On Monday night, Fox News host Jesse Watters interviewed Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate from Michigan Abdul El-Sayed. Somewhat bizarrely, Watters asked El-Sayed about “sex changes for minors,” seemingly referencing Republican-led efforts to place restrictions on the kind of medical treatment transgender teenagers can access. The deliberately provocative and slanted framing of the question aside, El-Sayed gave a clear and honest answer:
“I just think the government shouldn’t tell you what kind of healthcare you should have and if you’re a minor, it’s between you and your doctor and your parents,” he said. “You want to put government inside a clinic or a hospital selectively.”
That’s the answer, and it’s a good one, too. It’s consistent with principles championed by Democrats and Republicans alike (though often at different times for different reasons) that the government shouldn’t interfere in people’s health care decisions. Hell, you could even frame this as a “parental rights” argument, something Republicans really like to bring up whenever it suits them. But in any case, the answer El-Sayed gave to Watters pretty closely mirrors what he has written on his campaign website: “Healthcare decisions should be made by a patient (and their parents if they are a minor) and their doctor–no one else.”
This is a perfectly normal position, and I think it’s the exact one that Democrats who are unsure how to respond to these questions should copy. It’s simple, it’s defensible, and it forces people to understand that the reality of what Republicans are trying to do is to make medical decisions for other people and their children.
Still, Fox was going to try to frame the answer as outrageous. Naturally.
By the next night, over a chyron that read “DEMOCRATS EMBARRASS THEMSELVES,” Sean Hannity said, “One of the issues that seems to bring almost all Democrats together is a dangerous obsession with trans kids.” On screen: images of El-Sayed, Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
And sure, I get that’s the message that Fox wants (nay, needs) the public to believe. They need any opposition to GOP bills targeting trans people with new restrictions on how we’re able to live our lives and participate in society to be seen as them having a “dangerous obsession with trans kids.”
The “dangerous obsession” is a Democrat saying the government doesn’t belong in the exam room? Really? It’s not the people trying to place new restrictions on trans people?
The Watters interview did take some odd turns
In response to El-Sayed’s answer to a question that was basically about whether or not he’d join in with GOP efforts to place new restrictions on health care, Watters blurted out, “So you think it’s okay for a parent to slash his kid’s ding-a-ling off?”
*groan*
I get that this makes for a fun talking point to try to make people who oppose new restrictions on health care seem like weird freaks, but it’s just not an accurate reflection of what this debate is about. We know that it’s extraordinarily rare for trans teens to have any sort of transition-related surgery before they turn 18. Like, yeah, maybe you’ll find the stray story of some trans girl who had a vaginoplasty when she was 17.5 because she wanted to be able to have a fresh start at college or whatever, but this image of “slashing a kid’s ding-a-ling off” just doesn’t hold up.
El-Sayed tried to flip this on Watters, asking the Fox News host if he was circumcised.
Watters said he was. “Then you probably want to move on,” said El-Sayed.
“Yeah, but, I mean, that’s a personal question, doctor.”
Yes! It is.
“Circumcision’s different than castration,” Watters added.
Sure! And a puberty blocker is different from both. And so is hormone replacement therapy. And so is social transition. And those are all things that are targeted by these GOP bills. I understand that it’s to Watters’ advantage to frame this as Republicans tend to do, around surgery, even though they’re trying to go way beyond that. But it’s just wildly dishonest in the same way that Republican claims about “abortions up to the moment of birth” and “post-birth abortions” are dishonest.
Because the surgery thing was never really the point. The truth is that people on the anti-trans side of things just… don’t want trans people to be able to exist and live our lives as we have been. They don’t want trans women to be recognized in any official or unofficial capacity as women. They don’t want trans men to be recognized in any official or unofficial capacity as men. They want to take away medically necessary health care for trans people of all ages (not just kids). They want discrimination against trans people to be codified in law. So there’s no amount of, “Well, actually, the number of surgeries is really low…” or statistics about low regret rates or testimonies from people like Hunter Schafer or Kim Petras about how being able to medically transition as a minor made their lives better or anything that will win them over.
The number of acceptable trans people for them is zero. It’s why guys like Michael Knowles will openly say “transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely” to cheers on the CPAC stage, and then add, in case anyone missed it, “There can be no middle way in dealing with transgenderism. It is all or nothing.” It’s why the Trump White House cheered a Supreme Court decision ostensibly about youth sports for helping the administration in its goal to “eliminate transgender insanity.”
So let’s end this charade where the right cites some “reasonable concern,” but then uses that to advance their project of a wholesale elimination of the very concept of trans people.
Government overreach
In April 2021, Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson vetoed Arkansas’s ban on transition-related health care for minors, calling it “vast government overreach” that would set “new standards of legislative interference with physicians and parents as they deal with some of the most complex and sensitive matters involving young people.” He decried the bill as “a product of the cultural war in America.”
And he was right! Unfortunately, the state legislature overrode his veto the next day.
And in December 2023, Republican Governor Mike DeWine vetoed Ohio’s ban on transition-related health care for minors. He said his veto was “about protecting human life.” He also said, “These are gut-wrenching decisions that should be made [by] parents and should be informed by teams of doctors who are advising them. These are parents who have watched their children suffer for years, and have real concerns their children would not survive without it… Families are basing their decisions on the best medical advice they can get.”
Later, at a press conference, DeWine said that he believed decisions about health care “should be made by the people who love these kids the most, the parents.” The next month, the state legislature would override his veto.
Two Republican governors looked at these bills and landed exactly where El-Sayed did: government out of the exam room, parents making the call. Their own legislatures overrode them both.
The extreme position here was the bill, which took away parents’ rights to make medical decisions for their children. It took decisions away from doctors, patients, their parents, and medical organizations, and put it in the hands of politicians. Entirely. Extreme. And again, this wasn’t just a ban on surgery. It banned surgery and hormone therapy. Oh, and just for good measure, to prove how this is totally just about health care, the bill also included a ban on trans girls playing on girls sports teams. Because sure, why not?
Oh! And did I mention that despite the fact that the bill DeWine vetoed was supposed to be about banning medical treatment for minors, when the state went to implement the law, it tried to throw in some restrictions on health care for adults, too? It’s absolutely relentless, and again, dare I say “extreme.”
And unfortunately, the Supreme Court’s United States v. Skrmetti decision gave states the green light to pass these types of laws, which I think is horrific. Twenty-some states have. And this past December, the House passed a national version, 216–211, which would put a doctor in federal prison for up to ten years. It’s sitting in the Senate.
They’re trying to strong-arm Democrats into joining the crusade, and betting that the press will hand out credit for “moderating.” Democrats should say what El-Sayed said. Maybe skip the circumcision part.
And it’s important that the press understand what’s happening here, too. They want you to help them convince the public that it’d actually be radical to not enact sweeping new legislation.
Which brings me back to Monday night. Truly, there’s not much El-Sayed could have said that would have gotten a different result. Nothing short of endorsing the whole project would have satisfied them. He could have hedged, or split the difference, or said he wanted to look at the research, or any of the other things Democrats do when they’re scared of a question. Same “Dangerous obsession with trans kids” from Hannity.
So you may as well say what you believe: that the government needs to stay out of healthcare decisions.