What has Mehmet Oz, Trump’s pick to lead Medicare and Medicaid, said about LGBTQ+ issues?
Who is the new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services lead Mehmet Oz? (Getty)
Donald Trump has nominated Mehmet Oz, better-known as Dr Oz, to head up the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
The TV presenter and cardiothoracic surgeon courted controversy for his views on COVID-19 and has a mixed record when it comes to LGBTQ+ rights. He hosted The Dr Oz Show from 2009 until 2022, and has continued broadcasting on his YouTube channel where he explores topics such as weight-loss culture.
If the nomination is approved by senators, as seems likely, Dr Oz will succeed Chiquita Brooks-LaSure at Medicare, a federal health-insurance programme for people aged 65 and older as well as younger people with disabilities, and Medicaid, the state-federal partnership programme for people on lower incomes.
The two programmes provide health insurance for more than 140 million Americans.
Dr Oz would also oversee the Children’s Health Insurance Program and the Health Insurance Marketplace, created in 2010 during Barack Obama’s presidency, and for which Trump has threatened to cut funding.
“I am honoured to be nominated to lead CMS,” he said. “I look forward to serving my country to under the leadership of [Robert F Kennedy Jr].”
I am honored to be nominated by @realDonaldTrump to lead CMS. I look forward to serving my country to Make America Healthy Again under the leadership of HHS Secretary @RobertKennedyJr. pic.twitter.com/aYIQJHG5Ej
— Dr. Mehmet Oz (@DrOz) November 19, 2024
Trump said Dr Oz would “cut waste and fraud within our country’s most-expensive government agency, which is a third of our nation’s healthcare spend and a quarter of our entire national budget.
Here’s a look at what Dr Oz has said regarding LGBTQ+ issues.
Praised for trans representation
Although Dr Oz has attracted a large conservative following in the wake of his opposition to COVID-19 mandates and firm stance against abortion, he was praised for providing a platform for trans issues on his TV show.
In 2010, in an episode titled “Transgender Kids: Too Young to Decide?”, he spoke to an eight-year-old trans girl and a 15-year-old trans boy and their families. In a now-archived post by GLAAD, he was praised for a “ground-breaking” conversation which included discussion around hormone blockers and understanding the nuances of trans identity.
“[This] episode featuring transgender children and their families aired, exhibiting some of the best nationally televised conversations about gender identity,” a spokesperson for the LGBTQ+ advocacy organisation wrote.
“Though the show certainly left room for improvement in its promotional methods and on-screen images, GLAAD applauds Dr Oz and his producers for providing an exemplary discussion, unprecedented in its refrain from an intrusive focus on anatomy.”
During the show, Dr Oz consulted Dr Robert Garofalo, a paediatrician who advised families about transitioning and has since established a gender identity clinic at the Ann & Robert H Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.
At the time, GLAAD labelled the discussion “probably the healthiest medical opinion of transgender identity ever broadcast”.
In the following years, Dr Oz continued to interview trans teens, including activist Jazz Jennings, and brought trans surgery specialist Dr Christine McGinn on to the show.
However, he now seems to have back-pedalled somewhat, having thrown his weight behind prohibiting trans people participating in sports and claiming that the transgender youth movement was based on “false science.”
Same-sex weddings conflict
In 2022, while campaigning as the Republican nominee for the Pennsylvania senate seat, he held a campaign event at the Stone Gables Estate, a venue that does not permit same-sex weddings, The Washington Post reported.
“We provide marriage-related services as ordained by God’s word, the Bible, that are consistent with the written truth that marriage is the union of one man and one woman,” the venue declares on its website.
I'm proud to join this effort with fellow Republicans. I believe that same-sex couples should have the same freedom to get married as straight couples.https://t.co/cAQ4jA2bL0
— Dr. Mehmet Oz (@DrOz) September 12, 2022
However, he has endorsed enacting federal protections for same-sex marriage.
“Dr Mehmet Oz believes that same-sex couples should have the same freedom to get married as straight couples,” his communications director clarified.
Conversion therapy
Dr Oz seemingly once declared himself against the debunked practice of so-called conversation therapy, but has since erased his comments.
In 2012, he broadcast an episode of his show where “both sides” of the discussion were given air time.
The episode, which included appearances from “ex-gay” activists, including a representative from what was then known as the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality, which promoted conversation therapy, is no longer available on the Dr Oz website.
After it aired, in a now-deleted blog post, Dr Oz distanced himself from conversation therapy and stood with “the established medical consensus” that rejects the practice.
According to HuffPost, Dr Oz’s statement defended the appearance of conversion-therapy advocates but he ultimately voiced his opposition to the practice. “After listening to both sides of the issue and reviewing the available medical data, I agree with the established medical consensus,” he wrote.
“I have not found enough published data supporting positive results with gay reparative therapy and I have concerns about the potentially dangerous effects when the therapy fails, especially when minors are forced into treatments.”
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