At Tuesday night’s debate, former President Donald Trump said his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, supports “transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison.” Harris looked on skeptically, suggesting Trump was off his rocker.
Yet Harris has indeed supported transgender medical interventions on illegal alien prisoners, and she has not publicly disavowed the claim. Her campaign did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment about it.
Some legacy media outlets rushed to “fact-check” Trump’s claim. Time magazine’s story on the debate originally blasted Trump’s quote as false. Time later appended this correction:
The original version of this story mischaracterized as false Donald Trump’s statement accusing Kamala Harris of supporting ‘transgender operations on illegal aliens in prison.’ As a presidential candidate in 2019, Harris filled out a questionnaire saying she supported taxpayer-funded gender transition treatment for detained immigrants.
Trump’s claim traces back to Harris’ response to an ACLU questionnaire for presidential candidates in the 2020 cycle.
“As president, will you use your executive authority to ensure that transgender and nonbinary people who rely on the state for medical care—including those in prison and immigration detention—will have access to comprehensive treatment associated with gender transition, including all necessary surgical care?” the questionnaire asked. “If yes, how will you do so?”
Harris marked the box for “Yes.”
“It is important that transgender individuals who rely on the state for care receive the treatment they need, which includes access to treatment associated with gender transition,” Harris wrote. “That’s why, as Attorney General, I pushed the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide gender transition surgery to state inmates. I support policies ensuring that federal prisoners and detainees are able to obtain medically necessary care for gender transition, including surgical care, while incarcerated or detained.”
“Transition treatment is a medical necessity, and I will direct all federal agencies responsible for providing essential medical care to deliver transition treatment,” the candidate added.
Trump raised the issue because it represents a confluence of three separate areas on which Harris is vulnarable: immigration, crime, and controversial transgender issues.
Yet this position represents the logical conclusion of Harris’ support for Democrats’ proposed Equality Act and the gender operations euphemistically referred to as “gender-affirming care.”
Under President Joe Biden and Harris, the Federal Bureau of Prisons reissued a Transgender Offender manual that the Obama administration had begun. The manual’s latest version states that surgery for prisoners who claim to be transgender is “generally considered only after one year of clear conduct and compliance with mental health, medical, and programming services at the gender-affirming facility.”
The pro-transgender outlet The 19th News has faulted the Biden-Harris administration for not clarifying its position on gender operations for prisoners, but the administration has taken multiple actions to offer cross-sex hormones and surgeries for prisoners.
In January, Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, filed a “statement of interest” supporting “gender-affirming care” for prisoners.
“People with gender dysphoria should be able to seek the full protections of the Americans with Disabilities Act, just like other people with disabilities,” Clarke said. “We are committed to ensuring constitutional conditions inside our jails and prisons so that those detained inside these facilities, including people with gender dysphoria, can live safely and receive needed medical care. The U.S. Constitution requires that people incarcerated in jails and prisons receive necessary medical care, treatment and services to address serious medical conditions.”
The administration has also extended transgender policy to illegal aliens. Under Biden and Harris, the Department of Customs and Border Protection issued guidance telling border security personnel to refer to illegal aliens by their preferred gender pronouns.
When she ran in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, Harris adopted many far-left positions more in line with her home state of California than with the rest of America. Her campaign has attempted to redefine her as a moderate for the election, but polls suggest voters see through this.
Self-described “Democratic socialist” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has supported Harris, despite her recent abandonment of more “progressive” stances.
When NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker asked Sanders about this, he said, “I don’t think she’s abandoning her ideals.”
“I think she’s trying to be pragmatic and doing what she thinks is right in order to win the election,” he added.
[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]
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