Show Notes and Transcript
Tina Descovich, co-founder of Moms for Liberty returns to Hearts of Oak to discuss the organization's growth, legislative victories, and commitment to empowering parents in navigating the education system and defending parental rights.
We take a close look at federal policies like the Title IX rewrite and emphasized parental involvement in advocating for change, including options like home-schooling and school choice to safeguard children's education.
Tina highlights the challenges that parents face in choosing the right education, navigating woke ideology, and the importance of monitoring children's education regardless of the setting.
The need for transparency in curriculum, traditional teaching methods, and critical thinking in education for children's well-being is a must so please share this interview far and wide.
Tina Descovich has a long record of fighting for students and parental rights in Florida and at the national level. She was elected to the Brevard County, FL school board in 2016. She was selected by her peers in 2017 to serve as Vice Chairman and Chairman in 2018. While on the school board she was a member of The Florida Coalition of School Board Members and served as the organization’s president in 2018. Tina currently serves on several non-profit boards in her community that are aimed at helping children. She and her husband Derek have five children. She is passionate about America and is dedicated to protecting liberty and freedom for the future of all children.
Moms for Liberty are Moms, Dads, Grands, Aunts, Uncles and Friends.
They welcome all that have a desire to stand up for parental rights at all levels of government.
The founders are Tiffany and Tina, moms on a mission to stoke the fires of liberty. As former school board members, they witnessed how short-sighted and destructive policies directly hurt children and families. Now they are using their first-hand knowledge and experience to unite parents who are ready to fight those that stand in the way of liberty.
Moms for Liberty is dedicated to fighting for the survival of America by unifying, educating and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government.
Their vision is to see Americans empowered and thriving in a culture of Liberty.
Moms for Liberty are joyful warriors who stand for truth, build relationships and empower others.
Connect with Tina...
X/TWITTER twitter.com/TinaDescovich
Connect with Moms for Liberty...
WEBSITE www.momsforliberty.org
X/TWITTER twitter.com/Moms4Liberty
Interview recorded 6.5.24
Connect with Hearts of Oak...
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WEBSITE heartsofoak.org/
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SOCIAL MEDIA heartsofoak.org/connect/
SHOP heartsofoak.org/shop/
*Special thanks to Bosch Fawstin for recording our intro/outro on this podcast.
Check out his art theboschfawstinstore.blogspot.com and follow him on X twitter.com/TheBoschFawstin
Transcript
(Hearts of Oak)
I am delighted to have Tina Descovich, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, back with us again. Tina, thank you so much for your time today.
(Tina Descovich)
Thanks for having me back.
Always good to chat to you, always good to follow what's been happening with Moms for Liberty. Obviously, people can follow you @TinaDescovich on Twitter and @Moms4forLiberty. And, of course, Moms4Liberty.org is the website. All the links are in the description. but Tina maybe start with an update of what's been happening in the world of Moms for Liberty and then we'll get into some of the issues but yeah what's been happening in your world?
Well that's a loaded question moving at 5,000 miles per hour just trying to, I don't know fix education and save this country, defend parental rights, the Biden administration here is moving so fast. And it's just a behemoth. They've got hundreds of millions of dollars within the teachers unions as kind of their foot soldiers. They have the media on their side. It's just endless what they can do. And then there's little old moms for liberty and just moms on the ground in this organization trying to fight back with all of our might to protect our children, to defend parental rights, to keep that division between the government and our families. And it's a
100-hour-a-week job for a whole lot of people. It's really a lot. But we have a lot of exciting things that we're doing as an organization. We're growing, obviously. We're in 48 of the 50 states, over 300 chapters, 130,000 moms on the ground. We are doing a ton of things and a ton of growth within policy work now. And so our chapters have come together in the states to form legislative committees and they put together a legislative agenda. Usually has a parental bill of rights to protect parents rights in that state. A lot of times there's bills about transparency in curriculum.
Protecting girls in their own locker rooms and restrooms, girls protecting girls sports, things like that. And we are having great success. The last legislative session, twenty four bills were signed into law over seven different states. And that was the last legislative session. we are still in session in a few states like North Carolina still has their legislative session going on and so we haven't even taken account yet for this session of how many more bills have been signed into law that our organization's been working on.
And is the main focus, your work at the state level or is it at the federal level?
So our mission statement is to unify educate and empower parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government where we work at the the most local level, which is school districts, where honestly the most parental rights historically have been the most parental rights violations.
