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A
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C
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B
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C
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B
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Use Promo Code Pass Trading not available in all jurisdictions. Check local regulations before trading restrictions and eligibility requirements apply.
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A
It's no secret that Donald Trump's stance on transgenderism helped him defeat Kamala Harris and retake the White House in 2024. But what now seems like conventional wisdom was hardly a foregone conclusion at the time. The President largely stayed away from that issue during his first term and did not make transgenderism part of his 2020 campaign. By 2024, however, things had changed. The Biden administration had run to the left on the trans issue, inviting drag queens to the White House and infamously declaring a trans of visibility. That coincided with Easter. As Democrats got more radical on the issue, Republicans grew determined to fight it. Parents across the country, still scandalized by the glimpses of radical sex education they saw when schools went remote during the coronavirus pandemic, were further moved to action by stories of male students who identified as girls encroaching on female sports and spaces and in some cases, assaulting girls in bathrooms or locker rooms. By the time Trump began his third campaign for the White House, it was clear that fighting the transgender cult would be a winning issue. But what if it hadn't been enough? What if Kamala Harris had succeeded Joe Biden and Democrats got another four years in the White House to develop their radical gender policy. I'm Daily Wire D.C. bureau Chief Tim Rice and this is behind the Story. Today I'm joined by Daily Wire investigative reporter Megan Brock, who recently uncovered a host of emails, memos and other internal documents from the waning days of the Biden administration. These emails showed what officials were planning for a second term and how they would have implemented their plans had Harris toppled Trump. Her shocking four part investigation is available to read in its entirety now at the Daily Wire. Let's go behind the Story. Megan, thank you so much for joining me.
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C
Thank you so much for having me.
- [03:48]
A
So just take us back to the beginning because I'm always super interested and I think our listeners will be too with big investigative series like this. Talk to us about the genesis of the story, like how when did you first get the idea and what were your first moves?
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C
Yeah, I mean, really, I've been foiaing this group public records requests. If anyone doesn't know what FOIA means, since January 2024 is when I really started it, I uncovered on the HHS website late winter of 2023, a document that was produced by HHS where the Biden administration was recommending that social workers doing in home visits viewed parents not allowing a child under five to express their so called gender by like for example, a boy wearing a dress to consider that a form of child abuse. And when I found that document, it absolutely shocked me. I mean, I knew the medical stuff. I think we all saw the stuff, like you said, going on with the drag queens, but it really had never occurred to me what might be going on in child welfare services. So that's really what kind of got me started down that path.
- [04:56]
A
And so what just again, for those of our listeners who have never filed a Freedom of Information act request. It's kind of an intense process. Right. So talk us through what that was like, and you know how you actually went about finding these things.
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C
Yeah. So Freedom of information requests are something that's required of every level of government. So you can file what's called a FOIA or maybe a different name to your local government, to your school board, or even to the federal government. So basically, it's. It allow. It allows citizens and journalists to have government transparency. So you can ask for trainings, you can ask for emails. There's all kinds of information you can obtain through these public records requests. And so when I had found this document, it had a grant number on it saying where the money came from that had helped produce this. This piece of information that was really saying that not affirming a child's transgender identity was a form of abuse. And I started looking up other grants and started just finding publicly available information and discovered there was this group of research that had been given a $10 million grant back in 2016, right at the tail end of the Obama presidency, to start implementing, researching, and creating what I would call gender affirming child welfare services interventions. So these were programs that re educated parents who were not, quote, unquote, affirming or might help a child who had left their parents home because they were transgender find their, quote, unquote chosen affirming family. You know, so all kinds of really crazy things. And I had realized that a group of these researchers were based in Ohio and working for a public child welfare service there, which was something that would be subject to public records. And that's how I kind of started really diving in and making these requests.
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A
And so before we dive into all of that, because there's a lot there that I want to get to. What was the timeline like? How long did it take for you to get these records after you submitted the request? And would you say that was, in your experience, about average?
