Daily Wire host Michael Knowles spoke to a large crowd at the University of Utah on Monday night, calling out the growing trend — especially among young Americans – of transgender identity.
At the beginning of his Young America’s Foundation speech, Knowles, who has angered the Left with past comments on transgenderism, said he was surprised that even in “meek and mild Utah,” he saw a video of “some wild banshee-like lady accosting, assaulting one of the students here as the student was hanging up flyers for this lecture tonight.”
Knowles said the video was proof that conservatives across the country, even in Utah, are not safe from being thrown into the middle of a culture war where common sense is met with the hatred of leftists.
“The commonsense view to which the protester objected is banal and self-evident: men and women are different, men can’t become women, and women can’t become men,” Knowles said.
The universal truth surrounding human beings’ biology has been challenged in Western cultures around the globe, but radical transgender theory and the confusion it brings seems to be most prevalent in the U.S., according to Knowles.
“Contrary to the pretensions of purple-haired, perpetually aggrieved American leftists, the obsession with turning fellas into ladies is not universal. Transgenderism is a largely American phenomenon.”
“According to a recent study out of Virginia Tech’s School of Medicine, 80% of sampled diagnoses of ‘gender dysphoria’ come from the United States. Eighty percent. Is there something in our water? Is it the seed oils? Maybe it is the seed oils,” the Daily Wire host added, sparking laughter from the audience. “Is it something in the air? Maybe. I suspect, however, it has more to do with politics and social fads, but whatever the cause, transgenderism seems to be an especially American problem.”
Knowles cited a 2016 report from The New York Times, which found that even eight years ago, the number of adults identifying as transgender in the U.S. had doubled in five years. Pew Research also found that more than 5% of American adults under the age of 30 identify as “transgender” or “nonbinary” and were three times more likely than the general population to identify as “trans.”
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“There are not sufficient data to say that America is the most ‘trans’ country in the world. There’s a lot of evidence to suggest it. But then other surveys award that dubious distinction to Brazil or alternately to Germany, to Sweden, to Switzerland. We just don’t know,” said Knowles. “Transgenderism is a weird, relatively new, still-niche thing, and we don’t yet have reliable numbers. We probably won’t have reliable numbers any time soon because trans identity is growing exponentially.”
Knowles pointed out how other Western nations, such as Sweden, Finland, and France, began pumping the brakes on and even outright banning transgender procedures for children while the U.S. has continued moving forward with offering life-altering gender surgeries and hormonal drugs to minors.
“As Europe began to ban the trans-ing of kids, America’s rulers—up to and including Mr. Biden—issued orders to expand it,” Knowles said.
Knowles added that the president, who has been described as a “devout Catholic” by legacy media and White House staff, has doubled down on his embrace of “transgender ideology” over the course of his administration, even proclaiming March 31 of this year as “Trans Day of Visibility” when the 31st was Easter Sunday.
“Joe Biden, of course, has never been deterred from error by his supposed faith,” Knowles said. “So while practically everyone turns away from transgender ideology, Joe Biden has doubled down. And it’s not just Biden; it’s the whole American political establishment. When it comes to transgender ideology, America is a radical outlier.”
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