacked the people in Los Angeles protesting his deportation policies, describing it as “anarchy,” while telling the soldiers that defending their  civil rights was not the reason Americans fought overseas:

“Generations of army heroes did not shed their blood on distant shores only to watch our country be destroyed by invasion and third world lawlessness here at home like is happening in California. As Commander in chief, I will not let that happen. It’s never going to happen. What you’re witnessing in California is a full-blown assault on peace, on public order and on national sovereignty carried out by rioters bearing foreign flags with the aim of continuing a foreign invasion of our country.”

He thanked the generals, and mentioned some by name. He talked about “the real generals,” as opposed to the ones Americans see on television.

Critics are warning of grave consequences.

“This is the most unacceptable and egregious politicization of our troops we’ve ever seen,” wrote veterans’ activist Paul Rieckhoff, an Army combat veteran, responding to video of Trump getting the soldiers to boo the press, President Joe Biden, and the mayor of Los Angeles.

“And it’s not a one off. It’s a strategy,” added Rieckhoff, who is also the founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA). “And one we’ll see in full and dangerous display this weekend at his military birthday parade for himself. Trump wants the world to think our great military is HIS military. And wants to coerce and manipulate troops into making them think it is too. And driving down their public trust and approval by the minute. Trump has created America’s greatest civil-military relations crisis since the Civil War. And it’s just getting started.”

Retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel Alexander Vindman, a former Director of European Affairs for the National Security Council (NSC), warned: “America’s Generals and Admirals are terrified. They are cowed. They seem unlikely to hold the line and live up to their oaths to serve the U.S. Constitution.”

Lamenting that “the Generals stay silent,” he added: “Our democracy is in great danger. This morning I wonder if we crossed a line and there’s no going back.”

Army combat veteran Fred Wellman, a graduate of West Point and the Harvard Kennedy School who is now the host of the podcast “On Democracy.” responded to Vindman by saying, “The silence is deafening.”

READ MORE: Trump Mixes Up World Wars, Days, Civil Rights in Latest Remarks

Retired U.S Army lieutenant general Russel L. Honoré, who served as the commander of Joint Task Force Katrina, blasted Trump’s speech: “Damn @POTUS Speech At #FortBragg  was inappropriate, criticizing previous administration, and Generals while speaking to troops , I never witnessed that S..t like this in 37 years in Uniform.”

Author and former Under Secretary of State Richard Stengel observed, “Unlike other militaries, American soldiers do not swear an oath to the state, or a person, or a monarch, but to the Constitution. Trump calls them ‘his’ military—but they are ours, and they swear to ‘support and defend the Constitution,’ not one man.”

Tom Nichols, a retired U.S. Naval War College professor and Russia expert, at The Atlantic targeted the generals for staying silent.

He wrote, “senior officers of the United States military have an obligation to speak up and be leaders. Where is the Army chief of staff, General Randy George? Will he speak truth to the commander in chief and put a stop to the assault on the integrity of his troops? Where is the commander of the airborne troops, Lieutenant General Gregory Anderson, or even Colonel Chad Mixon, the base commander?”

“Where is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dan Caine? He was personally selected by Trump to be America’s most senior military officer. Will he tell the man who promoted him that what he did today was obscene?”

Retired U.S. Army General Barry McCaffrey, often seen on cable news, called Trump’s speech “a disgraceful politicization of the active Armed Forces. He is the Commander in Chief. The only loyalty of the Armed Forces is to the Constitution. Their focus is on protecting America from foreign enemies. Grave danger.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

RELATED: ‘Doesn’t Even Know Who He’s Talking to’: Newsom Scorches Trump Over Military Deployment

 

Image via Reuters

 

Continue Reading

COMMENTARY

Trump Mixes Up World Wars, Days, Civil Rights in Latest Remarks

Published

8 months ago

on

June 10, 2025

By

President Donald Trump made a series of inaccurate claims in his remarks on Tuesday, conflating World War I and World War II, incorrectly suggesting he spoke with the governor of California on Monday when it was just after midnight Saturday morning, and asserting—contrary to the First Amendment—that protests, even peaceful ones, can be shut down with “heavy force.”

During remarks to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump was asked when he last spoke with California Governor Gavin Newsom. “A day ago,” he said Tuesday afternoon, which was three and a half days after the governor confirmed his phone call. Trump also confirmed the call by sending a screenshot to a Fox News reporter. The screenshot read June 7, 1:23 AM.

“Recently, other countries celebrated the victory of World War I, France was celebrating, really,” Trump told troops at Fort Bragg on Tuesday afternoon. “They were all celebrating. The only one that doesn’t celebrate is the USA and we’re the ones that won the war. Without us, you’d all be speaking German right now. Maybe a little Japanese thrown in. But we won the war.”

RELATED: ‘Doesn’t Even Know Who He’s Talking to’: Newsom Scorches Trump Over Military Deployment

The United States was part of a coalition during both WWI and WWII. Trump was speaking about WWI, but then claimed, “Without us, you’d all be speaking German right now. Maybe a little Japanese.”

That’s a reference to World War II—Japan was on the side of the Allies, with the U.S., in WWI.

Also on Tuesday, Trump declared that anyone caught protesting his controversial military parade on Saturday will be met with “very heavy force,” despite the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution clearly protecting political protests.

READ MORE: ‘Show. Us. The. Plan.’: Pentagon Chief Ripped for Dodging Budget Details in Heated Hearing

“We won the war, and we’re the only country that didn’t celebrate it, and we’re going to be celebrating big on Saturday,” Trump claimed. Veterans Day was initially created as Armistice Day to honor those who died in World War I.

“And if there’s any protestor that wants to come out, they will be met with very big force. By the way, for those people that want to protest, they’re gonna be met with very big force. And I haven’t even heard about a protest, but, you know, this is people that hate our country, but they will be met with very heavy force.”

The First Amendment protects both political speech and the right to “petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

Trump did not state “violent protestors,” or “rioters.” He said “any protestor.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Subterfuge’: Noem Push a ‘Prelude’ to Invoking Insurrection Act, Experts Warn

 

Image via Reuters

 

 

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2020 AlterNet Media.