The expanding group of Republican contenders vying for the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination share a consensus in their opposition to minors receiving sex-change treatments.
They firmly stand against granting children the ability to undergo significant alterations to their reproductive systems prior to reaching the level of maturity necessary for making well-informed choices.
According to The Daily Caller’s additional coverage:
Top 2024 Republican candidates are unanimously in favor of banning sex-change treatments for those under 18, running campaigns opposed to President Joe Biden’s transgender youth policies.
Biden has repeatedly condemned states banning sex-change treatments for minors, calling the laws “hateful.” The medical treatments — euphemistically referred to as “gender-affirming care” — include puberty blockers, chemical castration and the removal of healthy sex tissue. The president believes there is no “appropriate” age for the procedures, and the decision should be left up to parents, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has said.
Republican presidential candidate campaigns, including those of former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson —- as well as expected candidate former Vice President Mike Pence — all have said they would be opposed to minors getting sex-change treatments.
“It’s sad we even have to say this, but it is wrong for physicians to perform sex change operations on minors. That is mutilation and physicians who commit such acts in Florida not only lose their medical license, they go to jail,” DeSantis said Tuesday in Iowa.
In terms of further restrictions on sex changes for minors, DeSantis will have “no compromise” on opposing the sexualization of children, DeSantis’ press secretary Bryan Griffin told the Daily Caller.
“Governor DeSantis opposes the sexualization of children and anyone who seeks to rob them of their innocence. He stood up to Disney and has not backed down. The governor has promised that, as president, there will be ‘no compromise’ on this matter,” Griffin said.
Trump has presented the most comprehensive plan to ban sex-change treatment for minors. He said in January he would call on Congress to legislate a national ban for minors and would issue an executive order “instructing every federal agency to cease all programs that promote the concept of sex and gender transition at any age.”
Ramaswamy has also condemned sex-change treatment for those under 18, telling the Daily Caller it’s “cruel” to “‘affirm’ a child’s confusion.”
“It’s wrong to treat anorexia with a liposuction, just as it’s inhumane to treat a kid who suffers from gender dysphoria with genital mutilation. These are mental health illnesses and should be treated as such,” Ramaswamy said. He has previously said it’s “perfectly legitimate” to ban “genital mutilation or chemical castration through puberty blockers” below the age of 18.
Hutchinson said he would oppose “sex reassignment surgery for minors,” but that the decision should be left up to the states.
“While I would sign a law as Governor prohibiting sex reassignment surgery for minors, signing a presidential executive order interfering with parental care of children is like the President telling parents they must give their children a COVID vaccine. Both would be unconstitutional and wrong. This is an issue that should be left to the states,” Hutchinson told the Daily Caller.
An official for Scott told the Daily Caller he “is opposed” to minors getting “gender affirming care.”
The South Carolina senator also previously denounced biological men competing in female sports.
“Transgender ideology is going to ruin female sports if we let it continue. There’s no way — as a guy who played college football 25 pounds ago — there’s no way in the world that I should be competing against women in college if I were still that primetime athlete that I was 30 years ago. So the truth is that if we want to protect women’s sports, protect the integrity of competition, you, you, you cannot take any other position. The one that I’ve just asserted. It is common sense and frankly, I don’t understand why it’s controversial,” Scott said Tuesday on the “Clay Travis and Buck Sexton” show.
Pence’s press team pointed the Daily Caller to his previous remarks opposing people undergoing sex-change treatment before coming “of age.”
“This idea that we would allow children to go through either chemical or surgical transition treatment really before they’ve come of age … I’ve supported measures in my home state and around the country that would simply ban gender transition treatment for young people, and I think that’s in our children’s best interest,” Pence said in an interview with Scripps.
Republican candidates Larry Elder and Nikki Haley, as well as likely candidate Chris Christie, did not answer inquiries from the Daily Caller.