- [06:56]
C
Yeah. Well, I had initially done a bunch of requests in 2024. The one request from, I did them to this group in Ohio and also to the University of Connecticut. So two of the researchers that were pushing this were actually chosen to lead, help lead this Biden Sogi Institute, were located at the University of Connecticut, which is subject to public records because it's a public university. Some of those requests took, like, I mean, eight months to get back. And unfortunately, unless you're working with a state that has. Every state has its own public record rules. And so depending upon those rules, really depends on whether or not you have any agency to demand that they give them to you in some sort of reasonable timeline. But then, I mean, how the FOIA process, at least for me, works, is that it's like when you get one of these documents, it's like getting a puzzle piece of a puzzle, but you don't know what the picture is. You just have enough information to maybe guess what the next piece might be. And so after really two years of getting these records back from the University of Connecticut, I had noticed there was an email of someone working with this group who is located at the University of Washington. So I sent them a FOIA and that's ultimately how I obtained the 78 page document that really detailed this plan. The Biden administration had to make gender ideology the standard in child welfare services across the country.
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A
Let's dive in. You mentioned Soji and you mentioned this 78 page memo, which I think are really sort of the crux of this entire story. So tell us about both of those. What's sogi and what was this memo?
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C
So SOGI is sexual orientation, gender identity, expression, a lot of terms. Basically, it's really affirming gender ideology, I mean, which is the belief ultimately that you are a, you are not wholly male or female, that you are, could, could be a man or woman based on your feelings. And so this 78 page memo document was a grip, basically the project work plan of a grant. So kind of going back a little bit, in June 2022, the Biden administration had an executive order which specifically called for child welfare services to be affirming of LGBTQ foster care youth. And I'm trying. It's a little hard sometimes to discuss this stuff without using some of their terms I don't like to do. But there's, it's just such a mess.
- [09:13]
A
We can just, we can, we can just, we can just clarify for our listeners and you know, a disclaimer that Meg is occasionally going use the radical language just to avoid. Just imagine her doing air quotes. The entire.
- [09:26]
C
Yeah, air quotes. Yes, that, that, that's it. 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 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 stories reported in the series is actually a mother who had her daughter taken away because she would not call her daughter a boy. Essentially, she would not lie to her. So now you have this, the Biden administration calling her for these radical policies to be pushed through the Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Agency, which is pretty wild. And they actually, in this call said it was, it's a $20 million grant. And they outlined very specifically 12 different tasks and all the different things they wanted to do. So then they sought out this contractor and it was, the contract was granted to this group of activists, researchers who had been working for almost a decade at this point to create these affirming child welfare resources. And they were awarded the grant in August of 2024. And so then what I obtained was the plan for how they were going to implement and transform child welfare services from the inside out. Really totally under the radar without needing any, any, any laws passed. They were going on Biden's executive order. And also the LGBTQ Affirming Foster Care rule, if anyone remembers that, that was initially announced in September 2023, became a rule finalized in April 2024, which required Foster care parents to affirm a child's transgender identity.
- [11:24]
A
So August 2024, which is September, October, November, three months before the election, Biden administration approved, was it the full $20 million granted to these data ward?
- [11:34]
C
They ordered the Grant. Yep.
- [11:36]
A
To $20 million. Which then brings us to the 78 page memo. Give us the, you know, kind of the top line of what their plan was.
- [11:49]
C
I mean, the plan was to create trainings, to create resources that would spread to child welfare agencies across the country in all 50 states that trained parents, that trained staff to be so called gender affirming and essentially view anyone who did not affirm a child's so called transgender identity as causing that child harm, neglect and abuse. I mean, that's really, I think, the big, the big takeaway.
- [12:17]
A
And so what were some of the mechanisms that they were proposing to do that?
