Former President Donald Trump vowed to end gender-affirming care for minors if re-elected in 2024 in an outright attack on the rights of transgender individuals.
In a video released on his Truth Social platform Tuesday, the twice-impeached president outlined a series of proposals designed to “protect children from left-wing gender insanity.”
Speaking straight-to-camera while standing in front of two U.S. flags, Trump began the nearly four-minute video by announcing his plan “to stop the chemical, physical and emotional mutilation of our youth.”
If elected, Trump said he would end President Joe Biden’s policies on gender-affirming care, which he called “cruel” and “ridiculous.”
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “gender-affirming care is a supportive form of healthcare” and it improves “the mental health and overall well-being of gender-diverse children and adolescents.” This assessment is supported by the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Trump said he would sign an executive order instructing federal agencies “to cease all programs that promote the concept of sex and gender transition at any age,” and vowed to punish healthcare professionals who provide gender-affirming care to minors.
In his pledge, he said if educators or school officials “suggest to a child that they could be trapped in the wrong body,” they will be “faced with severe consequences including potential civil rights violations.”
His administration would also push schools to “promote positive education about the nuclear family” and celebrate “rather than (erase) the things that make men and women different and unique.”
The polarizing Republican claims transgender people didn’t really exist until the concept was invented “just a few years ago” by “the radical left.”
“No serious country should be telling its children that they were born with the wrong gender, a concept that was never heard of in all of human history. Nobody’s ever heard of this,” he said.
Trump — who famously said during the 2016 presidential campaign he would “fight” for the LGBTQ community “while Hillary (Clinton) would “bring in more people that will threaten your freedoms and beliefs” — added he would ask Congress to pass a bill “establishing that the only genders recognized by the United States government are male and female, and they are assigned at birth.”
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