Lately, we've been doing a ton of work, like I said, at the state level with policy and laws. And then it looks like we now have to get involved at the federal level because of the Biden administration. They're just obnoxiously overstepping their bounds. I don't know how much you're following here in the U.S., butthe new rewrite of Title IX, which has, you know, Title IX was written to protect women, to give them equal opportunities. It was written in the 70s and itprotected women's sports. It gave them an opportunity to have women's sports. And anyway, he had just, he's just obliterated that with the new rewrite. He's pretty much made it allowable, made it mandatory in every state and every school district that they have to allow boys that identify as girls mentally in restrooms with girls on their sports teams. And at a federal level, at a national level, you know, those school districts are going to be held accountable to doing those things. And so our whole country is in an uproar over this. Moms for Liberty, we've put out a massive toolkit to educate people and to arm them with letters to their local school board, letters to their state legislators, letters to the federal government. We're giving them all kinds of ideas and suggestions and tools to go fight this because, you know, states left and right are launching lawsuits now against the Biden administration on behalf of women and kids everywhere.
Because it does seem as if that's full-on compelled speech. And I was looking at the website and I saw all those different tools. And it does seem to be one of the main focuses at the moment. And here in the UK, we've had legal cases of teachers not using preferred pronouns and ends up in the courts. But we don't have, at the moment, we don't really have compelled speech legislation that overarches everything. So it seems to be bits here and there. But what I'm reading into this would be in the States that then would cover everyone. So is that what because it does mean the teachers are forced to use whatever the kids come up with?
Yeah. So there's a lawsuit. I was reading an article this morning. It's coming out of California, a teacher that was fired for not using the students preferred pronouns, which were not aligned with what the child was born as and for not lying to the parents. And so the teacher refused to do that. They fired her. And now she's got a lawsuit going. It's just a disaster. You can't you can't compel speech in the United States of America. This Title IX rewrite is trying to do just that. And it's not going to hold up. It's not going to stand. But, you know, the American people don't even I don't think most of them are even awake to what's happening. You know also the rewrite was through the department of education it's not a law it wasn't passed by congress it wasn't um you know what he's doing is just he is, he's he's making a mockery of the rule of law too.
I mean has the pendulum swung too far for that because we have had I had Billboard Chris on a few weeks ago talking to him about what's been happening, and in Europe, and maybe we'll touch on what's been happening in Europe in regards to that but it, when you wonder how far can things go and with children being able to decide, with the children being the adults and they make the decisions and there are no adults left in the room. Do you think this title IX, do you think that will push it so far that people do wake up to it? I mean what's the media conversation in the mainstream media.
The mainstream media so far has really picked up on what this does to girls' sports, and that seems to be the only thing they're focusing on. Moms for Liberty, obviously, is because our mission is to protect parental rights, is really working hard to expose how this oversteps and destroys parental rights in the education system at a minimum. And so they're starting to pick it up. I think Fox here has picked up a couple stories of Tiffany, my co-founder, over the weekend and last week did some interviews, and they ran them this morning. And so we're really trying hard to make sure parents understand what's going on because they just don't know. And a lot of times they don't pay attention. They don't watch the news. They don't really realize how it's going to impact them until it impacts them, until their their daughter comes home and says, I have to compete against a six foot two, 250 pound man on Saturday. Mom, all of a sudden they're in a frenzy. Like, how did this happen? And I had a friend of mine who is left leaning, has voted Democrat her whole life.
And, we've been friends since childhood. And she called me like six months ago and said, you know, my daughter's in the bathroom. She just called me from high school. There's a boy in there. How did this happen? What's going on? And I'm like, I've been trying to tell you. And so, you know, they just people just don't know. Moms are busy. They just don't know until they know. And when they know they are looking for help. And so we want to be there to help them.
I mean, is it because obviously there has been lots of discussion here in the UK, we read every few days about another story, whether it's Europe or whether it's over in the States about women competing in sports, forfeiting that, walking away because they say, I am not competing against a man. I would rather give up whatever pay there is at that level. And that does seem to be getting the media attention. But then that's, I guess, a different focus than purely on the education. But surely that will filter through.
Yeah, I think it'll rise up. I mean, the shiny object is what's happening in sports because it's such a clear violation. And we'realready seeing news stories this morning in West Virginia, one of our states, I think four or five middle school girls said that they refused to compete. They withdrew or they did a bye, whatever it is, when you on a sports team say we're not going to compete in this session. And then the school district kicked them out of the next, I think it was a track meet, kicked them out of the next track meet because they withdrew from the previous one. And so now that's being handled in the courts too. But good for those four little girls. I mean, middle school here is 12, 11, 12, 13 years old maximum. And they stood up as a group and said, we are not going to compete against a man in track. It's just not fair. And so that's the shiny object. That's what's in the courts right now. That's what everybody sees. But I think the other stuff is going to start bubbling up soon.
