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HARRIS: Taxpayer-Funded Transgender Surgeries for Prison Inmates
In 2014, Attorney General Harris agreed to a settlement with Rodney Quine, a transgender prisoner who was serving a life sentence for murder without possibility of parole. The settlement — which came after Quine’s attorneys had argued that a denial of their client’s desire to change his genitalia would violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishment” — permitted the prisoner to undergo a costly sex-change operation at taxpayer expense. Harris called the settlement “an important step forward in the ongoing effort to protect transgender rights in California.”
On another occasion, Harris, who pushed for the use of taxpayer dollars to fund the sex-change operation of a biological man / transgender woman who was in prison for having murdered three people, said: “I made sure that they changed the policy so that every transgender inmate would have access.”
HARRIS: Job Applicants Can Choose from 9 Sets of Gender Pronouns
Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign website allows potential hires applying for a job to select from nine separate sets of gender pronouns. Aside from the traditional “he/him” and “she/her,” applicants may also choose from: “they/them,” “ey/em,” or “xe/xem” “ze/hir,” “hir/hir,” “hu/hu,” and “fae/faer.” The last of those options is used by people who consider themselves to be fairies or witches.
HARRIS: Transgenders Can Use the Public Bathroom of Their Choice
Harris once filed a court brief supporting the position that transgender people should be permitted to access the bathroom of their choice in public places.
HARRIS: Taxpayer-Funded Sex-Change Surgeries for Illegal Aliens
In 2020, the ACLU gave all presidential primary participants a survey asking whether or not they supported the use of taxpayer dollars to fund sex-change operations for illegal aliens. Responding that “transitional treatment is a medical necessity,” Harris pledged to direct “all federal agencies responsible for providing essential health care to provide transitional treatment.” Moreover, she said that she had already supported a similar policy during her tenure as Attorney General of California: “It is important that transgender individuals who rely on the state for care receive the treatment they need, which includes access to treatment associated with gender transition. That’s why, as Attorney General, I pushed the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide gender transition surgery to state inmates … while incarcerated or detained.”
HARRIS & BIDEN: “Gender-Affirming Care” for Minors
The Daily Wire explains: “Gender-affirming care is a phrase used by transgender activists and media to mask the more grisly sounding transgender top and bottom surgeries, including removing a biological woman’s breasts, removing a biological man’s genitals, sculpting a fake penis on a biological woman, and more. Social affirmation, puberty blockers, and hormones also fall under the ‘gender-affirming care’ umbrella.” According to DoNoHarmMedicine.org, “gender-affirming” care is “based on the dangerous premise that any child who has distress that he or she thinks is related to their sex should automatically be treated with social transition to the sex of their choice followed by hormonal interventions and then possibly surgery to remove healthy body parts,” while “underlying mental health problems are usually not addressed.”
In a letter dated March 31, 2022, Kristen Clarke, Assistant Attorney General with the Biden-Harris DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, warned all states’ Attorneys General that the DOJ would punish instances of what it viewed as discrimination by which “transgender youth” were denied “gender-affirming care,” including medical and drug treatments (e.g., puberty blockers, hormones, and surgeries).
On April 29, 2022, the Biden-Harris DOJ filed a complaint challenging S.B. 184, a recently passed Alabama Senate Bill that made it a felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, for doctors to prescribe puberty blockers or hormones to children seeking to undergo gender transition. Arguing that the criminalization of children’s sexual transitioning violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal-protection-under-the-law for all people, the DOJ wrote: “S.B. 184 … discriminates against transgender youth by denying them access to certain forms of medically necessary care.”
On March 31, 2022 — “Transgender Day of Visibility” — the Biden-Harris administration stated that the “early” use of transgender surgeries, hormone treatments, and affirmations are “crucial” for the physical and psychological well-being of children and teenagers who identify as transgender and nonbinary.
During an April 5, 2023 press briefing, RealClearPolitics reporter Philip Wegmann asked White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre: “Today Indiana just banned puberty blockers, hormone therapies, and gender transition surgeries for minors. I’m wondering what the president’s reaction is to the Indiana governor signing that bill into law. And does the president have a position on at what age these kinds of therapies and surgeries are appropriate?” Jean-Pierre replied: “That’s something for a child and their parents to decide, it’s not something we believe should be decided by legislators. So I’ll leave it there.”
