Former president Donald Trump has promised a full-frontal attack on transgender rights if elected in 2024.
In a campaign video released Tuesday, Trump, echoing the anti-trans rhetoric that has become so common on the Right, revealed his plan to “stop the chemical, physical, and emotional mutilation of our youth.”
“The left-wing gender insanity being pushed on our children is an act of child abuse,” Trump claimed in the nearly four-minute video posted on his campaign’s Twitter account.
Contrary to Trump’s statement, there is growing evidence that providing gender-affirming healthcare to young people improves their mental health. Gender-affirming care for adolescents and adults has been endorsed by the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychiatric Association, and many other professional groups as necessary and frequently lifesaving for transgender individuals. Such care for young people rarely involves surgical intervention.
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Nonetheless, Trump promised to revoke President Joe Biden’s policies on gender-affirming care and sign an executive order instructing federal agencies “to cease all programs that promote the concept of sex and gender transition at any age.” He vowed to outlaw gender-affirming care in all 50 states and to ensure that hospitals and healthcare providers that provide gender-affirming care are no longer eligible for federal Medicare and Medicaid funding.
Trump also promised “severe consequences” for any teacher or school official who “suggests to a child that they could be trapped in the wrong body,” including federal civil rights violations for sex discrimination, under his Department of Education.
Trump said he would also ask Congress to pass a bill establishing that the only genders recognized by the U.S. government are male and female, and that Title IX prohibits men from participating in women’s sports.
The former president falsely claimed that the “radical left” had invented the concept of transgender people “just a few years ago.”
“No serious country should be telling its children that they were born with the wrong gender,” Trump says in the video. “Under my leadership, this madness will end.”