Of course, this has been a long plan, march from the institutions, back from the 60s or however far back you want. And it does seem as though what you're doing is the most positive response for that, is the most natural way of actually tackling what's happening, which is parents coming together in groups and being vocal. And why it's taken this long, I guess none of us know, but it is happening. So it does seem what is happening there with Moms for Liberty is the most common sense and the most logical. and the only way really that this actually can be changed when the voice comes from parents themselves.
Yeah, parents is a powerful, a powerful group. And I think Moms for Liberty has proven that, even historically, when you look throughout history, when parents pull together and really rise up within a country, within a boundary, within a community, even at local school board meetings, that gets the attention. We are the taxpayers, we are the voters, and no one is going to fight like a parent to protect their child. And so, you know, we, we have captured that, I think, at Moms for Liberty, and our politicians know that and realize that, which is why, you know, last summer at our National Summit, we have all five conservative presidential candidates, we invited them all, President Biden, Robert Kennedy, Jr., all of them, five of them showed up to talk to us about their concern about parental rights. And you know we have a lot of influence in local elections our people are concerned they get out they knock doors they campaign for their favorite candidate we have a parental rights pledge that we ask all elected officials or candidates to sign to say that you will defend parental rights and this is all levels of government and we post those on our website so that people can go and say did my candidate for school board or state house or president sign the pledge and it helps people gauge on if these people are going to protect the right of a parent to direct the upbringing of their child.
What options are there of children in the States? I'm curious because in the UK we still have church schools, Roman Catholic and Anglican, but those are very rapidly adopting the woke mentality.
But there are still options, that's kind of quasi-state. Private education isn't as really a main area here as it is in the States. But when, because parents sometimes don't want to rock the boat, they think, well, don't worry, I'll just hold on and hope that it's all OK. And it's all about grades and they don't realise what's happening. So what options are there for parents? Or is it if they don't fight now, then actually it's gone?
So I'd like to like I'd like to change this this question a little bit, because as you know, I was there in your country several months ago. I saw you while we were there and I spent a lot of time talking to my Uber drivers because I spent a lot of time in Ubers while I was there. And one in particular said he currently, him and his wife home-school their child, their children there in the UK. And I was asking him about that. He said he pulled them out because of the woke ideology in the schools there. But in the UK apparently one of your government officials has to come and do home checks, quarterly or something of that nature to to prove that the children are learning what they're supposed to be learning at home and he said just last week and you know this was a few months ago now but he was telling me at the time just last week one of those people came in to do a home check and they said to the little girl, they didn't ask can you do math can you multiply do you know know, the history of the UK, he said, or the home check lady said to their daughter, what would you think if your brother decided he wanted to be a girl? That was the question, but they came to the home to check. And he was appalled, but he said he didn't feel like he could speak up or do anything. And I thought, oh my goodness, this is, this is so bad. Here in the United States, you know, the one thing about education in the United States is it's different. It's vastly different and the laws are different from state to state.
And so in some states, home-school parents are completely on their own. No, the states don't check in. There's no follow up. And in other states, in other counties, like in my county here in Florida, you're supposed to fill out a form at the school district just so they know they can account for a child and they say that they're being homeschooled. So there's been a big push in the United States the last 10 years, but really in the last couple of years for what we call school choice. And that means the money follows the child. So if our state spends ten thousand dollars for a public education school, the parent could apply and get ten thousand dollars and they could take that to a private school, a religious school. And they could take that in some states they can take that and give it to themselves to homeschool to buy books and things of that nature but it's such, a it's such an interesting argument because in some states like texas the homeschool parents have just completely risen up and they don't want school choice and they don't want those funds for homeschool because they know that's tied to government strings and they want to be free of it, in other states they've done complete universal school choice and homeschool parents gladly take the 10 000 or whatever the rate is some states it's 8,000. In America, some states, it's 30,000. In New York City, it's almost 40,000 per student, but they don't have school choice there.
And so, you know, we have a lot of options here. We have private schools. We have very expensive private schools. A lot of them have been captured and have the woke ideology in them also.
So there really is, there's nowhere to hide these days. It's even if you home-school, you have to like read every word in the textbooks that you purchase to teach your children with, unless you use original source documents and the Bible and things of that that nature, you have to watch closely because it's just everywhere.
Yeah we, home-schooling is different here, it's not, it's really a cottage industry, it's very small. I know in Europe there it's larger but in some countries they tried to ban it and it's a whole mishmash but yeah we have mostly left governments, some of them even call themselves conservative like the the UK but it's far-reaching in terms of state control and big government but I think what you're saying is then there's nowhere to go, you either stay and fight because there isn't down the road a nice school that will be nicely protected from the state and you can just get on, they will come for that really think we learned that in all our in dealing with the government they don't want to leave any part of your life alone they'll come for it so unless you fight now this is the battle line and this is where you have to fight.
