ROLL CALL – While the legislative fight over transgender care has been largely limited to states to date, a spate of campaign ads from Republicans and worried trans advocates both indicate that could change if Republicans take control of Congress and the White House.
Even as GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump has focused, particularly in the final weeks of his campaign, on limiting gender-affirming care for transgender people, top Republican senators have launched inquiries into the legitimacy of the use of puberty blockers for minors.
And in December, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a landmark case that could determine the fate of access to gender-affirming care for children.
Democrats, lawyers and LGBTQ+ advocacy groups say the federal focus on transgender care is a marked shift from the past, when most policies impacting transgender individuals were approved at the state level.
Twenty-six states have passed legislation banning gender-affirming care for minors up to age 18, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
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But no such ban exists on the federal level. Republicans have attempted to add policy riders to major spending bills to limit transgender health care access in recent years, but Democrats have blocked them.
“Kamala is for they/them, Trump is for you”
A GOP-led Congress in 2025 could change that.
“We’re going to see attempts made to impact trans people’s ability to access health care at both the federal and state levels going forward,” Olivia Hunt, policy director at Advocates for Trans Equality, said of a potential GOP Congress and White House in 2025.
In the lead-up to the election, the Trump campaign is blanketing the southern half of the U.S. on NFL Sundays with ads claiming “Kamala is for they/them, Trump is for you.”
The ads also claim Harris supports taxpayer-funded sex change surgeries on transgender inmates — a policy that was actually included in budget documents from the first Trump administration …
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