Election Fact Check: Donald Trump, Kamala Harris on Transgender Issues

Millions of dollars from Republican groups and figures are devoted to anti-transgender ads criticizing policies supporting the trans community, even though these issues are among the least important concerns motivating voters ahead of the 2024 elections, – according to the latest Gallup poll.

LGBTQ advocates fear the intensified campaign will sow fear and hatred against a group that makes up less than 1% of the U.S. adult population, according to an analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that already experiences high rates of discrimination and violence.

“After the election, trans Americans will have to deal with the dangerous consequences of the shameful lies and disinformation that far too many political candidates are deliberately spreading,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement.

In commercials former president Donald TrumpHis campaign said he would end transgender care in prisons and prisons and limit transgender people’s access to gender-affirming care and transgender participation in sports and beyond.

In interviews Vice President Kamala Harris — which has been touted by some LGBTQ groups as part of the most “pro-LGBTQ” administration — has said it will follow the law when it comes to caring for transgender people and has expressed support for the Equality Act, which would protect LGBTQ Americans from discrimination.

Here’s what we know about the problems and how they’re solved every candidate expects to legislate on transgender policy.

Claim about “transgender surgery” in jails and prisons

The Trump campaign is building on Harris’ previous comments reaffirming her support for transgender people in receiving care.

In 2019, she supported “providing necessary medical care for transitional treatment.”

Harris’ campaign, however, has faced recent criticism from Trump, who noted that the Bureau of Prisons under the Trump administration has implemented a policy allowing incarcerated transgender people to receive gender-affirming medical care if it is required based on an individual health assessment. requirements. BOP records support this policy.

“Do you still support using taxpayer dollars to help prisoners or detained illegal aliens transition to their gender?” Fox News host Bret Baier asked Harris during an October interview.

“I will obey the law, the law that Donald Trump actually obeyed,” Harris said. “You probably already know that this is a public report that shows that under Donald Trump, these surgeries were available to people in the federal prison system on the basis of medical necessity.”

Of the hundreds of transgender people in BOP facilities each year, no one had undergone gender-affirming surgery until the first instance in 2023, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

BOP officials told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that as of early October, only two federal inmates had undergone surgery.

Claims about transgender people “surgery” on children in schools

Trump frequently presented hypothetical or unsubstantiated scenarios in which children during the election campaign were subjected to “surgery” at school without parental consent. The former president has repeatedly claimed, without any evidence, that schools allegedly secretly send students for surgery, saying: “There are places where your boy goes to school, comes back as a girl. OK? Without parental consent.”

According to Planned Parenthood, parental consent is required for any form of gender-affirming care for minors, including the use of puberty blockers or hormone therapy.

A study conducted by researchers at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health found that gender-affirming treatments are rarely or never used by transgender people and gender nonconforming minors in the US. Instead, cisgender minors and adults have been found to be much more likely to use such gender-affirming treatments. surgery than their transgender counterparts.

The study found that among transgender teenagers aged 15 to 17, the rate of gender-affirming surgery was 2.1 per 100,000, with the majority of these being chest surgeries. Doctors and researchers told ABC News that surgery on people under 18 is rare and is considered only on a case-by-case basis.

Doctors say they work with patients and their parents to develop a tailored and individualized approach to gender-affirming care for transgender patients, which means not every patient will receive any type of care. They also said that receiving such care is usually a long process.

Numerous medical organizations – including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the CDC – have stated that access to gender-affirming care is essential to the health and well-being of people of gender non-conformity.

Harris, asked in October during an interview with NBC News whether transgender Americans deserved access to gender-affirming care, responded that she would “follow the law,” later adding that such care “is a decision that doctors will make in based on what is medically necessary.”

Additionally, vice presidential candidate Tim Walz signed an executive order as governor of Minnesota protecting and supporting access to gender-sensitive health care for LGBTQ people in the state.

Claims about transgender athletes

In a podcast with former professional wrestler The Undertaker, aka Mark William Calaway, Trump also pushed false claims about the controversial Olympic boxing match between Italian boxer Angela Carini and Algerian boxer Imane Khelif.

Khelif became the target of controversy after false reports emerged claiming that Khelif was a transgender woman; According to the International Olympic Committee, she is not and was assigned female at birth.

Carini abandoned the Olympic fight after just 46 seconds, sparking further false accusations. The Algerian Olympic and Sports Committee (COA) and the IOC have commented on misinformation about Khelifa’s gender and gender.

“The Algerian boxer was born as a woman, was registered as a woman, lived as a woman and holds a female passport,” the IOC said during a press conference.

Trump then referenced the San Jose State women’s volleyball game against New Mexico, falsely claiming that a transgender athlete on the San Jose State team – because he repeatedly misidentified her – had injured other players with the ball. San Jose State told the Los Angeles Times that the ball bounced off the student-athlete’s shoulder and that the student-athlete was not injured and did not miss any games.

“They had one guy on one team, he was so high in the air and he smashed this ball, you know, you can’t see it, and this ball went at her at a speed that he has, you know, she’s never seen, he really hit it, but the other volleyball players they got hurt,” Trump said.

Trump has also promised in many of his speeches to “keep men out of women’s sports,” making this a key issue in his campaign.

LGBTQ advocates say claims that transgender women are “taking over” women’s sports are misleading – and the sports advocacy group Athlete Ally estimates for CNN that transgender women make up fewer than 40 of the 500,000 athletes in the NCAA.

For more on the history of LGBTQ candidate politics, read on Here.