Yeah, I mean, I pulled my son during middle school and during COVID and put him in a small private Christian school that doesn't take any government funds. And it was just, it was beautiful. My son was able, they checked temperatures at the door, washed hands thoroughly, and then they were normal kids all day long. They didn't mask, they didn't, you know, they didn't sit apart. They stayed with their classroom cohorts. You know, they didn't mix with the whole school in case someone was diagnosed, but he had a fantastic two years because they weren't tied to government funds and therefore they weren't tied to any government rules or laws or policies or anything. They were able to do what they want. But, you know, it's hard for those schools to stay in existence, especially with school choice now, because all of that money will be flowing into all the schools around it. And a private school will be very tempted to take those funds. And the minute they take those funds, you're now tied to all the laws. And so there are nooks and crannies to still hide, but they're becoming few and far between. And so that's what we tell everyone when we fight. We say even with homeschooling and private schooling, 80% of American children are still in public schools and we cannot leave them behind because your child may be homeschooled and will graduate at 18 to go vote. But if that's only 20% of America, they're going to lose the vote every time to the people that have been indoctrinated. And that's 80% of America. And so this isn't sustainable.
No, 100%. No child should be left behind, completely. Can I ask you about parents, what rights they have to access materials, this has been what was a debate in the UK probably six eight months ago, whenever it became obvious that parents didn't have a legal right to access teaching materials specifically in the area of sex education. What is it like in America? The parents have the legal right to access those materials or is it simply those, I guess, school board meetings where things come out and surprise everyone.
So I love this question, and I'm going to take it back five steps and say every parent in the world has the fundamental right from God to direct the upbringing of their children, and that is their education. And so you have that fundamental right as the parent of that child to see what they are being taught. Now, Government steps all over those rights and takes that right. We know that and that's what's happening. I know you phrased the question though, the legal right, you didn't say the fundamental right, but I had, you know, I had to get that in there if I had the opportunity. The legal right in the United States varies again from state to state, especially when it comes to sex ed. Some states, I think five out of our 50, you actually have to get parental permission before you can can teach sex ed.
But, you know, the tide is changing on a lot of these things, too. Many of the states, about 20 or so, have opt-out. Parents have to have the right to opt-out. But what we just saw with a lawsuit in Montgomery County, Maryland, for example, is the school district would not allow Muslim parents to opt-out of the comprehensive sex ed, which taught gender ideology. It taught hom*osexuality, and the Muslim parents were not having it. And good for them. They should assert their rights. But the school district said, you do not have the right to opt out of this. And I think there's a lawsuit now, you know, going in that direction. So it just varies. And thank goodness it varies. That's the one thing I love about education in the United States.
It's getting more federalized. It should not be federalized. For the most part, education is supposed to be controlled by local school boards here, which are elected. It allows parents to march down to their school board member, which they elected in their small community. Likely they see them at the grocery store and tell them off and tell them, you don't get to do that. And if you're going to teach my kid that, I want to see what it is. And that's your neighbor. That's someone that you maybe have known for a lot of years or your kids are on the same soccer team. And so you have the ability to influence and change that quickly when it is held by the federal government of the United States. You know, this morning I was reading an article that said somebody in University in California is pushing for federally mandated sex ed and I thought what a what a nightmare especially with comprehensive sex ed knocking at everybody's door, that should never come from the federal government in America ever.
Well it does seem everywhere that the parts of government are desperate to sexualize children through any way possible..
I know, like what is wrong with people and what is wrong with parents that are allowing this, sorry…
Yes, why is the anger not there because you're right we we saw a similar thing with Muslim parents rising up in the summer, cities in the UK and I was scratching my head thinking where are the churches, why are they not angry and then you realize they've fallen and they've accepted it so we are having the same issue where the fight back coming from, it's not coming from established churches or even the free churches, coming actually from the Muslim community and you think well, if they're going to lead the fight then then so be it and you can see the confusion with the government that they don't know what to do with this because there's all types of repercussions.
Well this is usually the victims that we've had to protect and now they're mad at us too, what are we going to do we can dig into that a little bit, but this whole victim mentality our schools are teaching that and our governments now, both your government and my government are are being moulded around it. And so, yeah, when the victim turns out and says, uh, now they're like, what are we going to do?
It's just confusion in our government. But in the argument in the UK for parents having no legal access or no right to have legal access, and it was a long court case, and the conservative government seemingly only realized the parents didn't have the right, even though they've been in charge for 14 years. But we'll put that to the side. And the argument was that these companies that run these courses have a right to protect it, because if they opened it up to the parents, to the public, that would damage their competitive edge. And that seems to have stuck. The courts have ruled that, yeah, that's a fair enough point.