During her current 2024 presidential campaign, Harris has been careful not to say whether or not she supports transgender surgeries or hormone treatments for minors, but a number of LGBTQ organizations that endorse such procedures for children are enthusiastically supporting the Harris-Walz ticket. Among those groups are the ACLU, GLAAD, Advocates for Trans Equality, and the Human Rights Campaign.
HARRIS & BIDEN: Expand Title IX to Include Gender Identity & Sexual Orientation
In the spring and summer of 2024, twenty-six U.S. states sued the Department of Education and its Secretary, Miguel Cardona, over the Biden-Harris administration’s proposed changes to the rules of Title IX, a 1972 law banning sex-based discrimination at all federally funded schools. The Biden-Harris changes, which extended the original ban to include also discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, went into effect on August 1, 2024. The new Biden-Harris framework:
HARRIS & BIDEN: Allow Biological Boys to Play on Girls’ Sports Teams
On October 19, 2021, the Biden-Harris administration denounced the Texas legislature’s recent passage of a bill designed to ban biological boys from playing on girls’ sports teams. “This hateful bill in Texas is just the latest example of Republican state lawmakers using legislation to target transgender kids — whom the president believes are some of the bravest Americans — in order to score political points,” said White House spokesman Ike Hajinazarian. “These anti-transgender bills are nothing more than bullying disguised as legislation and undermine our nation’s core values.”
HARRIS & BIDEN: Force Doctors to Perform Transgender Procedures on Demand
On April 20, 2021, the Biden-Harris administration filed an appeal seeking to force doctors and hospitals to perform transgender-related procedures and surgeries even if they objected on moral or religious grounds. The appeal was made in response to a January court ruling that had struck down a Biden-Harris effort to punish doctors for “sex discrimination” violations if they refused to perform transgender procedures requested by a patient.
HARRIS & BIDEN: HHS Asks Court to Overrule Order Blocking Transgender Care
In late March 2022, the Biden-Harris Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to overrule a 2021 lower court order in the case of Franciscan Alliance v. Becerra, which protected health insurance providers from mandates that would require them to cover the costs of transgender-related medicines, gender-transitioning surgeries, therapies, and procedures.
BIDEN: Banning “Gender-Affirming Care” for Children Is “Close to Sinful”
In a March 13, 2023 interview with The Daily Show, President Biden criticized Florida’s recently enacted bans on: (a) transgender medications and surgeries for children, and (b) the promotion of gender ideology in the classroom. “What’s going on in Florida is, as my mother would say, close to sinful,” said Biden. “I mean it’s just terrible what they’re doing.”
Added Biden: “It’s not like, you know, a kid wakes up one morning and says, ‘You know, I decided I want to become a man or I want to become a woman.’ … They’re human beings, they love and have feelings. … It’s cruel. We [should] make sure we pass [federal] legislation like we passed on same-sex marriage. You mess with that, you’re breaking the law and you’re going to be held accountable.”
BIDEN: Permit Lessons on Sexuality & Gender in Early Grades
In February 2022, the Florida legislature was considering a bill designed to forbid instruction on sexual orientation, gender identity, and transgenderism to children in kindergarten through third grade. Democrat and leftwing opponents of the legislation dubbed it the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, falsely implying that the bill sought to forbid the use of the word “gay” in classrooms for younger children. President Biden opposed the legislation from the start. On February 8, 2022, he tweeted: “I want every member of the LGBTQI+ community — especially the kids who will be impacted by this hateful bill — to know that you are loved and accepted just as you are. I have your back, and my Administration will continue to fight for the protections and safety you deserve.” The Florida legislature eventually passed the bill on March 8, 2022.
WALZ: Transgender Children Should Have Access to Bathroom of Opposite Sex
In a 2017 town hall, Rep. Walz said he believed that children as young as 10 years of age could identify as members of the opposite sex. Regarding policies designed to regulate the use of school bathrooms by such children, he stated: “These are children my son’s age, a fourth grader, a 10-year-old who, just wants to go to the bathroom … and their identity is male or female and they just go in that bathroom and use it.”
WALZ: No Minimum Age on Transgender Procedures
In a March 2023 executive order, Gov. Walz’s administration opened the door to state-funded genital surgeries for minors when it removed, from Minnesota’s state healthcare policy, age restrictions on most transgender medical and surgical procedures.
