Former President Donald Trump pledged in a Tuesday video to penalize physicians who provide gender-affirming therapy to children and to require schools to “promote good information about the nuclear family” and “the duties of mothers and fathers” as part of a broader set of measures aimed at transgender people.
In a straight-to-camera video on Truth Social, Trump claimed he would assign numerous government agencies to regulate and “halt” gender-affirming treatment for children, calling it “child abuse” and “child sexual mutilation.”
LGBTQ rights activists are fighting similar plans across the country, claiming that they are harmful to trans people.
Gender-affirming treatment is defined by the Department of Health and Human Therapies as “a variety of services that may include medical, surgical, mental health, and non-medical services for transgender and non binary people.”
Trump has proposed a federal law that recognizes only two genders, which is one of the most extreme state legislative proposals in recent years.
Trump stated that he would ask Congress to prohibit gender-affirming care for minors nationwide, that the Justice Department would investigate the pharmaceutical industry and hospitals to see if they “deliberately covered up horrific long-term side effects of sex transitions in order to get rich,” and that doctors who treat trans youths with hormones or surgery would be denied Medicare and Medicaid.
Additionally, he promised to make it simpler for children who regret receiving gender-affirming therapy to sue their doctors, calling the procedures “unforgivable.”
Trump also pledged to reform schools.
To teach racial history and “promote good education about the nuclear family, the duties of mothers and fathers and honoring, rather than eliminating, the qualities that make men and women different,” he pledged to create a “new certifying body for teachers.”
He declared that his Education Department will penalize teachers and school administrators who “suggest to a youngster that they may be imprisoned in the wrong body” with civil rights violations and the loss of federal school funding.
“Left-wing gender craziness is abusing our children.” Easy. “My strategy to stop chemical, physical, and emotional mutilation of our children,” Trump said.
Trump is attempting to revive his second presidential campaign as conservatives around the world are concerned about trans issues, particularly gender-affirming care for children.
Trump publicly courted LGBTQ supporters during the Republican presidential primary in 2016, but his hardline stance is a departure.
Trump, a longtime Democratic donor from New York City, declared in 2016 that he was “OK” with same-sex marriage and would be a “great friend” of the LGBTQ community. In comparison to previous Republican presidential candidates, he boasted about his “excellent with the LGBT community.”
Five Republican-leaning states—Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Utah—have banned or restricted gender-affirming treatment for children in the last two years.
This year, at least 21 states have introduced legislation to prohibit or limit gender-affirming treatment for children.
Judges in Alabama and Arkansas have halted legislation pending litigation.
The governor signed an order on Saturday, prompting the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah and the National Center for Lesbian Rights to file a lawsuit within two weeks.