Former Vice President Mike Pence pushed back against CNN host Dana Bash’s questions about child sex change operations during a CNN town hall on Wednesday, saying that he supports state laws that prohibit the procedures on minors.
“Why do you believe it’s the government’s role to overrule what parents decide is best for their own children in this case?“ Bash asked Pence. Pence responded by saying, “When you’re talking about something that is absolutely transformational, and that we know from mental health experts more often than not has profound negative effects on people in the long-term, I think at minimum, it is proper for state governments and state officials to simply say, whatever – however adults want to live, they can live, but for children, we’re going to protect kids from the radical gender ideology and say no chemical or surgical gender transition before you’re 18.” (RELATED: ‘That’s A Bad Parent’: Sunny Hostin, Zooey Zephyr Attack Montana Gov Over Restricting Child Sex Changes)
Bash pressed Pence further on the subject. “I want to ask you this question on a more human level. What would you say to a transgender kid and their family who say that this is how I feel more comfortable and I don’t feel comfortable another way, and that they feel that you are targeting them?” Bash asked Pence.
Pence responded by saying, “I got to tell you, Dana, and I’m talking as a father, and I’m talking as a grandfather right now, look, there is a reason why you don’t let kids get a tattoo before they’re 18, right?” Pence said. “Because those of us that have been parents know that before they’re 18, I don’t want to say anything, my kids are watching, but, you know.”
WATCH:
At least 16 states have banned or restricted sex change procedures on children, U.S. News reported. The ACLU has sued in multiple states to block the laws.
Parents sued school districts over efforts to transition children socially without the parents’ knowledge in Florida and Wisconsin, and a 12-year-old girl reportedly attempted suicide in Florida while administrators were carrying out a social transition without informing her parents, Fox News reported.
The Biden administration endorsed child sex changes in a guidance released in March 2022; Biden administration official Rachel Levine, who is transgender, has vocally supported the procedures on multiple occasions. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra did not deny that the Biden administration wanted to use the taxpayer-subsidized CHIPS insurance program to pay for child sex changes during a congressional hearing in March.
“We have afoot in America a radical gender ideology that’s taken hold in our schools, our universities, it is afoot across the nation, and I think at minimum we’ve got to make sure we protect kids from making decisions that permanently alter their bodies and permanently set their lives on a difficult path, so, I hold to this view and that’s where I’ll stand,” Pence added.
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