It was Saul Alinsky in Rules for Radicals who wrote, “he who controls the language controls the masses.” That is a topic that comes up often among Megyn and her guests as they discuss many of the social issues in the world today and how radicals are attempting to manipulate language.
The latest example comes from President Joe Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Under a new rule proposed earlier this fall, HHS would redefine the nuclear family by removing terms such as “mother,” “father,” and “paternity” from key documentation.
On Friday’s show, Megyn was joined by Charlie Kirk, CEO of Turning Point USA, to discuss the move and what it says about the larger cultural state of the country.
HHS Rule Change
According to reporting from The Federalist, Americans have until November 27 to comment on a new rule from the Office of Child Support Services (OCSS) – which is part of HHS – to update language in child support regulations to remove gendered terminology.
Under the proposed change, words describing mothers and fathers would get a “gender-neutral” update to the term “parentage.” Additionally, gender-specific pronouns (i.e. he, she, his, her) would be replaced with “they,” “them,” and “their.” OCSS claims the proposal aligns with many of Biden’s executive orders that “pursue a comprehensive approach to advancing equity for all, including members of the LGBTQI+ communities.”
While current OCSS law requires “the establishment of paternity and requiring genetic testing in contested paternity cases,” the proposed rule draft seeks “to establish parentage for all children in accordance with their laws, regardless of the gender of their parents or family structure.”
Last month, Sens. Marco Rubio, James Lankford, Kevin Cramer, Mike Braun, Ted Cruz, and Cindy Hyde-Smith penned a letter condemning the Biden administration for trying to force what they call its “don’t say dad” agenda.
“We are disappointed that your administration is using CSE as a tool to advance radical gender ideology, rather than strengthening its ability to help families,” the Republicans wrote. “Americans understand that mothers and fathers are different, and that both parents play vital roles in raising their children. Federal regulations should uphold this fact rather than erasing the reality of biological sex in the law at the behest of left-wing activists.”
The Larger Context
Megyn said the proposed OCSS rule makes her “so angry” because it reflects a larger cultural shift that is eroding women’s rights. “Bit by bit they take these things away,” she said. “Biological men who are not well… [have] decided that they want to pose as women… [and] take our womanhood and the terms that define it away from us.”
And it is now happening at the highest levels of government. “You have the federal government, the Biden administration, going along with it,” Megyn noted. “I realize these language changes are not the entire issue, but this issue of what they’re doing to children, with what they’re doing to women, is huge.”
Kirk called the situation a “moral tragedy” and wondered where the “feminists” are today. “I’m never going to get what we want here… If the entire political movement now is all about a singular issue – women’s rights – isn’t Dylan Mulvaney calling himself a woman, a woman’s rights issue,” he asked. “There’s so many amazing women speaking out, such as yourself, but where is the revolution in the streets that this warrants?”
Megyn said she herself has undergone an evolution on this issue and encouraged other women to do the same. “[Women] are thinking, ‘I’m just a bad person unless I support this [trans] person’ – forgetting that it’s a guy. That’s where I used to be,” she shared. “You can be forgiven for your prior positions, but you can’t be forgiven for not opening your eyes right now.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Kirk by tuning in to episode 667 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.