- [12:22]
C
Yeah, so they had a whole, they were creating a lot of documentation, a series of trainings. So they would have these webinars and there's some of this stuff even available online. So they'll have like, say you're a local child welfare agency and you are mandated to train your staff in how to, we'll say, reduce child abuse. Right. So you need to find tools to do that. So they're essentially creating these tools that a child welfare agency could then go and use if they wanted to give their staff LGBTQ training or they wanted to teach them how to help families be, quote, unquote, affirming of their child's gender identity. So that was one way they're doing it. They were also pinpointing leaders across the country to be part of this special SOGI Champions program where they would receive special coaching, special trainings, to then go back and implement these very radical policies in their own agencies. And one of the emails I found that was really caught my eye was where one of the. The staff members who was working within HHS said that they had their intern create a list of agencies that were in states where attorney generals had opposed the LGBTQ foster care rule. So they were really finding a way then to target agencies in states that may be in red states, probably, if any, any attorney general opposing that was probably a red state to go in then kind of underneath all of that and just go directly to the local child welfare agency and help train them to implement these policies.
- [13:55]
A
Which is just wild because again, as you said, this was, you know, pursuant to an executive order money through, you know, NIH or the Department of Health and Human Services, you know, the federal government. And it was going to radically change the federal government's approach to this issue and state's approaches to this issue, which is already. Right. I mean, you know, everyone wants to talk about executive power. That's already a pretty clear example of, you know, Congress wasn't involved, but now we have evidence that they were. Obviously this was going to influence the states, but they were specifically trying to work around states that had put protections in place, which is just kind of staggering. So let's take it in a state specific direction, because the first piece in your series, which you already alluded to, is the story of an Oregon mom. And Oregon had at the time and still has one of the more radical pro transgender child welfare systems. So I think this is a really important story and was very helpful to have as the first installment because one thing that I sort of had in my mind reading the whole series was this is what the whole country would have looked like if this plan had taken off. So tell us. Tell us that mother's story. Walk us through that.
- [15:09]
C
Yeah. So this mom, this story is unfortunately a story that I've heard from parents across the the country that these stories are very underreported. But she was a Christian mom and her daughter was in an Oregon, Oregon school system which is very pro transgender. If you go on their website, they have a whole Database of telling teachers and staff how you can create a secret gender plan. You know, all the things that I'm sure listeners have. Have heard about. And so she would not affirm her daughter's transgender identity. And the state came in and said, you are committing child abuse through the form of a mental injury. So one of the things to know is that every state has its own definition of what constitutes child abuse. And obviously, child abuse is horrific. We don't want any children harmed or abused. So because it's so horrific is why I think it should give parents and. And every. Everyone in. Who is a. Who cares about children. Pause. That something like not affirming a child's transgender identity could be labeled as abuse. Because if you really believe that, then, well, you need to get the child out of that situation. And I just.
- [16:24]
A
I just. I want to just hop in real quick just to really underscore, because we have. And again, I encourage everyone to go read all of these pieces. But the mother, who we call Nicole in the piece, this is one of the things that she said to you. This is what the state of Oregon is calling child abuse. And a quote, I gave birth to a beautiful, loving little girl, and that she will always and forever, no matter what she does to her body, will be a girl. Now, my husband and I are in a battle with the state to clear our names because we didn't lie to our daughter and tell her that she is a boy. This has cost us thousands of dollars and more heartache that I can't begin to place into words. And with no end in sight. I mean, it's not like this woman is shipping her off to her daughter, off to some camp, or beating her. This is. She's saying, you're a girl. You're confused. Let's talk about it. I want to help you. I want to be there for. And. And that was two years ago. Right. And she still has not had contact with her daughter.