Also in March 2023, Walz described conservative governors as “bullies,” for seeking to ban hormone treatments, puberty blockers, and radical surgeries for minors who claimed to be transgender.
WALZ: Making Minnesota a “Refuge” State for Transgender Procedures
In March 2023, Gov. Walz signed an executive order formally making his state a “refuge” for people seeking doctors willing to help them access irreversible “transgender” surgeries, sterilization procedures, and drugs/hormones. “Today, Minnesota joins other states and a growing number of municipalities that have acted in solidarity with the LGBTQIA+ community,” the order declared. “We stand with this community by maintaining a refuge for those who seek and provide gender affirming health care services.” While signing his executive order, Walz held the hand of 12-year-old boy who claimed to identify as a transgender girl.
Walz’s March 2023 executive order also:
“As states across the country move to ban access to gender-affirming care, we want LGBTQ Minnesotans to know they will continue to be safe, protected, and welcome in Minnesota,” Walz said in a March 2023 statement. “In Minnesota, you will not be punished for seeking or providing medical care.”
WALZ: Banned the Practice of Conversion Therapy
In April 2023, Gov. Walz signed a bill that banned the practice of conversion therapy, which WebMD defines as “any emotional or physical therapy used to ‘cure’ or ‘repair’ a person’s attraction to the same sex, or their gender identity and expression.” Specifically, the legislation:
WALZ: Tampons in Boys’ School Bathrooms
In late May 2023, Gov. Walz signed into law an education finance bill requiring all school districts and charter schools in Minnesota to make available, free of charge, tampons and menstrual pads in all school bathrooms for students in grades 4 through 12, including boys’ bathrooms. The bill’s language stated that “the products must be available to all menstruating students.” By supporting the bill, Walz explicitly endorsed the idea that boys should be permitted to use girls’ bathrooms, and vice versa.
WALZ: Opposes Notifying Parents That Their Children Claim to Be Transgender
Walz believes that schoolteachers and administrators should not notify parents if their children suddenly begin to claim that they are, or may be, of another gender.
WALZ: Supports Biological Males Competing in Female Sports
A strong advocate of permitting biological males to compete in female school sports, Walz said in March 2022: “I’m not concerned about making life more difficult for children who already have an incredibly high suicide rate—children and people who want to be who they are.”
DEMOCRATIC PARTY: “Gender-Affirming Care” for Minors
The Democratic Party’s official 2024 platform condemns what it describes as Donald Trump’s “extreme plan to punish doctors who treat transgender youth and to ban gender-affirming care.” The platform also pledges to “vigorously oppose state and federal bans on gender-affirming health care.”
DEMOCRATIC PARTY: Opposed to “Conversion Therapy” for Transgenders
The Democratic Party’s official 2024 platform says that “Democrats will continue to fight for LGBTQI+ youth by building on President Biden’s historic actions to ban so-called ‘conversion therapy,’” which WebMD defines as “any emotional or physical therapy used to ‘cure’ or ‘repair’ a person’s attraction to the same sex, or their gender identity and expression.”
DEMOCRATIC PARTY: Supportive of Biological Males Competing in Female Sports
On April 20, 2023, the U.S. House of Representatives passed The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, a Republican-sponsored bill aimed at preventing biological males from competing as transgender females in girls’ and women’s sporting events at schools nationwide. The legislation passed in a 219-203 vote, where Republicans cast all the “Yes” votes, and Democrats cast all the “No” votes.
DEMOCRATIC PARTY: Opposed to Notifying Parents That Their Child Claims to Be Transgender
On February 16, 2023, the Democrat members of the Virginia Senate’s Education and Health Committee voted to block Sage’s Law, legislation mandating that parents be notified if their child decided, in school, to socially transition to another gender. All nine Democrats on the committee voted against the bill, and all six Republicans voted for it.
TRUMP: Opposed to Permitting Biological Males to Compete in Female Sports
In February 2021, Trump said: “Joe Biden and the Democrats are even pushing policies that would destroy women’s sports. Now young girls and women are in sets that they are now being forced to compete against those who are biological males. It’s not good for women. The records that stood for years, even decades, are now being smashed. If this is not changed, women’s sports as we know it will die.”