OAN's Addison Smith and American Principles Project President Terry Schilling attack nonbinary child over a video from Lurie Children's Hospital

Schilling: “This transgender stuff” is “a step towards suicide”

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Citation From the September 5, 2022, edition of One America News Network's In Focus with Addison Smith

ADDISON SMITH (Host): It's hard to imagine things more evil than, than this. I mean doing this to a helpless child. Instructing [them], instructing [them], and filling [them] in. Like yeah, you're non-binary, and why? What did we rehearse behind the scenes? Like I said earlier the hospital has been facing scrutiny since this video has gone viral. But depending on who you ask, they might have done nothing wrong. According to Axios, Lurie Children's Hospital is facing harassment for simply providing gender-affirming care. Gender-affirming care would be the last words I would use to describe what we just watched. It's, it's the precise opposite. It's the precise opposite. If you're telling a child if you're telling a girl that that girl is a boy or neither. You're not affirming their gender. You're denying it.

Meanwhile, the state of California is working to become a safe haven for things like this, for transgender children and their family. This after the California state assembly passed a bill last week that's designed to provide refuge so-called to parents from other states who risk having their transgender, quote unquote, children taken away and or being criminally prosecuted if they support their children's access to genital mutilation procedures. President of the American Principles Project, Terry Schilling, joins me now to discuss. Terry, thank you for joining me on labor day, I really appreciate it. This clip that we watched from the Lurie Children's Hospital and this child who, who says that they're non-binary, [they're] non-binary, and [their] mother is affirming it. [Their] mother is affirming [their] delusion. There, there is not a more destructive thing you can do, as a parent, to your child than this. Don't you agree?

TERRY SCHILLING (Guest): I agree. And Addison I think the wrong word to use is affirmation. I think what's happening is these parents are encouraging their children to reject who they actually are. They're encouraging them to reject their bodies, reject their names, their God-given biological sex. This is, there is nothing affirming about any of this transgender stuff. It is a bodily and life rejection and a step towards suicide. And that's why it's never gonna solve the suicidalities and the self-harm rates. Because once you start rejecting your body and once you start rejecting your God-given name and once you start rejecting everything about your life, you are only one step closer to actually rejecting your life and embracing self-harm. So this is absolutely self-harm and psychological warfare. Uh, it's child abuse. It, it's absolutely devastating.

(In accordance with the Trans Journalists Association style guide, Media Matters has replaced incorrect references to the subject of the video's gender in brackets in the transcript above.)