With the election only a few weeks away, Republicans continue to make transphobic fear mongering their closing (and only) argument. In a new attack ad, the Trump team is spreading dangerous disinformation over gender affirming healthcare in order to smear Kamala Harris.
The ad begins by presenting viewers with a villain. “He murdered a father of three—sentenced to life in prison. Kamala Harris pushed to use tax dollars to pay for his sex change,” the voiceover says, referring to (and misgendering) Shiloh Heavenly Quine, the first person in the US to receive federally-funded gender affirming surgery while incarcerated.
Related
Desperation often strikes at the 11th hour
The video then cuts to an out-of-context clip of Harris in an interview. “I made sure that they changed the policy so that every transgender inmate would have access,” Harris says. “The power that I had, I used it in a way that was about pushing for the movement, frankly—and the agenda,” Harris adds in another clip.
Culture, unfiltered
Our newsletter will bring you the pulse of queer culture, from the tastemakers to the groundbreakers.
The ad concludes with what has essentially become Trump’s end-of-campaign slogan, “Kamala’s agenda is they/them, not you.”
Harris’ clips come from a 2019 interview she sat for with the National Center for Transgender Equality Action Fund, according to The Advocate. At the time, Harris was speaking of her record as Attorney General of California in advocating for transgender inmates, who have historically faced obstacles in securing medical care.
The ad treats the idea of federally funded surgery as unusual, but in reality taxpayers fund all sorts of accommodations for inmates, including meals, clothing, facilities and healthcare. It also sensationalizes the nature of the care inmates like Quine receive, which accredited institutions like the American Medical Association agree is medically necessary.
Most importantly, access to medically necessary procedures is not dependent on an inmate’s past crimes, present good behavior, or overall moral character—it is a human right. It is also the law, a particular law clarified under the Trump administration. The Bureau of Prisons Transgender Offender Manual, passed in 2018, mandates gender affirming care for transgender inmates.
Harris pointed this out when confronted with a similar ad during her interview with Brett Baier on Fox News last week. When asked if she was still in support of providing gender affirming care to inmates, she responded, “I will follow the law. And it’s a law that Donald Trump actually followed too. You’re probably familiar with—now it’s a public report—that under Donald Trump’s administration, these surgeries were available to, on a medical necessity basis, people in the prison system.”
Harris then moved on to question Trump’s obsession with attacking the trans community. “He spent $20 million on those ads trying to create a sense of fear in the voters because he actually has no plan in this election that is about focusing on the needs of the American people,” she said. “$20 million on an issue that, as it relates to the biggest issues that affect the American people, is really quite remote.”
Sign up for the INTO newsletter and get your twice-weekly dose of stories that shape the queer experience, culture, and lifestyle.
