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 South Carolina man has been sentenced to life in prison for murdering a Black transgender woman with whom he was romantically involved.
Daqua Lameek Ritter was convicted on hate crime charges in February following a four-day trial for the murder of then-24-year-old Dime Doe, also known as Pebbles "LaDime" Doe, a Black transgender woman from Allendale, South Carolina.
Ritter's conviction was the first guilty verdict for violent acts committed against a transgender person under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.
Passed in 2009, the act expanded federal hate crime laws to include incidents of violence against people based on their gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability status.
The first-of-its-kind lawsuit alleges that Dr. May Chi Lau illegally prescribed hormone treatments to 21 minors, in violation of a state ban on transition-related care.
In the first-of-its-kind lawsuit in the United States, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued a Dallas doctor, accusing her of violating Texas's law barring physicians from providing gender-affirming care to minors.
Paxton alleges that Dr. May Chi Lau, a specialist in adolescent medicine, prescribed and provided hormone treatments to 21 minors between October 2023 and August 2024 to assist the youth in transitioning genders.
Under the ban, which was passed last year and upheld by the Texas Supreme Court in June after being challenged in a lawsuit, doctors are prohibited from providing puberty blockers or hormone replacement therapy to minors and can have their license to practice medicine permanently revoked and be fined hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Former President Donald Trump posted a video of a web ad attacking the Biden-Harris administration for allegedly seeking to create a "woke" military more concerned about LGBTQ representation than being "tough."
Trump -- who like other Republicans, has seized upon LGBTQ issues as one way to appeal to the party's socially conservative base voters -- has previously made the same attack at some of his campaign rallies.
The ad compares two conflicting "visions" of the military in Trump's view. For Trump's military vision, it includes clips from Stanley Kubrick's 1987 war epic Full Metal Jacket. For Kamala Harris, meanwhile, it depicts a military that cherishes and respects the LGBTQ community, which the former president considers ruinous.
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