President Biden's historic
nomination of Dr. Rachel Levine for
HHS Assistant Secretary which will
make her the first transgender
federal official to be confirmed.
It's placed Rand Paul
in the spotlight after
what many are calling The very
transphobic rant, he made
during his questioning with her.
Now let's take a look at what he
had to say.
>> Genital mutilation has been
nearly universally condemned.
Genital mutilation has been
condemned by the WHO,
the United Nations Children's Fund,
the United Nations Population Fund.
According to the WHO genital
mutilation is recognized
internationally as a violation of
human rights.
Genital mutilation is
considered particularly egregious,
because as the WHO notes,
it is nearly always carried out on
minors and is a violation
of the rights of children.
Most genital mutilation is not
typically performed by force.
But as WHO notes that by social
convention, social norm,
the social pressure to conform to
do what others do and have been
doing as well as the need to be
accepted socially and the fear of
being rejected by the community.
American culture is now normalizing
the idea that minors can be given
hormones to prevent their
biological development of their
secondary sexual characteristics.
Dr. Levine, do you believe that
minors are capable of making such
a life-changing decision is
changing one's sex.
>> So that was a part of what he
was going through so by the way,
what he was saying, obviously, he's
talking to Dr. Levine because she's
the first transgender nominee that
could potentially get confirmed for
such a position like this.
And so she must be the one who's in
charge of everything that's about
this, this is the first thought,
and also demonizing her as just for
who she is.
So she responded by the media and
explains, she responded by
explaining that transgender
medicine is, quote.
A complex and nuanced field with
robust research and
standards of care, before offering
to work directly with Paul's office
on the matter, potentially to,
I would assume to educate him on
it since he doesn't know what he's
talking about, and so on.
He continued on unsatisfied with
our answer.
He asked her once again if
she supports, quote.
The reconstruction of genitalia,
and access to hormone blockers,
bringing up Kara Bell
who is a British citizen,
whose sex was was identified as
female at birth before taking
puberty blockers as a teenager.
Paul claimed that bell quote,
read something about transsexuals
as a teenager,
which encourages them to transition
before later regretting it.
So he even went with the term
transsexuals, which I'm
sure he knows across the board with
everyone who is an advocate for
a transgender folks to have rights
to be able to decide and make their
own decisions with who they are.
We know that that's always used as
an offensive term.
And I don't think it was a mistake.
So I'm not sure if it's going to
hold up the nomination or Rand Paul
is just trying to make a point,
because no one's called him a hole
in about a week.
So that's the work he's doing in
the senate today.
>> So I'm going to let Ida go first
here, I'm just going to note before
we get into the substance of
Rand Paul an amazing,
coincidence of intersectionality of
the topic we just talked about
before this story of fighting for
the $15 minimum wage and
hashtag don't kill it.
Bernie is partly trending because
Laverne Cox retweeted it.
So, I love fighters for
the average person.
I love them, love them, love them.
And so let's stick together,
let's fight together,
let's win together.
All right, I got many thoughts on
what Rand Paul said, but
I had to go ahead.
>> What Rand Paul is not going to
change his spots right?
So I my expectation of people who
have shown up being exactly who
they are.
They don't change.
I don't ever feel surprised
when these people say things
that are offensive.
My religious background Jack so
that I know when the the religious
when they're trying to rile up
the religious people.
Because that was very trendy and
very effective with this last
election cycle.
A lot of people
were misguided through religion
into this cult with these people.
But I just think that it's
important that those of us who come
from marginalized groups remember
that the only chance that we stand
is to stand in the gap for
one another.
And when we as people of color,
demonize transgender people and
we exclude them from the struggle
they belong to us.
If we say Black Lives Matter than
transgender lives,
Black Lives Matter like we cannot
allow the people who hate
marginalized people hate us all.
They have an agenda to keep us all
down and that agenda that is to
divide us so that we can help them
with the work.
So when we hear these talking
points and we hear this disrespect,
we need to say no, we need to
push back and say this is not okay.
Because this is the language that
they use against all marginalized
people they have terms for us all.
>> Yeah, now.
Yeah, let me just go head on to
what Rand Paul was saying.
So It's deeply offensive to compare
the genital mutilation,
which is not in reality of their
own volition.
Okay, they do it to very young
children.
It has no relationship to trans
folks at all who are choosing to be
who they actually are.
So what Rand Paul is saying is I
don't really believe in freedom.
And I don't want
you to follow your beliefs.
I want you to follow my beliefs.
>> Yep. >> My interpretation of my
religion says you shouldn't
do this.
So now I'm going to impose that on
you because I never believed
in America.
I never believed in freedom,
I never believed in equality and
I most certainly did not believe in
justice.
So I'm going to make the decisions
for you and I'm going to impose my
religion on you, because I think
Saudi Arabia has it right.
We should be a theocracy where we
enforce fundamentalist religion on
everyone else.
You want to make a decision to be
your true self, Rand Paul hates
freedom and he doesn't want you to
be have that option and
be an actual free American.
That's just a fact.
It's a fact.
So Rand,
I don't give a damn what you think
we should do with our bodies.
>> That's right.
>> You can go take that for a walk.
>> But isn't it ironic Jake that
it's he's using religion to he's
condemning what these people do.
A lot of this mutilation is in
the name of religion, right?
A lot of this in
other parts of the country.
Right, and
at the same time condemning it when
it comes to the people here,
it's just they use religion when
it's beneficial to the agenda.
But if they really were about
the religion,
then they wouldn't treat people
the way that they're treating them.
And that is why I can't rock
with them.
You can't call yourself
a Christian, if you are Speaking
to a human being the way you're
speaking to them knowing that
the language that you're using is
offensive and painful,
and that's why I don't trust them
because they're hypocrites.
They're not religious.
They're power hungry and
they use whatever they can,
religion included,
to keep the average person down.
>> Yeah, did Jesus say,
keep the lowest among you down and
I will reward the rich.
No, no.
He said the exact opposite.
He would have washed their feet if
he was around.
He would have taken care of
the lowest,
the ones who needed them the most.
The sick fundamentalists like Rand
Paul, they think no if someone was
low, you kick them because you can.
And you do it
on behalf of the powerful.
We're not interested in your
tyranny.
We're interested
in liberty and freedom.
And Democrats, please
stop asking them to apologize,
go attack them politically point
out with facts that they
are the anti Freedom Party.
They hate the idea of freedom.
It's a fact why don't you say it?
Why do you let them own words like
freedom when they hate the idea.
No, I will not listen to
your interpretation of your
fundamentalist religion.
I'm not in your religion.
I'm an American.
I believe in freedom.