What is it like in the States? Are there separate organizations, separate companies that actually put on those courses, or is it purely by the school? And would that same argument work, that you need to be able to hide because that's your business model? You don't want the competition seeing this.
Yeah, they're trying that here for sure. And it's working, I think, in some places. It's intimidating school districts into saying parents can't see it. From what I've heard mostly, though, the school districts, they're trying to find a compromise because they just want to make everybody happy. And so our moms are telling us, well, they're going to allow me to go in and for eight hours and review the book. I'm not allowed to take pictures. I'm not allowed to, because it's copyrighted by the by the publisher. You know that it hasn't quite played out yet here in the United States. I'm sure it's coming because this is what's happening as more and more parents are asking to see and more and more textbook publishers want to hide what they have. I will tell you several years ago, you know, I served on school board here in Florida 2016 to 2020.
And when I began this fight, I ran and started my campaign in 2015 on parental rights because I already saw the problem. One of the things we have here in the U.S. and you probably have it there is standardized tests. So a test that the whole country takes at a certain age so you can gauge where everybody is, which is fine. It's a great idea. Except what we were finding here in Florida and around the country is those testing companies were just like those textbooks publishers. And they were not allowing teachers even to see what was in the tests. And so not allowing parents, absolutely. So I went to our state Capitol and spoke about it at a legislative committee hearing as they were discussing this. And one of the legislators brought the testing company head up and said to him and asked him questions and said, if I, as a representative in the state house in Florida, want to see what's on this test that our children are being put in front of our children in the state, may I see it? And he said, no, we can't show it to you. It has to be. And then he went through a laundry list. He ended up, he said, if the governor of the state of Florida would like to see what's in that test.
Would he be able to see it? I think at the time, Rick Scott was governor, not Governor DeSantis. And the guy said, no, unfortunately, we would not allow him to see it. And I was like, oh, things are about to hit the fan around here. And so they are on such a high horse, these textbook companies, these test makers, They've had such straight access to our children for so many years without anybody questioning it. But the tides are changing.
Tell us about the tide changing on the political side, obviously, presidential election year. And I haven't seen a lot from, originally from from the candidates in the primaries on this and this being an issue. I mean, simply saying that parents should have access, that you think that is a right to any parent legally in any democratic country, but it's not. I haven't seen these type of things push forward. It's simply we're going to have a discussion on bathrooms and make sure boys can't go to girls. That kind of is and maybe the sports issue, but it doesn't seem to go far enough at all. I mean, is that a fair enough assessment that the conversation is not really being had, wasn't had in the primaries? And I haven't even seen it coming out of the Trump campaign massively.
So just to note, President Trump has, he's the only presidential candidate right now that, you know, a lot of the primary candidates had signed our pledge. But President Trump is the only one that has made it this far, that has signed the parental rights pledge through Moms for Liberty. We've had discussions.
He has signed it?
He has. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. agreed to come to our summit. We worked with his people to put out a press release on that. They sent us his bio and headshot. And one week before our summit, he cancelled due to a family emergency. A week later went on, you know, went on some talk show and said that we were anti LGBTQ. So he went on my wall here in my office, he's still up there, my coward wall, I call it, too afraid to stand up. Somebody pressured him, I believe, some people pressured him to not stand with parents for his, you know, to be politically expedient. And then, of course, President Biden is just in full on attack to parental rights. So I don't expect he would ever discuss transparency in curriculum. He sides with the teachers unions who don't want transparency in curriculum. We don't really know where RFK Jr. stands at this point because he's not talking about it. But President Trump has addressed it.
I wouldn't say at length, but he has signed our pledge. We have talked to members of his team about where he stands on these issues. And he supports the right of a parent to direct the upbringing of their children in education. So that includes transparency in curriculum.
And of course, you and Tiffany are regularly on WarRoom and you don't get a better way of connecting with the Trump's team and with conservative voters than through WarRoom so that seems to be a massive outlet for this information.
Yeah Tiffany usually does that one, I'm her backup, I'd say when she can't get to it, but yeah she is on WarRoom regularly, Steve Bannon is great about letting us get our message out and what we're working on and yeah the hope is that Trump and his team are watching and hearing and seeing, but, you know, they've reached out, we've had direct access with his team. He came to our national summit last summer, and I spent some, I would say I spent a pretty good time with him, green room, backstage.
And, you know, he sincerely seemed very concerned about what's happening to parental rights and with education in our country.
I think, does he still have a Moms for Liberty cup behind him when he hosts?
