‘W hy are you here? Who’s paying you?” The young man in a skirt had his phone out, and he wanted answers from Prisha Mosley. They were in Lansing, Mich., standing in front of the giant complex that houses the city’s only Planned Parenthood. Behind the young man, a large crew of energetic activists waved signs with an array of LGBT slogans, many painted in the colors of the trans flag: “Go Homo,” “Bigots Begone,” and, most eyebrow-raising, “God Is Trans.” Meanwhile, Prisha and her friends held signs saying “Believe Detransitioners,” “HRT ≠ Planning For Parenthood,” and “Hormones Are NOT Reversible.” For people encountering this little pageant with no context, it was a confusing sight.
As NR readers know, Prisha is one of a handful of brave young people taking legal action against the medical professionals who fast-tracked them into gender transition. To raise awareness about Planned Parenthood’s distribution of cross-sex hormones, she announced last month that she planned to stage a small protest in front of the Lansing clinic — the first she had organized on her own. Interested followers had to sign up for an email list to receive the date and further details. It would turn out that almost nobody on the list was able to join us, except one concerned local mom. But clearly, someone else had signed up in bad faith. Driving quickly past the large group on my way to find a parking spot, I had mistaken them for friends of Prisha’s. As I walked up to introduce myself, I realized that she hadn’t even arrived yet. This was the opposition.
Of course, like a good journalist, I said I would be happy to talk to them, but their smiles curdled the minute I revealed I was waiting for Prisha. “If you ain’t here to support trans folks,” one surly girl informed me, “then you can just walk away right now.” I took her advice. Though, funny enough, an hour later she had followed me all the way around the complex just to see where Prisha was parked.
This charming crew was also none too fond of the volunteers from Lansing’s 40 Days for Life, who came to picket quietly in shifts and provided welcome solidarity throughout the day. “Just so you know,” we were loudly informed through a bullhorn, “this clinic doesn’t even offer abortions, so these people are just here to harass women.” In fact, long-time 40 Days volunteer Brent Heyer told me that while the clinic no longer offers surgical abortions, it offers up to eight medical abortions per hour. In between praying the rosary, Brent cheerfully shared all about his decades of “promoting life from conception to the last natural breath.” I took a short video of him listing the many concrete ways the organization had assisted women in crisis pregnancies. Of course, the moment I hit record, the counter-protesters swarmed in to mug for the camera. Ironically, one of their signs read “Why are you so obsessed with us?” The irony seemed lost on them when I tossed the question back.
Irony was the word of the day. Despite being exhausted and pregnant (news that would go viral after she posted it on X the next day), Prisha calmly fielded more than 20 minutes of hostile condescension from two men on estrogen. A third activist stood behind her with a sign announcing “She Doesn’t Even Go Here.” Though she lives in Michigan, she was taunted multiple times for “coming here all the way from North Carolina” (where she’s suing her old doctors) and “flying around” to “spread misinformation.”
But it quickly became obvious to any honest observer that her opponents were the ones armed with nothing but fallacies, as I later broke down in two threads on X. The young man filming her wished he had blocked his own “fed-up puberty” but claimed that, thanks to estrogen therapy, his health was now “better than it’s ever been.” The other man angrily insisted that “transitioning saved my fing life” when he was suicidal, while shrugging off Prisha’s story as an unfortunate case of “rush[ing] into sh**.” Of course, he and his friends also wanted to insist that no one ever undergoes “trans care” with less than informed consent. But to say Prisha “rushed into” it rather gives the game away. As a minor, she didn’t “rush.” She was rushed.
When they ran out of arguments, they resorted to pure bullying, asking why Prisha didn’t “bring better signs.” Our signs weren’t stellar, granted, especially since two of them had been hastily mocked up by yours truly in the parking lot. But for some reason, they just couldn’t leave us and our bad signs alone.
Our local mom supporter, Katie, made a more artful sign in purple marker while we chatted. She was laid-back, but forthright. “I feel bad,” she said. “I’m a Democrat. Like, I let this happen.” She has a grown son who has influenced her teenage daughter to identify as trans. Though she now attends a Protestant church after growing up Catholic, she sends her kids to Catholic school to try to protect them from indoctrination. Prisha chimed in, saying that she has the same fear for her children, even though she “would have been on the other side” a couple of years ago.
When she was in the gender cult, Prisha bought the most outlandish narratives about conservative Christians and their bigotry. She was taught to hate the very people who were now surrounding her with compassion and encouragement, including the kind women rejoicing to hear that she was pregnant. She could never have imagined that one day she would be standing side by side with them, protesting against a Planned Parenthood clinic. Yet here she was — still neither a conservative nor a Christian, but finally understanding who her friends really are.
Besides Katie and the pro-life volunteers, our only other supporter that day was a gentle, somewhat confused young man named Jeremy, who joined us with a sign saying “Children’s Lives Matter.” He knew nothing about Prisha or the detrans cause, but he woke up that morning feeling a “nudge” that he should go and picket the clinic that day. He had watched and admired pro-life protesters, though his own political concerns encompassed everything from child sexual abuse to police overreach to other forms of medical malpractice. We welcomed him and brought him up to speed on why we were there. He never did quite realize that the people waving trans flags weren’t our friends. But what he did know was that he’d felt a nudge, and he had a sign, and “this seemed like a good place to stand.”
It was, indeed.
Editor’s note: A longer report on this event appears at the author’s Substack newsletter.