On Salem Media, Jenna Ellis and Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey push states to ban health care for trans people
Bailey: “Welcome to the godless reformation, where you can be burned at the stake for trying to protect children from sterilization.”
Written by Payton Armstrong
Published
During an August 28 interview on Salem Media, right-wing radio host Jenna Ellis smeared gender-affirming care as “child abuse” and “genital mutilation” as Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey compared health care for trans youth to lobotomies and equated the court's expansion of LGBTQ rights to a “godless reformation.”
Ellis is a radio host for the Christian outlet Salem Media who was recently indicted in Fulton County, Georgia, for her efforts to overturn the 2020 election result in the state. Media Matters and others have repeatedly documented Ellis’ bigoted anti-LGBTQ remarks in media, including earlier this year when she agreed with a guest that laws punishing homosexuality with death cannot be “wrong” because they’re based on laws God created.
Earlier this year, right-wing media and Republicans latched onto a shady whistleblower complaint about a clinic in St. Louis to demonize evidence-based health care for trans youth. The whistleblower complaint spurred Bailey to launch an investigation into the clinic and subsequently enact an “emergency rule” that limited gender-affirming care in the state. The GOP-led Missouri legislature and Republican governor have since restricted gender-affirming care for trans youth, incarcerated trans adults, and Medicaid patients.
Bailey joined the August 28 edition of Ellis’ program to tout Missouri’s efforts to restrict health care for trans youth. Ellis used the show to push the right-wing smear that gender-affirming care is “child abuse” and compared it to “female genital mutilation.”
Ellis also claimed that there are judges with a “cultural Marxist perspective” who are expanding LGBTQ rights. In response, Bailey declared: “Welcome to the godless reformation, where you can be burned at the stake for trying to protect children from sterilization.”
During the interview, Bailey also suggested that “history's not going to look kindly on” gender-affirming care and compared such treatments to lobotomies in the 1940s and 50s for mental health conditions, saying, “We look back now in horror at that practice as morally abhorrent and not based on any objective reality. And certainly I think this will be looked on the same way.” (Lobotomies were often performed without the consent of the patient. Gender-affirming care is provided under an informed consent model, with permission of parents required for minors.)
Citation From the August 28, 2023, edition of Salem Media's The Jenna Ellis Show
JENNA ELLIS (HOST): I think that we are going to look back on this period in American history and historians are going to look back and say, how on Earth was anyone trying to promulgate this type of disaster and this type of child abuse when the United States has always, for example, been against FGM, or female genital mutilation, in other third world countries? And yet that's a totally contradictory policy now that we are supposed to just completely ignore under the auspices of manipulating these definitions.
But from a 30,000-foot perspective here, it is so maddening to me as someone who loves the Constitution, who has studied this not only from a legal perspective, but just from a philosophical perspective as a Christian — and I know you're a Christian as well — and how the left continually manipulates and perverts the language of the Constitution to somehow suggest that there is a right that's protected by the Constitution, that parents can go and give their children puberty blockers and cut off their genitalia.
I mean, the founders would have thought this was just completely beyond the pale, would have never stood for it. And it frustrates me, and I think it would for you as well, to see how often these lawyers create these arguments that are intentionally manipulating what the plain text says. And they can't possibly make these arguments coherently, but yet they try.
ANDREW BAILEY (MISSOURI ATTORNEY GENERAL): Yeah. You're right. I mean, it's sophistry — the nadir of sophistry. And I would point out that the words in the Constitution matter. The Constitution exists to protect us from government. The rights found in the Bill of Rights come from God, not man. And the government exists to protect our rights, not infringe upon them.
And at the end of the day, the words have to have the understanding they had at the time they were written down. So it's the text and the original understanding and the tradition and history of the document that matter so much to me and that, you know, we have to fight to protect.
And you're right — it's absolutely perverted when you try to plumb the depths of the plain language, the equal protection clause, the original history and understanding thereof, to find that there's some kind of right to sterilize children.
But two other points I want to make.
Number one, history — to your point — history's not going to look kindly on this point in time. I mean, I think back to the 1940s and 50s when quote-unquote “leading scientific experts" at the time thought that lobotomies were a good idea, that when people came in with mental health conditions, cutting out a portion of their brain was somehow, you know, good medicine. And we look back now in horror at that practice as morally abhorrent and not based on any objective reality. And certainly I think this will be looked on the same way.
The other point I wanted to make is the expert that we called on our side in the course of the hearing and the motion for preliminary injunction that ultimately was, I think, a credible witnesses — a credible witness — opined two points there. Number one, that children who receive puberty blockers and hormone therapy, who are suffering from gender dysphoria are actually more likely to commit suicide. So this lie that the left is selling, that somehow there's going to be more teen suicides because we were protecting children is absolutely false based on the actual data that we have available to us. But also, I would point out that our expert testified that this is the only mental health condition in which we treat with hormones instead of traditional psychotherapy, psychology, psychiatry. Why are we doing this one any differently, especially when there's no medicine or science to back it up?
ELLIS: Right. And can you — could you have ever imagined going through law school that this would be what you are facing and what you're fighting for? I mean, it — to me, it's just totally bizarre and remarkable that we've gotten to the point that we don't even as a society agree on certain fundamentals.