- [17:14]
C
No. Yep. She's still not. Not in contact with her daughter. And I reviewed the documents that were sent to her from Oregon, D. From the Oregon Human Services Department, and it specifically says, you know, she's being charged with a mental injury or that they found reason to believe she was. Was providing. Has given her daughter a mental injury for not affirming her gender identity. And I think, like, something else, too. I mean, this is going back to other work I've done on this story. I mean, anyone can call CPS on you as a parent. Like, you could have a teacher or a counselor or you Know, there's this idea that it's not that I think is pushed, that it's just kids who are already in foster care, and it's really not the case. Some of the work that I uncovered in Ohio, what was going on in their child welfare system was that they actually had a form where they were screening any child, recommending any child who came in contact with the system was screened to see what their sogi, their sexual orientation, gender identity was, and whether or not they had affirming parents. So you. You think about all of that, and then you think about why the definition or defining that affirming a child's sex is not a form of child abuse is so important. Most states do not have any. Anything on the books. There's like, I think three or four states that have taken action to define that, but it is so vague. And so then if you have someone who's a transgender activist working in social services, and unfortunately, I think the social work pipeline is probably even more radical than the education pipeline. Many times in terms of being LGBTQ affirming. Well, to that person, they might actually view not affirming a child's transgender identity as harm, which isn't, therefore, abuse. And because the terminology is so vague that these poor parents, once their kids are in the system, have no ground to stand on or to really fight back on. It's so heartbreaking.
- [18:58]
A
So let's talk a little bit about these. These people right in the social work pipeline who were like, give us the sort of the backgrounds or the general thrust of who these folks were from these different institutions who would have, or for a small moment in time, comprised SOGI and were going to lead this program essentially on behalf of the federal government.
- [19:21]
C
Yeah, well, there was a group of researchers I had mentioned before that were awarded this $10 million grant at the end of 2016. And they were originally based out of the University of Maryland. And what they did is it was a five year grant. There were four different implementation sites around the country. It was in Maryland, it was in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio. And basically, they worked with local agencies to develop programs to create. One of the things they did was a survey to try and figure out how many children in the foster care system they believed were had an alternative sogi. And they did all of this work in this research and created these materials they could send to other child welfare agencies looking to implement similar programs.
- [20:00]
A
Unquestionably, the most shocking part of this very shocking investigation is, you know, Nicole's story. And sort of the more. More punitive aspects of this plan. Right. The way the state pen and in this alternate universe would have had more of an ability to take kids away from parents. But in a close second for the second part of the series, where we look at the emails that these folks were sending each other, and my favorite part of the investigation, which was even some of the most radical transgender researchers, told them that they were kind of wrong about the central claim of their whole project. Talk to us a little bit about that.
- [20:36]
C
Right? So one of the claims in Biden's 2020, September 2023 affirming foster care rule was this idea that LGBTQ youth are being overrepresented in foster care because they're experienced what they call parental rejection, which that just means you won't call your boy a girl. That's in their. In their language is parental rejection. And they were saying that is, you know, driving children into the foster care system, and we need to fix this. And I've had an email from a researcher who was actually was the first researcher to do any kind of survey to try and figure out how many kids in the foster care system identify as being lgbtq. And she wrote to this person, this point person in the Biden administration who was pushing this rule, like, three weeks before the rule was announced, that, hey, the data doesn't actually show that. The data shows that kids enter the foster care system when they're toddlers, you know, when they're young, and then maybe they identify while they're in the foster care system. But she outright said, hey, that we don't have data to support that. It was a big part of the rule anyway. It didn't really matter.
- [21:43]
A
It was doubly surprising, I think, right? Because it's. It's this. These people are putting this order, are putting this plan together, right? They're writing this rule. They've gotten their money, they're writing this rule. This is going to be the thing that drives the agenda. As you said, it's three weeks before the rule is officially introduced in the Federal Register, and the lead on this project is emailing far and wide. And we linked to the emails. You can read them. And she's saying, hey, guys, we don't have any data to support this. Can you send me some? Because we're going to do this one way or the other, essentially. And then the second shock is that all of these radical transgender activists are saying, you know, hey, I maybe wouldn't phrase the rule around that. Like, there's a lot of good stuff you could do in this area that's not really one that I would focus on. And her responses are as hilarious. Would be terrifying if they weren't also so funny. They're still terrifying, but she's basically like, haha, thanks. And then the rule just goes live. And that's, that's the sort of thing that, you know, who knows if Harrison won, if this had taken effect, you know, who knows how they might have, you know, blocked these requests. We might never have known this. And, you know, it would have been, as you just sort of alluded to. Right. People on the other side of this saying, you know, there's no data to back this up. But now we know for a fact, kind of incontrovertibly, that even. Not only is there no data, they, they knew. They knew there was no data. It's not even like they were twisting something they knew and they did it anyway.
