Disney to air ad accusing Americans who oppose genital mutilation of kids of wanting to 'tear families apart'

The Walt Disney Company will soon be airing an ad on all of its channels featuring the mother of a trans-identified child lambasting supporters of bills banning genital mutilation surgeries for children and the teaching of LGBT ideology in schools. The mother accuses these Americans of trying to “tear our families apart.”

The LGBT advocacy organization GLAAD released the public service announcement called “Protect Our Families” last week. The 60-second ad profiles the Briggle family, which includes Amber Briggle along with her husband and her two children. The ad focuses on her trans-identified daughter, who now identifies as a boy and goes by the name Max.

The LGBT advocacy group says the video shows that “families with transgender kids are just like any other family: they love their kids unconditionally and simply want the best for them.”

In the video, Briggle discusses Max’s interests as she narrates a background video of her daughter in an effort to persuade those watching the ad that society should support parents who want their children to be given puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, saying a transgender child “is no different than yours.”

“There are some politicians who are trying to tear my family apart, simply because my [daughter] is transgender,” she asserts. “Trans kids don’t have a political agenda. They are just kids. They just want to be left alone.”

CNBC reports that the ad, which does not explicitly mention any legislation, in particular, will air on channels owned by The Walt Disney Company as well as channels owned by Comcast, WarnerMedia and Paramount. The Walt Disney Company has received intense criticism over its outspoken opposition to a Florida parental rights bill recently signed into law by the state’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The legislation states that “classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation and gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” While states including Alabama, Arizona and Arkansas have passed laws banning the prescription of cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers to minors, the Florida law does not include such a provision.

After initially declining to take a position on the Florida bill, Disney, which operates the popular theme park Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, came out hard against the bill after critics derided it as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Disney’s opposition to the law that prevents teachers from exposing young children to LGBT ideology motivated worship artist Sean Feucht to hold a protest in front of Disney's headquarters in Burbank, California.

Last month, Christopher Rufo of the Manhattan Institute and City Journal released video footage of Disney officials discussing their efforts to incorporate “queerness” and other LGBT ideology into programming directed at children as part of what he described as “Disney’s all-hands meeting about the Florida parental rights bill.”

Briggle, a progressive activist who is running for city council in Denton, Texas, operates a blog titled “Love to the Max.” In an August 2019 blog post, Briggle listed “3 things your child can do to help make middle school better for my trans son." Accompanying the blog post is a photograph of Max, which identifies the child as a member of the fifth grade graduating class of 2019. This seems to indicate that Briggle's child is now in eighth grade and is either 13 or 14 years old.

In the blog, she noted that “my sweet [daughter], Max, socially transitioned in 1st grade — changing [her] name and pronouns, but otherwise living life exactly the same (only much, much happier).” In a speech at this year’s GLAAD Media Awards, Briggle said, “We live in Texas, where Gov. [Greg] Abbott issued a directive to investigate parents like my husband, Adam and I for child abuse because we provide Max with the gender-affirming care he needs.”

'I am angry every single day because of the way the world treats my son' — Mom Amber Briggle delivered a tearful speech at the GLAAD Media Awards after being investigated for providing gender-affirming care for her trans son in Texas pic.twitter.com/q4nc6kiP68

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) April 5, 2022

Briggle added that Child Protective Services recently visited their home and questioned them. She expressed relief that “a court has barred Texas from investigating parents of trans kids.”

Supporters of legislation banning what LGBT advocates refer to as “gender-affirming care,” including the American College of Pediatricians, warn that puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones can have negative side effects. Side effects of puberty blockers identified by the American College of Pediatricians include “emotional instability” as well as “osteoporosis, mood disorders, seizures, cognitive impairment and, when combined with cross-sex hormones, sterility.”

The medical organization lists “an increased risk of heart attacks, stroke, diabetes, blood clots and cancers across their lifespan” as possible complications of cross-sex hormones.

While supporters of providing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to youth with gender dysphoria maintain that such procedures help improve the children’s mental health, children who underwent some form of gender transition only to regret doing so later insisted that such procedures worsened their mental health.

The newsmagazine program “60 Minutes” profiled a group of “detransitioners” last year, including a male who once identified as female explaining to CBS’ Lesley Stahl that he “had never really been suicidal before until I had my breast augmentation.” He told Stahl that “about a week afterward, I wanted to actually kill myself,” adding: “I had a plan, and I was going to do it but I just kept thinking about my family to stop myself.”

Another detransitioner, who once sought to transition from female to male, developed a “really disturbing sense that, like, a part of my body was missing, almost a ghost limb feeling about being like, there’s something that should be there.”