Disney Is the Left Jumping the Gender Shark Moment

CLAY: The number-one story I would say that is captivating many people in the world of politics and news is the battle that has now emerged between Ron DeSantis and Disney, Disney World in particular. We brought you the news live in the past couple of days about the Florida Senate and the Florida House passing a bill that would end special treatment for Disney at its Disney World complex.

If you’ve ever been there — and I’m sure a ton of you have — many hotels, four different amusement parks, a couple of different water parks. Forty-square miles, I believe, is the amount of land that is included there. Basically, Disney was given carte blanche by Florida in the late 1960s as they were building Disney World to control all zoning-related issues.

They could basically do what they wanted in terms of building on this property. Now, what I think is really interesting, Buck, is to me this is an important cultural signpost of the Republican Party being willing to punch back against woke corporations. All of this conflict has arisen based on the Parental Rights in Education Bill that allows kindergarten, first, second, and third graders not to be taught about gender identity and crazy stories, sex-related such as those.

Now, what I think is also significant, Buck, is all this does — ’cause there’s immediately been attacks, right? I was on America Reports a little bit earlier on Fox News. Joe Biden has come out and said, “Oh, this is unacceptable,” and it’s been criticized as “socialism.” DeSantis has fired back. But all this really does is put Disney back on an even playing failed in the state of Florida.

It eliminates the special treatment that they had received that Sea World, Universal Studios, Legoland, other Florida-based theme parks do not enjoy, and it eliminates the privilege. If anything, what is kind of fascinating about this is it’s kind of brilliant because theoretically it could lead to Disney paying more in taxes and being treated more equally as a corporation compared to everyone else. But big picture, it is evidence that at least in Florida they’re not going to be bullied by corporations bending to a woke ideology.

What stands out to you, Buck, as this conversation continues to grow?

BUCK: It’s all about changing the incentive structure. It changes the incentive structure, because right now if you’re a woke corporation at the top — or if you’re just a corporation terrified of the wokeness — you think that it is not only the safer bet, you think it is advantageous generally in the atmosphere — up until very recently — to push as far left as you can and to show that half the country doesn’t matter to you.

You think they’re gross. You think that they are bigoted or not progressive enough or whatever, right? That had been the calculation that we see from every major tech corporation, a lot of the places where you go to everything from buying books on Amazon — which I know people buy everything from Amazon — buying shoes from Nike, watching cartoons from Disney.

You go down the list. Wokeness is all over the corporate sphere. This is the first time that, all of a sudden, they might stop and think, “Hold on a minute. Maybe there could be a counterbalance here. Maybe it’s not a good idea to decide to…” Remember, Disney explicitly weighed on politics here. This wasn’t even just about Disney’s content, which I think is important for everyone to remember.

Disney’s content became a focus of this once the wokeness came out and they all of a sudden were telling people that the “don’t say gay” bill. And, by the way, what a remarkable act of propaganda. Imagine if all of the media an around calling the Affordable Care Act… “Obamacare,” people call it that, but even Obama liked that and that was something Democrats adopted.

But imagine 90% of media were calling Obamacare the “Marxist Health Care Destruction Act,” and that was how it was referred to on every single screen, every news headline. “Oh, I don’t know why people are in favor of this Marxist Health Care Destruction Act!” Of course, that would have seemed Orwellian. That would have seemed like… That was exactly what we did with the Parental Rights in Education Law.

I gotta start saying “law,” too, because it was signed into law. So there’s a change in the calculation. And I think the left is also realizing that there’s a change in public sentiment about the issue specifically of children and what they’re learning in schools. Chris Rufo. I know you follow him, too, Clay. He’s doing amazing work.

He was kind of Libs of TikTok before there was a Libs of TikTok because what he does is find the instruction material that is out there in corporate diversity and inclusion seminars, in LGBTQ+ training for toddlers. He finds the actual source documents, he brings the receipts, and he shares them. Just yesterday, he had this one.

SCOOP: The Evanston/Skokie School District has adopted a radical gender curriculum that encourages PK-3 students to celebrate the transgender flag, break the “gender binary” established by white “colonizers,” and experiment with neo-pronouns such as “ze,” “zir,” and “tree.”

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— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) April 21, 2022

BUCK: For nursery school kids, Clay? For kindergarteners?

CLAY: Crazy.

BUCK: He’s got the training manuals, right? And Disney went on board with them.

CLAY: I’m just saying this is where I take my… I’m a radio host, but I think the most important job I have is I’m a dad, and I cannot imagine if one of my kids came home with instructions like that at public school. Look, if you want to put — and I don’t agree with it, but if you want to put — your kid in some sort of far left-wing, indoctrinaire school that’s private school?

I don’t agree with it but I think you should have the right to make decisions as your own kids when it comes to their education. The idea that this would be occurring in public schools is crazy, and I think this is evidence, Buck, of why… Notice how Democrats don’t really even know how to respond to this.

We played the Jen Psaki audio the other day where she gave an example of how this could be a big issue and then said, “But it’s not an issue at all in schools.” No, this is real. This is not made up. This is not some artificial aspect out there. For everybody who’s listening to us who has kids or grandkids, your kids in many schools are being taught that America is an awful place, that they’re not even boys or girls. These are radical, revolutionary, outlandish and unacceptable things for public schools to be teaching.

