The Trut Archives - Dr. Rich Swier

Liliana Castañeda is a tireless Colombian advocate. She has been seen at numerous public hearings addressing the proposed ban on conversion therapies, the “Trans Law,” specialized justice systems with a “gender perspective,” and the creation of the Ministry of Equality.

Alongside pro-life and pro-family activists Evaristo Gutiérrez and Jonathan Silva, she has championed a legislative bill — first introduced in 2023 — that seeks to ban “gender reassignment” treatments for minors.

Although she has been able to present arguments grounded in neuropsychology (a field in which she holds a master’s degree), over time she has also successfully garnered support from universities, lawyers, physicians, and politicians — such as Senator Lorena Ríos.

At the Congress of the Republic, Castañeda serves as a legislative advisor on issues ranging from opposition to the gender agenda to the legalization of recreational cannabis use and assisted suicide. She is a formidable scourge against wokeism. This was clearly demonstrated during her appearances in the documentary “Colombia: Fábrica de Niños Trans” (Colombia: Factory for Trans Children), a film that exposes a macabre industry.

Here is my interview with Liliana.

What is the current landscape regarding gender transition in children in Colombia, as of the premiere of the documentary “Colombia: Fábrica de Niños Trans?”

Unfortunately, we do not have exact figures. In Colombia, the various clinics that have administered medical “gender affirmation” treatments have not made public any detailed information regarding how many minors have undergone these types of procedures.

However, it did come to light — following a judicial inquiry — that the Valle del Lili Foundation reported having administered these treatments to 80 minors nationwide by the year 2025.

You mentioned your involvement in drafting a legislative bill that calls for a ban on “gender reassignment” treatments for children.

Yes. The first time we formally introduced the bill, I developed the entire scientific rationale behind it. Later, I received support from a physician. For three consecutive years now, we have been fighting to ensure that — at the very least — a first debate takes place, yet it has not been possible; the opposition has been very strong.

What we have managed to achieve is to participate in several public hearings. God allowed me to be one of the first people to speak before the Congress of the Republic regarding mental health aspects of these treatments — specifically focusing on neuroscience and neuropsychology — during my first intervention in 2023.

Also present that day was the pediatrician and endocrinologist Mario Angulo, though he was there to advocate for gender “affirmation” treatments for minors. He is the most prominent figure defending that position. On that occasion, we found ourselves facing off with opposing viewpoints right there in the room.

The documentary “Colombia: Fábrica de Niños Trans” — produced by the Mexican YouTuber Samuel Adrián, in which you appear as one of the interviewees — has sent shockwaves through the Colombian public agenda. What are the most significant allegations or revelations it exposes to the general public?

The documentary revealed how the first gender clinic for minors in Colombia — the Valle del Lili Foundation in Cali — was performing gender transition procedures without informed consent and without comprehensive psychological and psychiatric evaluations.

Furthermore, it exposed the fact that they neither investigated the underlying causes that led various children and adolescents to develop gender dysphoria, nor did they adequately treat the associated disorders and traumas.

At the center of the documentary is Laura, the young woman who was the very first case treated by the clinic in question shortly after it opened in 2017.

Yes. While she was still a minor, she was subjected to cross-sex hormone therapy using testosterone, followed by puberty blockers. Later on, once she turned 18, they even managed to convince her to undergo a double mastectomy.

As time went by, Laura realized that the root cause of her gender dysphoria was linked to the sexual abuse she had suffered when she was just five years old. However, the clinic never addressed that trauma, nor did it focus treatment on helping her heal psychologically and come to terms with her biological sex.

Today, at 23, Laura lives with deep regret over the interventions she underwent, and she suffers every day from the physical and emotional consequences they left her with. One of these is that she will never be able to breastfeed.

For all these reasons — including medical malpractice — she filed a lawsuit against the Fundación Valle del Lili clinic.

What have been the most notable repercussions following the release of the documentary?

Most importantly, this week — in the wake of the documentary’s impact — intense public pressure emerged, leading the Valle del Lili Foundation to completely shut down its gender transition unit for minors and to terminate its affiliation with Dr. Mario Angulo.

We celebrate this outcome with profound joy, alongside the millions of Colombians and Latinos who have joined our cause. It has been a deeply significant moment because, after years of fighting to protect children, we are finally seeing the fruits of our efforts. It marks the first time that a halt has been put to medical practices deemed inappropriate for minors.

And on the other side of things, what kind of pressure are the filmmakers currently facing?

Following the premiere on November 26 of last year, the director, Samuel Adrián, came under pressure not to release the documentary.

Dr. Mario Angulo — who treated Laura and dozens of other minors — felt aggrieved by the publication of statements he had recorded for the documentary. In those statements, he himself admitted that the pharmacological treatments administered by the clinic caused sterility and bone-related issues in minors.

For this reason, he filed a legal complaint against Samuel Adrián. Although his initial appeals were rejected on two separate occasions, a judge issued a sanction against Samuel in a third instance, which included a prison sentence and a fine.

Currently, there is an active arrest warrant for Samuel in Colombia, based on the determination that the doctor’s “reputation” and “good name” were violated.

The reputation of the doctor who was rendering minors infertile?