I mean, when our founders shaped this country, they debated ardently what a more perfect union would be. And we've had significant, genuine progress in our country. We now don't have slavery. I have the right to vote as a woman. I mean, some of these things that we have progressed toward. But at the same time, our founders started with this unanimous declaration. They had uniformity and unanimity that our rights come from God, our creator, that there was such a thing as natural law, there were limitations and limiting principles to not only government, but also what was permissible in a moral and upright society.
And where we are at today, I look at some of the conversations, not only on legacy media, but social media as well, where people don't even share the same fundamental basis that men are men and women are women. And for the people that just deny reality, we can't even begin to argue with them. And it's concerning as well that this isn't just something in the public forum that people are arguing about. Now this is actually in a court of law, and you have these judges where some of them have a more cultural Marxist perspective, if they are crazy leftists that are appointed. And this is genuinely concerning that we might have judicial precedent that is fundamentally unmoored from reality.
BAILEY: Yeah. I mean, welcome to the godless reformation, where you can be burned at the stake for trying to protect children from sterilization. And the hate machine of the left is in full tilt against this because they know that the mood is shifting on this issue.
And yeah. I mean, you're absolutely right. It starts with objective reality. It is unhealthy for me to deny objective reality in the same way that it's unhealthy for me to deny the law of gravity. I may think it doesn't exist, but if I jumped into the Grand Canyon, something bad is going to happen. It is unhealthy to deny the objective reality that gender is an immutable characteristic and that there's man and woman. And like you said, that's defined by biology.
And so, yeah. I mean, I would say that the depravity of the left so outpaces the rational lawmaking that we struggle for our statutes and our courts to keep up with the depravity of the left. We can't war game against an enemy that it goes so far to the extreme that it's destructive to their own position, it's destructive to themselves, it's hypocritical. You know, it just, it's so far out there that we struggle to keep pace with it.
ELLIS: And you're doing a great job trying to keep pace with it there in Missouri. And I hope that every other attorney general that is grounded in reality and understands that there is natural law, there is moral truth that is objective, will follow suit.
Ellis and Bailey continued to attack the trans community and allies throughout the interview.
Ellis said that we should “have the moral conversation” about whether trans adults “should be permissible in the United States” because “the truth is, a man can’t be a woman,” while Bailey baselessly accused the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal, which have sued Missouri for its ban on health care for trans youth, of “want[ing] the state court to find a constitutional right to sterilize children.” He also said: “How dare anyone tell these children that God put them in the wrong body? We know he doesn't make mistakes.”
At multiple points in the interview, Bailey and Ellis asserted that other attorneys general should follow Missouri as a model to restrict rights of transgender people. Ellis praised Bailey, saying he has “done so much great work in the state of Missouri” and arguing that “all 50 states should take your lead” in restricting health care for trans youth.
Bailey also claimed that “the legal landscape is changing” and “this is just the first brick in a wall to protect kids,” noting that Missouri had a “winning strategy” and “could provide a great blueprint for other states to follow.” Ellis agreed, adding, “And hopefully Congress as well.”
Citation From the August 28, 2023, edition of Salem Media's The Jenna Ellis Show
JENNA ELLIS (HOST): I can't think of a better compelling interest for government than protection of children from genital mutilation and hormone therapy. It's just so sad that we're even here and we're doing this. And so, what about these other states then? Have you heard just in the last week since this victory that other legislatures are now going to take up similar legislation and push this forward in other states?
ANDREW BAILEY (MISSOURI ATTORNEY GENERAL): Yeah. I believe that to be true. Absolutely. I think that other states can look at the Missouri Senate Bill 49 and see a winning strategy there of how to craft language. I think Missouri could do more. I think that this is just the first brick in a wall to protect kids. And there's more work to do there. But this is a winning strategy. Going to court, putting on the evidence. We’ll hand over our exhibit list and our witness list. And I know there are people who care enough about this to stand up and do the right thing.
And look, you know, disappointed to see that the district court in Texas last week issued a preliminary injunction on a similar law. So you see some conflicting opinions coming out of the courts. Of course, you know, a court in Texas [is] different than a court in Missouri. But you saw the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals at the federal level uphold Alabama statute, find that Alabama did have a compelling interest in this kind of law.
So, again, I think the legal landscape is changing. I think we've drawn up a winning play here and always happy to partner with like-minded attorney general and hand off that play and — or, you know, the legislation I think could provide a great blueprint for other states to follow.
ELLIS: Yeah. And hopefully Congress as well. I mean, I don't have a lot of faith and confidence in the Senate currently in that composition, but I would love to see something like this at the federal level as well, just protecting children. But obviously states have to do their part and state sovereignty matters so much.
The Kansas City Star called Bailey’s appearance on Ellis’ show “remarkable,” noting that “Missouri’s chief legal officer, a role that at times involves prosecuting criminal cases, is appearing with an individual accused of committing a felony to advance a conspiracy to overturn a presidential election in another state.” (Since her indictment, Ellis has been touring right-wing media to fundraise for her legal fees, while also frequently comparing herself to a “political prisoner.”)
Bailey’s appearance on Ellis’ Salem program was part of a right-wing media tour to tout the state’s efforts to restrict gender-affirming care. He also recently appeared on Fox News and extreme anti-LGBTQ group Family Research Council’s podcast Washington Watch, as well as Ellis’ American Family Radio program. Bailey has also used far-right media to promote his office’s other lawsuits, including appearing on a major QAnon influencer’s show to promote a case that has at least temporarily limited the government's ability to discuss misinformation with tech platforms.