Two Republican presidential candidates, former Vice President Mike Pence and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, pledged during Wednesday night’s debate in Simi Valley to ban gender-affirming care not just for trans children, but for adults as well.

None of the other five Republicans on stage criticized Pence and Ramaswamy’s proposals, which would amount to major federal intervention in the ability of American adults to work with their doctors to decide what medical treatments are appropriate for them and their children.

The rhetoric of the two candidates is an indication of how far along the Republican is

Side

The consensus on trans rights has changed in recent years. After the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, much of the national debate arose

LGBTQ+

rights shifted to an emphasis on transgender rights.

In 2016, a debate took shape over North Carolina’s so-called “bathroom law,” which required transgender people to use public bathrooms that corresponded to the sex they were assigned at birth. The

law

was eventually repeated after widespread backlash.

But since then, social conservatives have stoked outrage and concern over gender-affirming care for trans children. In a 2021 Fox News poll, 62% of Republicans said they saw “overly accommodating” transgender policies in schools as a major problem.

When the same question was asked to voters in April, that number had risen to 71% of Republicans, while only 2% of Republicans identified “woke/transgender issues” as the most important issue facing the country. Less than 1% of Americans identify as transgender.

In the years since the bathroom law was repealed, North Carolina and 21 other states have banned gender-affirming care for children, according to Human Rights Watch, and some states, such as Oklahoma, Texas and South Carolina, have considered banning this care for transgender people. adults. Many of the laws

have passed in recent years, and some

Are

already

embroiled in legal battles.

The discussion during Wednesday night’s debate was sparked by a question moderator and FOX News host Dana Perino asked Ramaswamy about whether parents should be notified if their children change their gender identity at school.

“Students … have the ability to change their identity without parents’ knowledge,” Perino said, noting that fellow candidate Chris Christie, former governor of New Jersey, had pledged to pass a law “that would protect the rights of the parents”.

“Would you do the same?” she asked.

But instead of responding to the question, Ramaswamy focused more broadly on transgender rights.

“I have to be very clear about this: transgenderism, especially in children, is a mental disorder,” he said, adding: “Parents have the right to know.”

“It’s not compassionate to validate a child’s confusion. That’s not compassion; that’s cruelty,” Ramaswamy said, sharing an anecdote of two people who regretted double mastectomy and hysterectomy. If he becomes president, he said, he will “ban circumcision and chemical castration.”

Although some transgender people choose gender-affirming medical care, many never do

use medications or surgery

transition. Studies have shown that few choose to avert transition, or reverse the process and return to the gender they were assigned at birth.

Former Vice President Mike Pence doubled down on Ramaswamy’s proposal.

“We will pass a federal ban on transgender chemical or surgical procedures anywhere in the country,” Pence said. “We must protect our children from this radical gender ideological agenda.”

Ramaswamy and Pence’s statements indicate they would go further than former President Trump.

The frontrunner in GOP polls has said he would ban facilities that provide gender-affirming care from receiving federal funding. But since most hospitals and major medical centers are at least partially dependent on funds from Medicare, Medicaid or federal health and science agencies, Trump’s proposal would likely dramatically reduce access to gender-affirming care nationwide.

An April NBC poll found that 79% of Republicans believe the nation has “gone too far” in accepting transgender people, compared to 19% of Democrats and 50% of independent voters. In a similar Pew Research Center poll, 66% of Republicans said the country has gone too far in accepting transgender people, while about 6 in 10 Democrats said society has not gone far enough.

“No one should have to have their right to exist on a national stage,” Ash Orr, spokesperson for the National Center for Transgender Equality, said in a statement Thursday. “What we saw last night was a group of extremist politicians repeating the same tired rhetoric about transgender people, unsupported by actual facts.”

“The truth is that transgender youth know who they are and deserve to be accepted, loved and supported,” Orr added. “Research shows that the onslaught of rhetoric against our community directly harms the physical, mental and emotional well-being of our community.”

Orr said political leaders should instead focus on other issues facing young people, such as underfunding of education, lack of teacher support and school shootings.

In California, several school districts have said they will notify parents if their child identifies differently from the gender assigned at birth.

In July, Chino Valley Unified School District in San Bernardino County became the first district in the state to implement a parental notification policy, quickly followed by Murrieta Valley Unified, Temecula Valley Unified, Rocklin Unified, Anderson Union High School District and Orange Unified.

Last week,

Democratic

Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would have asked judges in custody hearings to consider parents’ support for their children’s gender identity.