Yes.

AUTHOR

Yoe Suarez

Yoe Suárez is The Washington Stand’s international affairs correspondent. He is an exiled journalist, writer, and producer who investigated in Havana about torture, political police, gangs, government black lists, and cybersurveillance. A graduate of Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, he was a CBN correspondent, and has written for outlets like The Hill and Newsweek. He has appeared on Vox, Univision, and Deutsche Welle as an analyst on Cuba, security, and U.S. foreign policy.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

The exploits of Israel’s air force, that in just forty days of Operation Roaring Lion struck 12,000 sites across Iran, and of its army, that has driven Hamas out of more than half of Gaza, forcing it to the west of the Yellow Line, while killing more than 50,000 of its combatants, and in Lebanon, having killed or maimed (in the “pager caper”) thousands of Hezbollah terrorists, while reducing the terror group’s stock of rockets and missiles by 90%, are well-known. Less well-known, and deserving greater notice, is Israel’s navy. More on its many achievements can be found here: “Israeli Navy hits Iran, Hezbollah, Syria, Yemen, and Gaza targets with precision strikes,” by Yonah Jeremy Bob, Jerusalem Post, April 16, 2026

The Israel Navy has torn apart enemy forces in Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, and Yemen since 2023, raising Israel’s power in the Middle East to new heights, since most of its rivals have been wiped out militarily.

With over 1,000 naval combat soldiers at sea, logging over 26,000 operational hours in only 47 days of the current war with Iran and Hezbollah, the Navy said on Thursday that it has already undertaken or provided critical intelligence for 154 attacks.

95 of these attacks have been in Iran….

In addition, the Navy has attacked six targets in Gaza, mostly senior terror operatives, during the current war….

According to the Navy, it destroyed 15 out of 21 Syrian naval ships.

These ships all included long-range missiles capable of reaching targets 80-200 kilometers away.

The Navy said that it struck these ships mainly at two bases: Latakia and Tel Baida, and that they were all destroyed within only a few hours.

Next, the Navy said there were complex reasons that could not be disclosed why the other six ships could not be struck….

Could it be because Russian sailors may have been on those six ships, and had they been killed in an Israeli attack, there could be severe repercussions for Israel’s ties with Russia? Or were there possibly Mossad agents on board one or more of those six ships, and their presence would have stayed the Navy’s hand?

All of Hezbollah’s ship-to-ship missiles were destroyed by Israel in just a few months after October 7, 2023.

Further, the Navy revealed that it has mostly destroyed Hezbollah’s Unit 1200, which had a substantial number of underwater drones before 2023.

The Navy said it destroyed nearly all of them within a few hours at a specific location where Hezbollah concealed them, thinking they would be safe….

Hezbollah, thinking it could hide its underwater drones successfully, foolishly placed them together at one site instead of spreading them out among a dozen or more hiding places, making it possible for Israel’s navy to destroy all of those drones in a single attack.

While Y declined to discuss the specifics of the operation against Yemen, the Post and other Hebrew media previously reported on June 10, 2025, that two of Israel’s navy missile boats, one of them a Sa’ar 6, fired two long-range precision missiles from hundreds of kilometers away at the Houthi port in Hodeidah….

The Yemenis were no doubt expecting an Israeli air attack on Hodeidah, and were scanning the skies for signs of planes. But instead, the Navy fired long-range precision missiles from missile boats, missiles that flew close to the land, and completely surprised the Houthis who had been waiting for an aerial attack.

Airplanes fly quickly, drop their bombs, and leave at once. Navy ships can fire their missiles and then remain in the area for a long period, ready to adjust their aim based on satellite photos of the site after the initial attack, and fire again at the target.

The Navy disclosed on Thursday that Hamas had over 300 naval commandos in 2023, and that nearly all of them have been killed or wounded.

Despite that broad success, the Navy admitted that Hamas still has naval commandos and has continued to work to reconstitute that force.

Israeli killed “nearly all” of the 300 Hamas commandos, but not “all.” So how many are still alive? One dozen? Two? And how successful has Hamas been in recruiting new commandos? Given the sky-high mortality rate of the 300 original commandos, one can assume very few people will want to sign up for what is an exceedingly dangerous task.

Israel has five Dolphin-class submarines, They are not nuclear-powered, but do carry missiles with nuclear warheads. I would assume that of the three submarines that recently saw action, one was in the Red Sea facing Yemen, ready to respond to any Houthi attack, another in the Gulf, off the coast of Iran, helping enforce America’s blockade of Iranian ports, and the third, off the coast of southern Lebanon, ready once the latest ceasefire breaks down to fire shot and shell on Hezbollah emplacements in southern Beirut, in the Bekaa Valley, and in the area between the Litani River and the Israel-Lebanon border.

Given all that it has achieved, in inflicting such major damage on Hamas in Gaza, on Hezbollah in Lebanon, on the Houthis in Yemen, as well as lesser damage, so far, on Syria and Iran, one would have thought that Israel’s Navy had not 10,000, but five times that number of personnel. And who knows if, even now, Israeli Navy ships are steaming to the Gulf to help enforce the American blockade of Iranian ports?

AUTHOR