Just how big were they going to go?

Yeah, well, so this group of activists that I've been following goes back to 2016, at the end of the Obama administration.

They won another grant to develop these quote-unquote affirming child welfare interventions.

So, so much of gender ideology really is a sleight of hand with language.

So you'll see, like, people say, oh, we need parents to affirm their children, or we need family acceptance programs, which that's kind of code for – not kind of, it is – language to really describe we need parents to affirm their child's transgender identity or we believe it's destructive.

So there were this grant was given to this group of activists.

There were four implementation sites across the country.

I'm curious right now, Meg, what's happening now? Are states like California and others have the ability to reject parents who aren't gender affirming or taking kids away from gender affirming parents, even though the Trump administration has rejected this $20 million grant? Is it a state issue rather than a federal issue?

So what is Josh Shapiro up to?

Yeah.

Thanks for having me, Dom.

It's always great to be here.

Um, yeah, this is a proposed regulation that the Shapiro administration, uh, announced on August 8th that's going to radically change the powers of the Department of Health.

So you and I remember very well what happened during COVID.

We remember the 2021 mask mandate that Governor Wolf and Secretary, acting Secretary of Health, Alison Beam, implemented almost exactly five years ago, on August 31st, 2021, after Pennsylvania had already voted to limit Tom Wolf's emergency powers.

I think Josh Shapiro, you're onto something here, that Josh Shapiro not only wants that power as a little dictator in the state, but he may start to act on this stuff to open up a lane, not to just go against Trump, but to make his, uh, pitch nationally by taking on RFK Jr.

So what is Josh Shapiro up to?

Yeah, thanks for having me, Dom.

It's always great to be here.

Um, yeah, this is a proposed regulation that the Shapiro administration, uh, announced on August eighth that's going to radically change the powers of the Department of Health.

So you and I remember very well what happened during COVID.

We remember the twenty twenty-one mask mandate that Governor Wolf and Secretary-- Acting Secretary of Health Allison Beam implemented almost exactly five years ago, August thirty-first, twenty twenty-one, after Pennsylvania had already voted to limit Tom Wolf's emergency powers.

And basically, this regulation is really closing the loophole.

I think Josh Shapiro, you're onto something here, that Josh Shapiro not only wants that power as a little dictator in the state, but he may start to act on this stuff to open up a lane not to just go against Trump, but to make his, uh, pitch nationally by taking on RFK Jr.

So tell us a little bit about, let's talk about this story.

Yeah.

So I mean, two of the threads, again, in this email forum were specifically about WPATH members who were, I think they're a doctor and a physician's assistant, asking for help to meet the physical needs of patients who were wanting to detransition.

And when I first read this, I mean, you brought up Chloe Cole.

Chloe Cole, hearing Chloe Cole's testimony in September of 2022 is what brought me into this whole issue, 'cause I remember hearing that and thinking, "Oh my gosh, as an adult, as someone who cares about children, as someone who is a pediatric nurse," I couldn't believe that children were having their breasts cut off by the medical profession.

And I remember crying.

And to be honest, when I got these emails, it, like, made me wanna cry because one of them is a story of a young woman who's already had her breasts removed, her uterus removed, and her ovaries removed, and now she wants to return back to being a woman.

These people do not even, they're, they're applying that logic to harming people, to actively ruining people's lives.

[laughs]

That's what you need to imagine.

So then in January 2023, they actually put out this call for contractors to fulfill this grant, where they were creating what's called a technical assistance center to the Children's Bureau.

Now, the Children's Bureau is an agency that's within HHS that specifically deals with child abuse prevention, right? So think about that.

If you have...

One of the, the big premises of this whole thing is the idea that not affirming a child's transgender identity is a cause of harm.

And one of the, the stories we report on the series is actually a mother who had her daughter taken away because she would not call her daughter a boy, essentially.

And she still has not had contact with her daughter?