Yes, I'm not sure. I hope so. Yeah, we gave him or somebody gave him. I don't think we gave him. I think one of his listeners sent him one, one of our travel mugs, and he had it on the shelf behind him.
So I saw it for quite a while. So great advertising.
I think you had a quote on one of your tweets in the last few days. I said, are politics taking them? You said for this entire campaign, and Kennedy has refused to answer any serious questions about what he would do as president to protect kids from the predatory transgender industry. Instead, he upskirts trying to con voters into thinking he's on their side while taking no firm positions. I think it's fair to mention because he will have a big impact on, not necessarily, I don't think, being elected, but he will have a massive impact in a third candidate. And you kind of know where Biden lies. you know I mean I've been to three Trump rallies and and heard him speak, certainly talk about the trans stuff in schools regarding bathrooms, regarding sports and a big cheer, probably the biggest cheer when I last heard him, the biggest cheer went up for him said that he will keep boys out of girls bathrooms and girls out of the boys and it was heartening to hear such a massive cheer, but yeah you're right, Kennedy, I think people maybe forget that he is not socially conservative. Now, he shouldn't have to be socially conservative to worry about sexualisation of kids. It should go across the board.
But yeah, he does seem to be holding back, and I can't imagine he would go along with opposing what's been happening.
I have no idea. Look, a lot of our moms really have great respect for him. He stood up against the COVID vaccine. A lot of our moms, their children are vaccine injured, And so they really have followed him for a long time and appreciated his courage and bravery speaking out on some of those issues. But, you know, for the reasons you just said, I'm going to print out another picture of him and put him up on my coward wall because this is one issue you cannot be silent on. You know, there is a loud minority group that is radical, that is aggressive, I think, very angry. And if there's a terrorist group in the United States, you know, like they try to call us, it's these gender ideology terrorists. They harass people. They follow them around. They scream at them. You said you've had Billboard Chris on, the way they treat him when he all he does is just with the sign that says children cannot consent to puberty blockers or no child is born in the wrong body. This is not an issue that should be partisan. This is just like a general human, protect kids issue. I think history is not going to look kindly on any of us that allowed this to happen and did not speak out, including RFK Jr.
Yeah, 100%. What is the pushback on puberty blockers? I think we now see six countries in Europe where it's banned to some degree with now legal conversations taking place of whether these should be allowed or not here in the UK and across Europe. In the US, there doesn't seem to be that pushback. Am I correct on that?
We are about five years, if I had to guess, behind you on all of this, we watched you all open your gender clinics and the puberty blockers and you know you guys have learned, I think you're starting to learn and that's why the discussions and the debates are happening. We are just behind you know ours I think we've ramped up now, people are starting to become aware and I think what you're going through now is right around the corner for us.
Yeah, no, I really think so. I mean, we're having a lot of de-transitioners speaking out. We're having whistle-blowers from the centres and then realising, I guess, the industry, which is fairly profitable.
Just like whenever I talk to those in the pro-life, they talk about the massive industry on that side. And I guess this is what, just like under COVID, you're up against a massive big pharma industry that makes a lot of money through their products. And they're not saying this is right or wrong. They're just saying we were making money and we're going to do it anyway. I think that's the massive push. But yeah, we've been, certainly for 12, 13 years, the experiment in the UK. And now people are beginning to wake up. I don't know if you're having whistle-blowers in the States talking about what happens, because we had a single clinic in the UK, really, that was under government. I'm sure in America, it's much more fractured.
Yeah, just like everything else here, we like to localize a lot of things, the good and the bad.
Yeah, I think it was in Tavistock that you guys had?
Yeah, Tavistock.
We've learned so much from that. And, you know, I'm sorry that you and your country and your children had to go through that. But we follow it closely. We've learned a lot from it. And, you know, we have de-transitioners here that are starting to speak out, Chloe Cole and some others. They're speaking at state houses. I think there's been a couple of congressional hearings now. So again, we're behind, but I think it's starting to happen. But as far as big pharma and how this is an industry, I mean, just imagine, like you have got a, you've got customers for life when you give kids puberty blockers and you chop off their healthy body parts, customers for life. And we're watching the same groups like Planned Parenthood, who have been behind the abortion industry for so long, now jumping on the puberty blocker industry. And schools are letting them in, especially in blue, left-winging, radical cities and school districts. They're letting them on campus.
They're letting them right off campus next door. They're letting them set up shop in the parking lot. And in some states allowing them without parental consent or notification, allowing them to give puberty blockers to children at the schools and so, and they're just getting them for life like now you'll be a patient of mine forever, it's the most absurd horrible thing I think that we've experienced in America in a long time.
And the more side effects the more money to be made from a further product that will supposedly fix those side effects so yes.
