Joe Biden calls out bans on trans healthcare: ‘I don’t think any state should have the right to do that’
President Joe Biden believes no one has the right to ban gender-affirming healthcare. (Getty/Chip Somodevilla)
President Joe Biden has criticised lawmakers trying to ban gender-affirming healthcare and called their actions “immoral”.
During a Now This Presidential Forum Biden spoke about a range of pressing US issues including, gun violence, abortion access, climate change and trans rights.
Biden began speaking of his admiration for the younger generations.
“You’re the single most educated generation in American history… and the most open and least prejudice generation in American history,” he said.
On the topic of trans rights, Biden was interviewed by trans TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney who has documented her own transition through a series called Days of Girlhood.
Mulvaney announced that it was her 221st day of publicly transitioning and asked Biden if states should have a right to ban gender-affirming healthcare.
“I don’t think any state or anybody should have the right to do that,” he replied.
“As a moral question and as a legal question, I just think it’s wrong.”
“What they’re trying to do to trans persons is immoral”.
Joe Biden on the ‘importance of being seen’
Biden noted that lawmakers try to block the trans community from being able to access certain medications and procedures, and said “no state should be able to do that in my view”.
He added: “I feel very very strongly that you should have every single solitary right including use of your gender identity bathrooms in public.”
In a bid to see change, Mulvaney asked how Democratic leaders could advocate for trans people, and Biden responded: “I’m not being facetious when I say this, being seen with people like you.”
“I mean it. I genuinely mean it. People fear what they don’t know, and when people realise, ‘oh this is what you’re telling me to be frightened of? This is the problem?’ People change their minds.
“People just don’t know enough to know, and it’s not because of intellectual incapabilities. It’s just lack of exposure and I think it’s really important we continue to speak out about the basic fundamental rights of all human beings.”
Across the US, Republicans have continued to introduce bills to outlaw gender-affirming healthcare for trans youths. Last month Republican and conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene launched a bid to criminalise trans youth healthcare.
Meanwhile, in Arizona Republicans passed a bill to restrict access to vital media care for trans youth in the state, and hospitals that provide necessary care, such as Akron Children’s Hospital, have been targeted with threats.
It follows Boston Children’s Hospital being forced into lockdown following a bomb threat.