BUCK: Mr. Rufo goes on here, by the way — this is all off of his Twitter account — and he’s got the screenshots of this stuff. So you have the primary source documents. “In kindergarten, the teachers…” Kindergarten, everybody. Clay, do you remember anything in kindergarten? We were really young in kindergarten. (laughing)

CLAY: I remember I had Miss Rich and we had that year a brand-new rug with the ABCs on it, and we had to take a nap, and I could never fall asleep during the nap. Those are kind of the basics of what I remember from kindergarten.

BUCK: There you go. Well, if you’re in the Skokie/Evanston School District — again, for everyone listening to this, wherever you are all across the country, this has infiltrated the schools.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: And you brought up private schools, by the way, Clay. In a lot of private schools… I know this from New York City. A lot of Catholic schools — Catholic schools, too, which is amazing when you think about it, kind of stunning — they’re teaching this stuff. Rufo writes here:

In kindergarten, the teachers explain: “When we show whether we feel like a boy or a girl or some of each, we are expressing our gender identity … There are also children who feel like a girl and a boy; or like neither a boy or a girl. We can call these children transgender.” pic.twitter.com/4quGQWVu2R

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) April 21, 2022

BUCK: There is official teaching template instruction for kindergarteners. Again, I pretty sure I went into kindergarten a few times and told my teacher I thought I was a stegosaurus. You know?

CLAY: Right.

BUCK: You would say whatever. You’re basically a baby, and they’re teaching kids about “If you’re a little bit of a boy, a little bit of girl, you’re transgender.” Do we think that there’s no correlation between this and the massive…? I can’t even tell what the percentages are, but it’s up thousands of percentage points of children under 18 identifying as trans, Clay.

Are we to believe that the sudden emergence of all this teaching and doctrine…? There was all this pre-existing trans situation going on with kids that was being suppressed until now, or was being taught to kids and they’re essentially brainwashed now? Which one is it?

CLAY: There are studies, Buck — and this is what you’re referring to — that up to 20% of kids now are identifying as gay, trans. And I had a conversation with a friend recently who has kids out in school in L.A., and he was saying this is crazy, the percentage of teenagers in this school in L.A. that are identifying…

If they’re boys, they think they’re girls or if they’re girls, they think they’re boys. This is getting to become growing and growing. People think, “Oh…” You always point out, Buck, “Oh, this is a slippery slope argument.” No, no. We’re at the bottom of the slope. This is madness, and for public schools to be involved in this in any way, I don’t know — and I think this is an interesting conversation, too, Buck — where does this lead? Like, what is the goal?

BUCK: I honestly think that the left has finally jumped the shark.

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: I think that they have finally reached a point, and they’re realizing this — and Florida is, in essence, the battle that they have lost that is showing them this is their ideological Stalingrad, if you will. This is the huge fight that now is going to change the whole trajectory.

And going into this midterm election, I have never been somebody that is overly optimistic about GOP prospects. But I do think that if Republicans get serious and focus in on this, this could be an electoral annihilation the likes of which we haven’t seen in many decades. ‘Cause i really do think this is just crazy and everyone realizes it.

CLAY: I think you’re right, and this is a question that I started asking years ago. It is, “Okay, Where does tolerance and inclusivity end,” right? Because if you say, “Okay. Gay marriage is now the law of the land,” I think Democrats… This is a good example of the progressive movement doesn’t stop. This has been my argument all the time when people say, “Oh, do you want to change the name of the Cleveland Indians or the Florida State Seminoles or the Notre Dame Fighting Irish?”

There’s always got to be something new, and here’s what happens, Buck: At some point, you get so far ahead with the progressive element of where the rest of the country is, ’cause you have to keep pushing and keep pushing and keep pushing. And I think they’ve reached that now with the transgender arguments, because most people I hear…

Whatever, if you’re an adult. Make whatever choice you want, although I think a lot of people who are adults end up regretting the choice that they’re making as an adult. But the idea that you would be saying and arguing from the White House that we need to support gender-reassignment surgery on 14-year-olds or 15-year-olds?

“Here’s a developmentally appropriate way to talk to toddlers about gender”

“The parents guess the baby’s gender based on genitals and sometimes they make a mistake” pic.twitter.com/NMJHmyuk0l

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) April 21, 2022

I think that people are hearing this across the political landscape — white, black, Asian, Hispanic, moms, dads, grandmas, grandpas — and saying this isn’t just a bad argument. This is madness.

BUCK: Child abuse.

CLAY: This is a form of craziness.

BUCK: Child abuse, and they say it is “standard of care” just so everybody knows? I have asked MDs who I know — who, of course, are terrified of ever getting caught up in the actual story. ‘Cause they’re like, “Look, if they’re gonna deny that gender exists, what am I gonna do, right? What does an MD weighing in on this get?”

You’re just gonna walk into political buzzsaw. But there are no longtime studies. There are no serious long-term looks on what does it mean when you take an 11-, 12-year, old give them puberty blockers, how is that looking at 30? How’s their health? How’s their bone density? How’s their fertility? By the way, all those things are dramatically worse and undermined and destroyed, actually. Usually, you are infertile.

CLAY: Yeah, that’s the point from a parent perspective. This is crazy stuff that we’re talking about. And I think we have to talk about it because it’s become so mainstream that Jen Psaki feels comfortable talking about it from the White House lectern.