Is it that you're going to amass a division in the country? I mean, you see the division happening in red and blue in pro-abortion at any side and then actually pro-life. And you see, obviously, in Florida, you've got the heartbeat bill being attacked or looked at at the moment, which is probably the furthest any state has gone to protecting life. But it seems to be the same in the sex ed in schools. You've got a massive division.
Is that how it's happening, the country being more divided over those individuals that want to protect children or want them to grow up as innocent as possible before they get sexualised and those who want sexualisation as early as possible?
No, I don't think this is divisive like abortion at all. So we've done some national polling and 70 percent across the board of Americans agree with us on these issues. So that's even, they've dug down into the data. That's even people that are pro-choice, that are Democrats. No matter your nationality, no matter your gender, no matter what religion you are, 70 between 68 and 72 percent of Americans all agree on this. So the hard division, although it may appear that way in the media or it may appear that way because the vocal minority is so loud and obnoxious and hate filled and rage filled and are on the streets, you know, here locally. And we've got a causeway that goes over a river. And the last few weeks as I drive home, there's people up and down the cause, like 10 of them. That's it. With signs, you know, protect whatever.
I'm like, what are you doing? Nobody cares. Nobody's listening to you. So I think Americans, I think people in general, when they are awake and know what's happening, they don't agree with this. The problem is, is the media helps deceive the messaging. They pick up the talking points of the radical left and say, for sex education, for example, oh, it's comprehensive sex education. It's important that, you know, children learn that they're, you know, that this is how a baby's made by sixth grade. And people aren't educated on what that really is, that they are learning about the different types of sex, that they are learning about abortion in grade school, that they are learning when they are five, that they can be a boy or a girl or neither or both. You know, none of that is told. The media just goes on and then people think they know. And soI would I would argue that that 70 percent number, if if that 30 percent was truly educated, it's probably only 5 percent that would really stand against children. And that's the radical lunatics.
Do you also think there's a danger? I know in the UK we had a case a week ago where a teacher wasn't there. So a stand in teacher came and it was a 'female' who was really a male, then started telling the children about how they were getting married and they started discussing how trans. And this was to maybe eight or nine, maybe 10, I think it was nine. And again, there's a massive issue in the media on this. Why were parents not told? And when parents did write, the response was, we are inclusive, we are diverse, and we will not stop anyone because that would be hateful. Again, there...
Whenever you have teachers, you've got the education side, which is there. You can access them black and white. But then, I guess, the other side are the actual teachers. And we're certainly seeing in the UK, a lot of them, it so happens, are certainly more liberal.
And that means you've got coming in with lifestyles and sexuality that is on show for the children.
And it's in their face. So it's not just on the sex side, but actually they could be teaching history or mathematics. And if it's a guy who thinks they're a woman right in front of the children, that's going to cause so much damage. I don't know it's probably the same in the US where you're getting teachers like that, who will really cause confusion throughout the whole day
[38:46] Not in Florida, not where I am.
That's an advert for Florida.
Yeah like we're gonna exclude Florida from this because Governor DeSantis said first round House Bill 1557 here in Florida, which was dubbed a name that it's not is at all, took care of that from kindergarten through second grade. It said no gender ideology should be an instruction to children. So it just should not happen. And then this past legislative session, they took it all the way through 12th grade. So that will not be taught, preached, encouraged from schools here in the state of Florida. You know, you want to go to New York or California. Yes, it's happening. You know, go follow Libs of TikTok on Twitter and she exposes them all. They're loud and proud. They laugh at, there's one teacher. I still have that video. I think on my computer of one teacher saying, Oh, look, I got my class. I put this flag up and study the American flag. And it's the, it's the the LGBTQ flag. And she's like, I'm going to have my class pledge allegiance to this. And she laughs and, you know, it's just, it's.
If more people got to see Libs of TikTok and could identify those teachers in their communities, more parents would be upset. And that 70 percent again would be 95 percent.
Yeah, not completely. Let me ask, finish off on something just quite different. And seeing all the the protests in the States and you kind of put up a quote, why action civics is more action than civics. K-12 students aren't ready to be activists. It seems so there's a push, I mean, not look at the issue, but simply kids should be in school learning. There should be a syllabus. And it seems they're being encouraged to be activists, to protest, to be demands before they actually know much. I mean, let us know, is that a push towards that? I guess those demonstrations instead of being concerned at what they are learning.
Our test scores show that, you know, I think it's like 30 percent, I'd have to go look at the numbers, of students in America could pass civics right now. They don't, you know, we have those joke commercials where people go out with a microphone and just grab even grown adults and say, how many branches of government do you have in the United States? One, you know, they don't know. Who, what is the House of Representatives? No idea. No idea what the Senate does. Some of them don't even know who the president is or the vice president.
