Donald Trump’s ads attacking Kamala Harris for her support of gender-affirming care for transgender prisoners are ringing a bit hollow following a New York Times exposé that showed his own Justice Department held a very similar position.
Trump is not being widely called out for his hypocrisy, however. Most Democrats, save Harris, sidestep any mention of transgender issues — appearing concerned that their support of transgender rights will hurt them among moderate and swing voters. Republicans, meanwhile, simply ignore all historical facts.
In his ads, Trump has lambasted Harris for supporting gender-affirming care for transgender inmates, including undocumented immigrants who are in custody, in an attempt to paint her as too liberal in the eyes of moderate and independent voters.
The ads are part of a larger campaign tactic deployed by Republicans in various races across the country, in which they seek to motivate their socially conservative base by exploiting Democrats’ support of the LGBTQ community.
Fox News host Brett Baier confronted Harris about her stance in a recent interview with the Democratic nominee, with his questions mimicking Republican talking points. He sought to corner Harris on policy issues, catch her off guard, or trick her into making an unforced error similar to Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” comment from 2016.
Baier asked Harris if she was “still in support of using taxpayer dollars to help prison inmates or detained illegal aliens transition to another gender.”
“I will follow the law, and it’s a law that Donald Trump actually followed,” Harris replied. “Under Donald Trump’s administration, these surgeries were available to — on a medical necessity basis — to people in the federal prison system, and I think frankly that ad from the Trump campaign is a little bit of throwing stones when you’re living in a glass house.”
Baier replied that Trump aides have argued the former president “never advocated” for the prison policy, and that no gender-affirming surgeries actually happened during his presidency.
Harris shot back that Trump has to take responsibility for policies promulgated by his administration and said that, as president, she would follow the law — which currently allows transgender inmates to receive medically necessary health treatments for gender dysphoria.
Harris blasted the Trump campaign for spending nearly $20 million on anti-transgender ads, accusing the former president of “trying to create a sense of fear in the voters because he actually has no plan in this election that is about focusing on the needs of the American people.”
She noted that instances of transgender inmates receiving surgical care are very rare, and that most voters aren’t prioritizing transgender issues when they cast votes for president.
According to an analysis of Trump’s attacks against Harris by FactCheck.org, a spokesperson for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons confirmed that only two prisoners in custody have received surgical interventions.
According to the Times, it was the Obama administration that first adopted guidelines aimed at ensuring transgender inmates could access programs and services, including health care, that meet their individual needs. The Trump administration kept much of that framework in place throughout the former president’s term.
In a February 2018 budget memo to Congress, Bureau of Prisons officials said they were obligated by federal law to pay for a prisoner’s surgery if it was deemed medically necessary.
The Times reports that the most significant change made to the treatment guidelines by the Trump administration was the addition of the word “necessary,” which created a higher, but not altogether insurmountable, barrier to federally-funded surgeries.
The Bureau also ended up spending between $60,000 and $95,000 a year on hormone therapy during Trump’s term, according to internal department estimates obtained by the Times.
When approached by the Times for comment about the Trump administration’s policy, senior campaign advisor Brian Hughes parroted the anti-Harris ad’s central contention.
“Kamala Harris has forcefully advocated for transgender inmates to be able to get transition surgeries. President Trump never has,” Hughes insisted.
A recent study of injectable pre-exposure prophylaxis found that twice-yearly injections of lenacapavir -- marketed as Yeztugo by Gilead Sciences -- do not have clinically significant interactions with gender-affirming hormone therapy.
"In the most gender-diverse Phase III PrEP trial conducted to date, lenacapavir had no clinically significant impact on feminizing or masculinizing gender-affirming therapy concentrations," the study’s researchers concluded, as reported by POZ.
The study, led by Dr. Jill Blumenthal of the University of California San Diego, examined whether lenacapavir interacts with gender-affirming hormone therapy, including estradiol (a form of estrogen) and testosterone. Because those hormones are metabolized by enzymes such as CYP3A4 -- which lenacapavir can inhibit -- the researchers analyzed whether the drug altered hormone levels.
The U.S. House of Representatives voted largely along party lines to advance a bill that would imprison doctors for providing gender-affirming care to transgender minors and punish parents who consent to their child’s treatment.
The bill, introduced by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), would impose prison sentences of up to 10 years on medical providers who recommend or prescribe puberty blockers, hormone therapy, or surgery to transgender patients under 18. It would also criminalize parents who consent to their child’s treatment or transport them across state lines to obtain such care.
Speaking at a House GOP retreat, President Donald Trump warned that Democrats would seek to impeach him if they regain control of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections.
"f we don't win the midterms, it's just going to be -- I mean, they'll find a reason to impeach me," Trump said. "I'll get impeached."
Trump was first impeached in 2019, after Democrats regained control of the House during his first term, over allegations that he withheld congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine to pressure its government into announcing investigations into his political rival, former President Joe Biden.
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