A large number of protestors and counterprotestors gathered at Legislative Plaza in downtown Nashville, Tennessee for the Daily Wire’s “Rally to End Child Mutilation” on Oct. 21.
Commentator Matt Walsh was joined by nearly a dozen speakers, including U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn and state Representative William Lamberth, to criticize the alleged actions of the Pediatric Transgender Clinic at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Timcast attended to rally to speak with those opposed to surgical gender alterations being performed on minors as well as those who support what they term “gender re-affirming healthcare.” Tulsi Gabbard speaking at Matt Walsh’s rally to end child mutilation today in Nashville, TN:
“I grew up a tomboy … I moved on and I grew up. I cannot imagine the kinds of pressures happening to our kids today with our young girls who are tomboys” pic.twitter.com/jljdpVp50w
— Timcast News (@TimcastNews) October 21, 2022
Those in attendance held signs that read “Mutilate the Mutilators,” “Nazi Lives Don’t Matter,” “not Trans? not a Doctor? STFU!” and “Experiment on ur mom, NOT KIDS.”
One counterprotestor said the use of the term “mutilation” is “manipulative.”
“Mutilation is something you could reply to anything, be it removal of a wisdom tooth, removal of a cancerous tumor,” the person said. “Again, I don’t think that any of these people understand what pediatric trans healthcare is.”
Another attendee, who has two transgender friends, said she has “no problem” with adults undergoing surgical gender alterations.
“Be who you wanna be, dress how you wanna dress, express yourself, I support that. What I don’t support is putting it on children,” said the woman, who was wearing a necklace with that read “TERF,” a derogatory term that stands for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist. “Let them go through the essential human experience. … We’re dehumanizing them by denying them that.”
She added: “Kids don’t know who they are, they don’t know what they want to be, this is why puberty is so important. It’s the critical point in a person’s life where they discover their humanity and they have to develop a perspective. You have to experience that.”