RUSH: Joe in Cleveland, you’re next, sir. It’s great to have you on Open Line Friday. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. How are you, sir?
RUSH: I’m good, but I’m tired. I’m worn out. I’ll just be upfront and honest with you about it. I am worn out. It’s been a long week.
CALLER: Yeah, same here. Hey, I’m gonna come at you right out of left field here, nothing to do with anything you’ve been discussing. I want to get your take on something.
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: All right, sir. Now, the city of Cleveland, Cleveland city council, I understand that this has been an issue in other cities in recent days, although never went national. Cleveland city council on Monday, I believe it was, was having a debate with the transgender community here. I attended the meeting. What they want is the right to use restrooms in public areas — bars, restaurants, sporting events, and the like — and I just wanted to get your take on that, because that’s an up in-the-air issue here. The Cleveland city council didn’t come to a decision, so now they’re saying it’s gonna be going to the Supreme Court. I would imagine the state Supreme Court.
RUSH: Now, wait. There’s gotta be more to this, ’cause transgenders have to use a bathroom, so what’s —
CALLER: Well, no, no, yeah. Yeah. What it is is the restroom —
RUSH: They want to be able to choose the bathroom they go into?
CALLER: Exactly, the bathroom for the gender they identify with.
RUSH: Right, on that day.
CALLER: Correct. Yes. Exactly. Not the gender they were born as.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: What is your take on that?
RUSH: I had a piece about six weeks ago. You know, we ought to drag this up from the archives, should put it at RushLimbaugh.com so you can read it. The head of psychology, I mean, the grand pooh-bah, the department head at Johns Hopkins University wrote a piece claiming that all of this acknowledgement of the notion of transgenderism is destroying people’s lives, because he says it’s a mental illness and allowing people to change — and when I read the story, I predicted, you haven’t heard of this guy, but you’re going to. But people haven’t yet. The LGBT community did not react to this, which is understandable. They didn’t want to elevate it.
CALLER: Sure.
RUSH: But his point was, this is not a normal thing. You can’t change what people’s gender is. They can do an operation, but you’re messing them up, you’re not helping them. He was adamant about this, and he was being very critical of people who practiced psychiatry and psychology by acknowledging that this kind of thing is actually normal or standard or real. But his point was you can do all of the gender identity or change surgery you want, but you are only worsening a mental illness problem, not treating it. He was very adamant that there is no such thing.
I found that gutsy and it was the only time, remains the only time, I’ve ever seen a psychiatry or psychology professional ever talk about it in that way. The LGBT community, it’s obviously LG, they have been aligned with the lesbian and gay community now, in terms of politics and civil rights. But it doesn’t matter what I think. The bottom line is, Joe, that governments, city councils, whatever, are going to, I don’t know, cave. They’re gonna accede and grant the demands.
CALLER: The issue that a lot of people here had with it is one of the same issues I had with it, is more so the fact that if they grant this, you know, they’ll be taken advantage of, in other words, abused. Like people will be entering the restroom simply for the fact of entering the woman’s restroom and watching women use the facility.
RUSH: You think people will fake — men will fake being women just to get in to a ladies restroom so they can —
CALLER: Well, that was one thing, and I didn’t think that until — like I said, I attended the meeting, and somebody else brought that up, and, you know, that’s a good point. Lately, I mean, with all the things going on in the world now, I mean, that’s a possibility. The city council was more afraid of that factor, the abuse factor, abusing that privilege.
RUSH: Well, it’s a civil rights issue.
CALLER: You’re right.
RUSH: And, as such, the people who are demanding civil rights who claim they’re being violated, they’re gonna get them. So I think you should prepare yourself for the fact that this is gonna happen in Cleveland, no matter what you think or no matter what I think. And pretty soon Clevelanders are gonna be paying — it’ll be part of a benefit for an addadictomy operation.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: Any number, which happens in California now, San Francisco. It’s just the trend line, these things are, are taking place.
CALLER: Right. I mean, there’s the whole thing about acceptance, but I mean at what point does acceptance and tolerance and welcoming everybody, I mean, at what point do you have to draw the line at that, Rush?
RUSH: Where would you draw it?
CALLER: Well, like that, for example, I think this issue is exactly where I would draw it. I mean, I’m not a prejudiced person by any means, but it’s like you said, you know, if you are born a man you can get all the surgery —
RUSH: No, wait, wait. Don’t say it’s like I said. I haven’t said anything yet, by design. (laughing)
CALLER: I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You’re absolutely right. Okay, yeah. But if you were born a man —
RUSH: You never know who’s listening.
CALLER: Very true. If you are born a man —
RUSH: I mean this is kind of like Stephanopoulos asking Romney, “So, what do you think about contraception?”
“What the hell are you asking me about contraception for? We’re not talking about contraception.”
George: “Well, I want to know. Do you think it should be permissible or should it be banned?”
“George, nobody’s talking about contraception.”
“But I want a yes or no, how do you feel about it?”
All Romney had to do was answer it and the War on Women was born. So here we are discussing Gruber, here we are discussing amnesty, and all of a sudden, “Rush, what do you think of transgenders lying so they can use opposite sex bathrooms?” I haven’t said a word. You’re not gonna George Stephanopoulos me. It isn’t gonna happen.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: The esteemed psychiatric professor at Johns Hopkins was named McHugh, Dr. McHugh, M-c-H-u-g-h. The original article that he wrote was in the Wall Street Journal. Let me just share with you an excerpt. “Dr. McHugh, the author of six books and at least 125 peer-reviewed medical articles, made his remarks in a recent commentary in the Wall Street Journal, where he explained that transgender surgery is not the solution for people who suffer a ‘disorder of “assumption”‘ — the notion that their maleness or femaleness is different than what nature assigned to them biologically.”
Dr. McHugh “also reported on a new study showing that the suicide rate among transgendered people who had reassignment surgery is 20 times higher than the suicide rate among non-transgender people.” He also made the point that having the reassignment surgery doesn’t deal with the psychology involved at all. That was his real point in his official, peer-reviewed articles.
The primary point was that it was damaging to accept the various premises in this and then do the reassignment surgery, ’cause even after the reassignment, you haven’t changed anything; you just confuse people even more. It was very pointed. I’m surprised. I’m surprised it has remained. I thought there would at least be one outraged reaction to it from someplace. And maybe in websites or places that are not popularly visited, there has been. I just haven’t seen it.