We have a real crisis in civics. In America, I don't know how you're doing in the UK, but it is really, really, really awful. I watched my son who just graduated from college this past weekend, when he was in middle school in seventh grade, that's when you take civics. And I don't know how it's going there. It seems like the stuff is global, but he brought home a passage that he had to evaluate in civics. And it was Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. And it had, it didn't have the whole thing. Like they never studied the whole thing. He didn't learn what it did or what laws came after that because of that address. He was just supposed to evaluate a middle section of it. He didn't know where the passage even came from. And so he called me in and he said, it's called a DBQ here. And it's the way that they learn. It's this inquiry learning, they call it. And he called me in and he's, mom, I don't know how to do this. I don't know what's going on? Well, because they never taught the context.
It's very bizarre what's going on in America and in education. And it's driven from the higher ed teaching schools and what they think works. And it doesn't work. I mean, it's all the way down to they stopped teaching phonics here in America. Kids can't read. We have the lowest reading scores in America since the 1980s and the lowest math scores ever because they started this new math, you know, about five or six years ago. And kids, you know, I don't understand it. Kids can't, parents can't help their kids because they don't understand it. Why do we need new math? Math has been around for a thousand years. We don't need new math. And so we are in a crisis between math and reading and definitely in civics. And so they've now transformed civics into something that's kind of easily teachable, especially to young people. I don't know about you, but when I was in high school, I remember walking out and we were protesting the lunch food or something. It wasn't anything important, But I remember feeling so like, yeah, we are going to change the lunch and marching out in the courtyard with the students. And I think we made signs. And there's something about youth that makes you want to feel like you are in it, that you are doing something. And so these schools and these ideologues, or capitalizing on that. And you said it, it started in the 60s and they have infiltrated, for lack of a better word, our teaching colleges. And now all those teachers are in our schools teaching and they're using that desire that students and young people have to make a difference to push them in a direction of their beliefs and their ideas. My civics teacher when I was in middle school, I know her now, she lives in my community.
And I know where she leans politically because we're adults and we interact. But as a middle school teacher, I had no idea. She taught me about the founders. She taught me about the branches of government. She taught me patriotism and to really respect and love our founding history. And that's not happening. Between critical race theory being taught and being pushed in the schools, teaching that America in general is bad and it was founded on slavery instead of being founded on the principles of freedom like it really was, it's really damaging to the future of our country.
Yeah well the British empire is the worst of the worst we're learning.
So yeah if we're bad you're like you guys are the worst of the worst behind us. I mean you're the ones that caused all our problems to begin with.
We are the worst! But just finally I think one talking to my older boy and realizing, he's very much involved in the debating society and thinking back to when I was in school and loved that and you realize that's not actually there. There are very few involved, law schools don't have it and that ability to reason, public speaking, all of that has gone and you don't get any now you know when you're given a subject and you may think the opposite but you have to argue and to understand the other side, now just kids are taught if you shout louder and be more obnoxious then you're in the right.
I assume it's the same in the States?
100%, but it's not only shout louder and be obnoxious. It's shout louder and be obnoxious about this because you are a victim or that person's a victim and you need to shout louder for them. There's no, let's look at both sides. Let's dig into this. I love how you said, I remember in school having to debate things that I didn't agree with to take the other side to prove I could. It really gets your brain going and thinking and looking at things from all angles. That is not happening to my knowledge in most schools in the United States anymore.
No. Tina, really do appreciate your time. Really love what Moms for Liberty are doing and I would encourage all the viewers and listeners to make sure and go on the website to look at that Title IX rule change and follow those action points and make sure and have your voice heard before. It's another, what, five weeks or so, I think, is the deadline. I think it's middle of June, is it, for people to respond? Is there a deadline?
I'll have to double check on that for you. But you know, if they don't know our website, they can go to momsforliberty.org. I'm not sure if you said that. Also, if you're here in the US, or you're going to visit the US, we have our National Summit coming up in Washington, DC. There'll be some great speakers and educational breakouts. And then we are a participant in the March for Kids. The National Mall in Washington, DC has had a march since the beginning of the the United States for everything under the sun, every foreign country, every war, every endangered species.
We've never had a march for kids or a march for children on the National Mall. And so we have a coalition of about 20 parent groups so far. We're working to build that to over 100, hopefully closer to 200 by August. We would love to have international partners show up too. We are going to march on the National Mall for kids to protect children.
When are you planning to do that?
It's August 31st, this summer.
August 31st make sure and follow the website momsforliberty.org and get all that information. Tina thanks so much for giving us your time today.
Thanks Peter.
