{"id":1916718,"date":"2023-04-19T12:41:28","date_gmt":"2023-04-19T16:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/should-transgenderism-be-regulated-by-law-michael-knowles-debates-trans-issues-at-pitt\/"},"modified":"2023-04-19T12:46:29","modified_gmt":"2023-04-19T16:46:29","slug":"should-transgenderism-be-regulated-by-law-michael-knowles-debates-trans-issues-at-pitt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/should-transgenderism-be-regulated-by-law-michael-knowles-debates-trans-issues-at-pitt\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Should Transgenderism Be Regulated By Law?\u2019: Michael Knowles Debates Trans Issues At Pitt"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fshould-transgenderism-be-regulated-by-law-michael-knowles-debates-trans-issues-at-pitt%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1916718&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Daily Wire host Michael Knowles faced off Tuesday night against libertarian journalist Brad Polumbo at the University of Pittsburgh in a debate about the proper extent of the state\u2019s power to regulate transgenderism.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Polumbo was a last-minute substitute \u2014 Knowles\u2019 previously scheduled opponent, Deirdre McCloskey, a professor of economics at the University of Illinois-Chicago who identifies as transgender, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/campusreform.org\/article?id=21940\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">dropped out<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> of the debate roughly a week before it was set to occur. Polumbo volunteered to replace McCloskey, and the topic was changed from a general discussion on \u201cTransgenderism and Womanhood\u201d to a more policy-oriented debate to better reflect the differences between the speakers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The planned event faced considerable backlash \u2014 a petition with over 11,000 signatures was submitted to the university demanding that the event be canceled, and Knowles was interrupted by chants of \u201ctrans rights are human rights\u201d during his opening remarks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Outside the lecture hall, a<\/span>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/pittnews.com\/article\/180848\/news\/police-say-public-safety-emergency-at-ohara-resolved-after-protest-of-michael-knowles-event\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">device<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> described by police as a \u201ccombination of a firework and a smoke bomb\u201d was detonated on Pitt\u2019s campus around 7:30 p.m. local time, when the debate was scheduled to begin. No injuries were reported, and although police declared a \u201cpublic safety emergency,\u201d within a few hours they had determined that whoever set off the explosive did not pose an \u201congoing threat.\u201d The incident did not interrupt the debate.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Knowles and Polumbo did find some common ground \u2014 both men oppose gender surgeries on minors, albeit for slightly different reasons. Polumbo argued that while he supports social transition for children experiencing gender dysphoria, people under the age of 18 were \u201ctoo young\u201d to take on the \u201clife-altering possibilities\u201d brought on by hormone therapies and invasive surgeries.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Polumbo also pointed out that before childhood transition was normalized, the onset of puberty often alleviated gender dysphoria as gender-confused kids overwhelmingly became comfortable with their sex, often growing up to be gay adults.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Knowles, however, favors restrictions on such practices even for adults and argues that there can be no coherent middle ground on this position.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cIt would seem to me that what transgenderism is proposing is an anthropology \u2014 it\u2019s an idea about what human nature is,\u201d Knowles said. \u201cSo, if it is true, then it is true for children \u2026 if it\u2019s true then it would seem to be very cruel to prevent a child from transitioning, especially before puberty.\u201d<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><a href=\"https:\/\/onelink.to\/dwapp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" aria-describedby=\"sk-tooltip-9096\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/onelink.to\/dwapp&#038;source=gmail&#038;ust=1681913061093000&#038;usg=AOvVaw1nSUp7X_GMxrPR-OuaxTA7\">CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The logic of the position, Knowles argued, was that by preventing the natural process of puberty from stimulating the development of secondary sex characteristics, the gender dysphoric child could much more easily \u201cpass\u201d as the opposite sex at a glance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cIf transgenderism is true, then I think we have to trans the kids,\u201d Knowles said. \u201cIt so happens that transgenderism is <\/span>not<span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> true \u2026 just as I think it would be wrong to lead children who are behaving in an irrational way down this path, I think it would be quite wrong to do that to adults as well.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Knowles pointed out that Polumbo agreed that patients suffering from anorexia could be force-fed in order to save their lives, and asked what the limiting principle was in protecting people from the consequences of mental illness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201c[The transgender position] is a consistent position and it\u2019s consistently wrong,\u201d Knowles. \u201cIf we\u2019re going to be right here, we have to be consistently right.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Polumbo argued that relying on the coercive power of the state was not appropriate to regulate the behavior of mature and consenting adults.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cMichael keeps saying that \u2018transgenderism is false, and if it is false, it should be banned,\u2019\u201d Polumbo said. \u201cI don\u2019t believe government should be in the business of banning false ideas.\u201d<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Polumbo also argued that empowering the government to adjudicate ideological disputes is short-sighted for traditional conservatives such as Knowles, because \u201cthe average federal bureaucrat has the politics of Elizabeth Warren \u2026 the truth is, we have a bloated bureaucracy that does <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">not<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> represent the American people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cIn the United States, we are the government,\u201d Knowles said. \u201cEven with all the corruption, we are the government, and if we surrender our capacity for reason and moral conscience, if we really say that we can\u2019t know the difference between true and false and right and wrong, then we are surrendering self-government.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>WATCH:<\/b><b><br \/>\n<\/b><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Daily Wire host Michael Knowles faced off Tuesday night against libertarian journalist Brad Polumbo at the University of Pittsburgh in a debate about the proper extent of the state\u2019s power to regulate transgenderism. Polumbo was a last-minute substitute \u2014 Knowles\u2019 previously scheduled opponent, Deirdre McCloskey, a professor of economics at the University of Illinois-Chicago who<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":856,"featured_media":1916719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[541],"tags":[15571,4065,4679,6547,5177,12101,21182,3818,7037,12837],"class_list":["post-1916718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-daily-wire","tag-debates","tag-issues","tag-knowles","tag-law","tag-michael","tag-pitt","tag-regulated","tag-should","tag-trans","tag-transgenderism"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1916718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/856"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1916718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1916718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1916719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1916718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1916718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1916718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}