GOP Candidates Fight Over Trans Issues in Debate
News Nation, host of the evening.DeSantis claimed Haley supports “gender mutilation of minors” and does not support government intervention to stop these treatments.Haley responded that she had actually criticized Florida’s original “Don’t Say Gay” law, which bans instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in schools, for only going as high as third grade.She said it should be expanded to all grades.
DeSantis pointed out that the expansion was a different piece of legislation, which was passed earlier this year. “We’re talking about sex change operations on minors,” countered DeSantis. “They do puberty blockers, these are irreversible.
Talk to [detransitioner] Chloe Cole. She went through this. Now she’s an adult, she’s warning against it. She may never be able to have kids again.
That is what Nikki Haley opposed. She said the law shouldn’t get involved with that. I just ask you, if you’re somebody that’s going to be the President of the United States, and you can’t stand up against child abuse, how are you going to be able to stand up for anything?”“I never said that,” Haley replied. “I said that if you have to be 18 to get a tattoo, you should have to be 18 to have anything done to change your gender.”DeSantis later criticized Haley for not signing a bill to ban transgender people from facilities matching their gender identity, saying, “I don’t think men should be going into little girls’ bathrooms,” and painting transgender people as child predators.Haley countered that she has always supported single-sex bathrooms.“When I was governor, ten years ago, when the bathroom situation came up, we had maybe a handful of kids that were dealing with an issue, and I said, ‘We don’t need to bring government into this, but boys go into boys’ bathrooms, girls go into girls’ bathrooms, and if anyone else has an issue, they use a private bathroom,” she said.
