With less than a month until Election Day in the United States, former President Donald Trump is running campaign ads in swing states criticizing Vice President Kamala Harris for her support of taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries for prisoners.
“It’s hard to believe, but it’s true,” says a narrator in an advertisement while showing Harris standing next to Sam Brinton, a former Department of Energy official who is a man but wears women’s clothing.
Receive the main news from ACI Prensa by WhatsApp and Telegram
It is increasingly difficult to see Catholic news on social media. Subscribe to our free channels today:
“Even the liberal media was surprised that Kamala (Harris) supported taxpayer-funded sex changes for prisoners and illegal aliens,” the narrator continues, adding: “…Kamala is for them. President Trump is for you.”
The advertisement presents Harris’ response to a 2019 questionnaire sent by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) promising to use executive authority to ensure that people in prison, including immigrants accused of entering the country illegally, can obtain gender transition surgeries through government-provided health care.
“I support policies that ensure that federal prisoners and detainees can obtain the medical care necessary for gender transition, including surgical care, while they are incarcerated or detained,” Harris said.
“As attorney general (of California), I pressured the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide gender transition surgery to the state’s inmates,” he added.
The ad also includes a short clip of an interview from 2019 with the National Center for Transgender Equality Fund in which Harris doubles down.
A second Trump ad published this month touches on the same topic and details a case in which convicted murderer Shiloh Quine, who is a man, came to a legal agreement with Harris, then California attorney general, to obtain government-funded transgender surgery while in prison.
“He murdered a father of three, sentenced to life in prison,” says a narrator. “Kamala Harris pushed to use tax money to pay for her sex change.”
Harris initially represented the Department of Corrections in court, which refused to pay for transgender surgery. However, it finally agreed to a deal in 2015, which required the state to finance the operation.
The agreement made California the first state to pay for a prisoner’s transgender surgery, reported Associated Press then.
In a 2019 news conference, Harris said she only defended the department’s policy because she “was obligated” to do so as attorney general. She said there were times when her clients “took positions contrary to (her) beliefs,” but that she “worked behind the scenes” to pressure the department to change its policies.
In October 2015, the California Department of Corrections established new guidelines guaranteeing government-funded transgender surgeries for prisoners seeking such operations.
What is the position of the voters?
Although public surveys on taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries are limited, a survey this year from America’s New Majority Project found that a large majority of Americans oppose paying for such operations with tax dollars.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans surveyed said they do not believe taxpayer-funded health care programs should be forced to fund transgender surgeries. Nearly 60% of those polls went further, saying they would support a law prohibiting tax dollars from funding such surgeries.
Another survey Polling of likely voters this month showed that a majority of respondents supported a federal ban on transgender procedures for children.
The survey, by Noble Predictive Insightsfound that 59% of voters surveyed support a ban, including 82% of Republicans, 36% of Democrats and 56% of independents.
However, issues related to transgenderism and gender ideology rank low on the priority list of most Americans who go to the polls, according to public polls.
A Gallup poll published last week found that “transgender rights” was the least important issue to registered voters surveyed when presented with 22 election issues.
When asked whether an issue was extremely important, very important, somewhat important, or not important, only two issues were not seen as extremely or very important by most reporters: climate change and transgender rights.
Only 18% of voters surveyed said transgender rights were “extremely important” and another 20% said the issue was “very important.” Another 25% said the issue was “somewhat important” and 36% said it was not important.
The top issues were the economy, which 90% of voters said was extremely important or very important, and democracy in the United States, which 85% of voters rated extremely important or very important.
Other important issues included terrorism and national security, the election of Supreme Court justices, immigration, education and health care.
Aside from transgender rights and climate change, other issues lower on the list of priorities include trade with other nations, relations with China, race relations and relations with Russia.
Translated and adapted by the ACI Prensa team. Originally published in CNA.
Tyler Arnold
Tyler Arnold is a reporter for the National Catholic Register. He previously worked at The Center Square and has published in a variety of outlets, including The Associated Press, National Review, The American Conservative, and The Federalist.