Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is taking a more conservative stance on gender-affirming care, but he insists it will not be a significant issue in his campaign.
“It’s abortion, the border, and transgender rights. “All of these issues are important,” he remarked at a rally in Austin last week. “None of them are the issues that really matter to you, to me, to our children.”
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Kennedy previously referred to gender-affirming care as a “non-existential” issue, but he has stepped in, supporting a prohibition on some treatments for children, such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy. His running mate, Nicole Shanahan, agrees.
Riley Gaines, a former college swimmer who opposes allowing transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports, hosted a podcast where Shanahan, a former California lawyer, appeared and accused medical professionals of being careless with puberty-blocking medications.
“We’ve all been there,” Shanahan stated on “Gaines for Girls,” dismissing some children’s gender dysphoria as just “awkward years” that come with adolescence.
Last Saturday, Shanahan supported Kennedy’s position, writing on X, “Just to be clear: You can be supportive of LGBTQ causes AND ALSO believe that children are too young to consent to puberty blockers.”
Kennedy has recently become “troubled” by the idea of prescribing puberty blockers to minors, referring to them as “castration drugs.” Kennedy also referred to sex-change procedures as “surgical mutilation” and proposed delaying such treatments until adulthood.
“Minors cannot drive, vote, join the army, get a tattoo, smoke, or drink, because we know that children do not fully understand the consequences of decisions with life-long ramifications,” he wrote on X earlier in the month.
Kennedy has previously promoted disinformation about LGBTQ problems, including conspiracy theories that chemicals in the environment are causing youngsters to become gay or transgender, which are unfounded in scientific evidence.
In a 2022 episode of his podcast, he stated that chemicals “are raining down on our children” and “will disrupt normal sexual and neurological development.”
Many medical specialists from prestigious institutions regard gender-affirming care as a medical necessity, which might be extremely difficult to obtain due to bans imposed by some states. Currently, there are restrictions in 23 states, limiting comprehensive care to large urban regions and resulting in significant wait times for people seeking specialized care.
According to specialists, the decision-making process for any therapy or operation usually entails many visits and meetings with medical and mental health experts, as well as the parents or guardians. Specialists generally regard gender-affirming surgeries for minors as adult procedures, considering them extremely unusual.
Only approximately 3% of young adolescents with gender dysphoria receive puberty blockers, according to Dr. Meredithe McNamara, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Yale School of Medicine who specializes in adolescent care. There is no indication that this treatment causes long-term or irreparable harm to a minor’s physical or cognitive development.
However, she stated that when transgender and gender-diverse young people lack access to basic healthcare, their health and well-being deteriorate and their families experience disruption.
“So this candidate supposes that young people can wait until 18, but that would mean going an inordinately long period of time without evidence-based treatment,” McNamara stated. “I can’t think of a good reason for that.”