- [23:07]
C
Yeah. And I think what makes you so mad? I mean, I've talked to quite a few parents who've gone through this, and I just think it's, it's so devastating. I mean, I feel so. Talking to Nicole, who heard the story, just devastated for what she's gone through. When parents have a child, especially if they're an older teen, you know, that's already a period in a child's life where it can be. It's, it's. They're, they're leaving their family in a good way. They're, they're seeking their independence. So you already have to walk a fine line. But then when children get involved in this and then you, you pile on that. In some states, children can emancipate themselves, they can consent to their own gender, quote, unquote, gender affirming care at a very young age. So these parents are trying to walk this fine line of reaching out to their kids, telling them the truth, and then navigating a judicial system that's also being trained to be LGBTQ affirming. And we didn't even get into that. That's a whole nother thing. So I think their stories often aren't told because it's something that's very difficult to speak about, and it's a very tenuous situation to navigate. So it really is heartbreaking. And it's heartbreaking to think of how many more families might have been impacted by this had this plan been pushed through.
- [24:21]
A
So this group did exist for about three months. They put some trainings out, they hosted some webinars, and then Trump shut them down with an executive order of his own pretty early in his Administration, I think it was February, if not January, you know, shutting down all federal funding, radical gender ideology and things like that. But these people are still out there. These people went back to their respective organizations. This is the last piece in your investigation, and surely, you know, they will be called on again, you know, by future Democratic presidents. So where, as you see it now, right, what is. What is the current state of like this kind of very radical movement within the pro transgender community?
- [25:04]
C
Yeah, I mean, I think that the people who have been radicalized with this are still going to be radical no matter who the president is, and they're going to still be working towards their fulfilling their mission no matter who the president is, unless they are stopped by actual laws. So, I mean, I went and testified for a bill in Ohio that was. Is aiming to clarify that affirming a child's sex is not an act of abuse and amongst other things, stopping these trainings from happening and to really try and gut this out of child welfare system. So I think unless there are laws passed either federally or by individual states, I think that this is going to keep moving ahead. And maybe it's, you know, a lot of web pages have been taken down. A lot of people, when Trump came into office were all taking down their web pages. But if I had to guess, if it was a different president who was friendly towards this, they'd probably be up within, you know, hours of that presidency.
- [25:57]
A
You've reported extensively on some of these groups, the American Pediatric association and various medical groups and trade groups that have all sort of taken down their websites and kind of publicly pledged to conform with the administration's orders and, you know, kind of sort of make it. Make a show of leaving the radical transgender stuff behind. But then, you know, you found you've uncovered these, you know, internal pitch decks or calls or email threads where they basically say, no, we're still doing this. We're just. We're not broadcasting it. So, you know, that's. This is. This is why. Why we do what we do, why it's so important, Meg, for you to, you know, continue to dig into this stuff. And we appreciate that and you look forward to reading more. And unfortunately, there is, you know, some. This is. This is only the tip of this particular iceberg. So, you know, that's bad, but, you know, slightly less bad that we have you.
- [26:48]
C
It's an unfortunate calling. I always joke that I never dreamed as a little girl that one day I was going to spend my life reading about transgenderism, but here we are, you know, here we are. And we don't choose the times that we live in. Isn't that what Tolkien said? Right.
- [27:01]
A
Exactly. And I'm at least very glad, and I know our listeners are too, that that you're on the case. Megan Brock is an investigative reporter at the Daily Wire. Her four part investigation on the Biden Harris secret plan to push radical transgender laws in a would have been second term is up now at the Daily Wire. Meg, thank you again.
- [27:18]
C
Thank you so much, Tim.