The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles caused listening comprehension-challenged leftists to hyperventilate across legacy media and Twitter with a speech at CPAC in which he called for an end to transgenderism.
Knowles told a crowd at the conservative event, formally known as the Conservative Political Action Conference, that men simply cannot become women, and women cannot become men, adding that society must help gender dysphoric people, not encourage them to seek sex changes.
“For the good of society and especially for the good of the poor people who have fallen prey to this confusion, transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely, the whole preposterous ideology — at every level,” Knowles said at the gathering in Maryland.
.@michaeljknowles at CPAC: "The problem with transgenderism is not that it's inappropriate for children under the age of 9. The problem with transgenderism is that it isn't true." pic.twitter.com/mJckUKtqTN
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) March 4, 2023
Although Knowles’ words were clearly a call for ending what he considers a dangerously flawed ideology, California State Sen. Scott Wiener accused him of calling for “genocide” of people who consider themselves transgender. Wiener, who has sought to lower prison sentences for pedophiles and called for drag to be taught in public schools as early as kindergarten, reportedly is considering running for former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Congressional seat.
“These words were in a speech by a major right wing figure at a national conservative conference,” Wiener tweeted. “It’s a straight up call for genocide. That’s what this fight is about. They want us gone.”
Rolling Stone, Yahoo News, Huffington Post, and The Daily Beast all similarly misconstrued Knowles’ words as a call for eradicating people, not an ideology. The Daily Wire promptly demanded retractions and apologies from each of the publications, and Knowles himself reacted similarly to the Rolling Stone headline stating, “CPAC Speaker Calls for Transgender People to Be ‘Eradicated.”
“This headline is libelous, and I demand a retraction, Rolling Stone,” Knowles tweeted.
CLICK TO READ MICHAEL KNOWLES’ ENTIRE CPAC SPEECH
The Daily Beast edited its original headline, which stated Knowles called for the “transgender community” to be eradicated to reflect that the podcast host called for eradicating “transgenderism,” not people who believe they are transgender. Rolling Stone made a similar update.
The Daily Wire has taken a strong stance against what the Left dubs “gender-affirming care” for minors, in which teens are encouraged to change their identities, given puberty blockers and even cross-sex hormones after displaying confusion about their genders. Many experts say these treatments can cause irreversible harm. Girls have even been put through double mastectomies at several clinics around the country.
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Bonchie, the columnist at RedState.com, said Weiner’s reaction was “the kind of overwrought, clownish rhetoric we’ve come to expect” from the California lawmaker.
“Wiener has a long history of creepy, highly questionable behavior throughout his time in the California Senate, and he seems to see himself as a warrior for LGBT fetishes first and foremost and a public servant second,” Bonchie wrote.
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to reflect that some media organizations updated their original stories to say Knowles referred to an ideology, not a group of people.