(LifeSiteNews) — Former President Donald Trump plans to announce that if returned to the White House, he intends to support criminalizing the infliction of “gender transition” procedures on minors without parental consent, throwing a bone to conservatives demoralized by his aversion to similar promises on the issue of abortion.
On Tuesday, the Trump campaign released prepared remarks Trump was set to deliver at the Livingston County Sheriff’s Department in Howell, Michigan, in which he would declare, “to protect our children from sexual mutilation, we will make it a felony for any medical professional to perform surgery on a minor without parental consent,” alongside capital punishment for “child rapists and child traffickers.”
The New York Post later reported that the speech came and went without Trump mentioning either proposal. The next day, The Independent reported that the pledges are still coming, according to campaign sources, but are being held back to be announced at a “special occasion” because they are “too important to get lost in the shuffle” of this week’s Democrat National Convention, which is drawing significant media focus.
The commitment would be welcome news to many Americans, although many would prefer to see the extra step of banning such procedures entirely, regardless of whether parents approve.
A significant body of evidence shows that “affirming” gender confusion carries serious harms, especially when done with impressionable children who lack the mental development, emotional maturity, and life experience to consider the long-term ramifications of the decisions being pushed on them or full knowledge about the long-term effects of life-altering, physically transformative, and often irreversible surgical and chemical procedures.
Studies find that more than 80% of children suffering gender dysphoria outgrow it on their own by late adolescence and that “transition” procedures, including full “reassignment” surgery, fail to resolve gender-confused individuals’ heightened tendency to engage in self-harm and suicide – and even exacerbate it, including by reinforcing their confusion and neglecting the actual root causes of their mental strife.
Trump has a mixed record on LGBT issues, including his consistent support for homosexual “marriage,” but was generally aligned with social conservatives on religious liberty and the gender fluidity movement. For his current campaign, he already pledged to “protect children from left-wing gender insanity,” including banning federal funding, approval, and promotion of “gender transition” practices.
It remains to be seen whether reiterating such stances is enough to satisfy conservatives let down by his various left turns on abortion during this campaign. With national polling aggregations by RealClearPolitics and RaceToTheWH showing a close but persisting lead for Democrat nominee and current Vice President Kamala Harris in both popular vote and Electoral College projections since replacing President Joe Biden, the election is widely expected to be close, meaning that anything diminishing the enthusiasm of one’s base to turn out could be critical.