As Megyn has covered, children are being exposed to radical gender ideology at an earlier and earlier age.
Kids are being socially and medically transitioned across the country as a result of the prevailing ‘affirming’ approach to gender confusion only to later regret their decision, but there are new laws and ballot initiatives aimed at preventing the ‘transition’ of minors.
On Monday’s show, Megyn was joined by Erin Friday, an attorney and co-lead of Our Duty USA, to discuss how she saved her daughter from trans ideology and what she is doing in California to help families in a similar position.
One Mother’s Fight
Megyn noted that she was “outraged” when she heard Friday’s story because it was an all too familiar one. “Our old New York City school was trying to send kids down this same path, and I know they still are,” she shared. “I just talked to a mom yesterday who was telling me about her friend whose daughter that previously showed no gender confusion was sucked into this ideology and has now socially transitioned to being a boy.”
Friday said her family’s experience was quite similar because “our schools are now teaching these kids that there is such a thing called gender identity… and they’re getting that dose all through their academic careers.”
In Friday’s case, her daughter experienced rapid onset gender dysphoria during puberty. “Girls, like my daughter, suddenly decide that they want to jump ship, they no longer want to be a girl because it’s uncomfortable getting hips, getting breasts, getting their period,” she explained. “Boys have it easier, and so they think that they can just wave this magic wand and become a boy because that’s what their teachers have been telling them.”
After growing up a “girly girl” who liked pink, dresses, and sparkles, Friday said her daughter declared herself to be a trans boy at the age of 13. She believes she was influenced by a sex education class taught in her California middle school and social media.
“Every doctor I took my daughter to told me to affirm her, every psychiatrist and psychologist told me to accept that I had a new son and to celebrate it and to forget those 13 years that I had raising her as a girl with really girly tendencies,” she recalled. “They said that all was a charade and that she was just waiting to come out as the boy that she is.”
Her daughter’s school was similarly affirming. “The school had changed her name and pronouns behind my back,” Friday shared. “This was a school that had never set eyes on my daughter because it was COVID and it was freshman year of high school, so they knew nothing about her.”
When she confronted the school about this, they accused her of being unsupportive. “When I called the school to read them the riot act… they told me that the school needed to be a safe space for my daughter,” Friday recounted. “Now my daughter is going to school down the hall from me [at home], so, by extension, I was unsafe and the school made clear that I was unsafe because they called Child Protective Services and the police that then showed up at my house because you wouldn’t affirm.”
Friday said that her daughter experienced some bullying growing up like many kids do, but she was a very good student. That changed in seventh and eighth grade. She was experiencing anxiety and depression, started to cut herself, and her grades dropped, which was further exacerbated by the isolation of COVID-19 protocols.
Her daughter spent an increasing amount of time on social media and was friends with girls who were similarly despondent and confused. During that period, Friday was told her daughter would kill herself if she wasn’t affirmed. “This is how they hold the parents hostage,” she said. “And if you are a terrified parent which most are, you listened to the doctors because at some point, we trusted the medical community. We can no longer do that.”
‘Do Not Capitulate’
Friday’s story has a remarkable ending in large part, she said, because she refused to give in. “Parents walk this alone,” she said. “It is a lonely difficult journey because everyone is against the parent — from the teachers to the doctors to even sometimes your own family members and your friends — and it’s a lonely, difficult task to swim upstream and pull your child out of what I call the gender cult because that’s what it is.”
She decided to quit her job and dedicate herself to her daughter’s recovery, which included seeking care outside of California. She took away her daughter’s phone and social media accounts and spent time talking about and celebrating her natural, female body.
In the two years that followed, her daughter avoided any medical intervention (like hormone therapy) and instead embraced being a girl once again. While Friday said some of her daughter’s mental and emotional scars remain, her personality has slowly returned.
Friday had a message for parents facing a similar situation: “Social transition is so dangerous and tolerated… Do not capitulate. Do not call your child by another name and pronouns. If anything, use no name or use a pet name you used as a child.” She said parents have “to be the off ramp for the child to come back to biological reality.”
Protect Kids California Act
This is why Friday is part of the group Protect Kids California, which is working to get an initiative on the 2026 ballot related to gender ideology. It would require schools to notify parents if their child requests gender treatment and necessitate parental consent for social transition.
Additionally, it would repeal an existing law that allows students to participate in sex-segregated sports or enter sex-specific bathrooms or locker rooms based on their gender identity. It also would prohibit sex-change procedures on minors, including hormonal treatments and surgeries.
The initiative needs 500,000 signatures from registered voters in California in order to get on the ballot. The cut-off date is May 15, 2024, and the group has petitions available on their website, ProtectKidsCA.com, for those who wish to support the cause. “It is a huge undertaking,” Friday concluded. “But just imagine the bluest of blue state stopping so-called sex changes on children. The rest of the nation will follow. I guarantee it.”
You can check out Megyn’s interview with Friday by tuning in to episode 778 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.