Judd Legum: "Pro-LGBTQ" Republican launches vicious attack on first trans Congresswoman

[Nevilledog]

https://popular.info/p/pro-lgbtq-republican-launches-vicious

Donald Trump's successful 2024 presidential campaign, along with its Republican allies, spent more than $215 million on television ads that stoked resentment against trans people. One ad from the Trump campaign, aired in heavy rotation, sought to convince voters that their tax dollars, with Vice President Kamala Harris' support, were being diverted to trans criminals.

"Kamala supports taxpayer-funded sex changes for prisoners and illegal aliens," the narrator claimed. "Kamala is for they/them; President Trump is for you."

In a 2019 questionnaire, Harris said she supported providing trans inmates with "medically necessary care for gender transition, including surgical care." This is required under a 1970 Supreme Court case, which states that "prisons are legally required to provide necessary medical care to inmates, or risk violating the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment." That is why, under the Trump administration, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, provided "an array of gender-affirming treatments, including hormone therapy, for a small group of inmates who requested it during Mr. Trump’s four years in office."

Legalities aside, providing taxpayer dollars for trans prisoners is not a politically popular position. An analysis by Future Forward, a Super PAC that supported Harris, found the ad "shifted the race 2.7 percentage points in Mr. Trump’s favor after viewers watched it."

But the ad is effective because it's highly misleading. There are almost no taxpayer dollars spent on surgeries for trans inmates because almost no surgeries have been provided. Only two trans inmates have ever been provided with surgical care — and only at the conclusion of lengthy legal battles. There are no known cases of undocumented immigrants being provided with taxpayer-funded surgeries while detained.

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