Ten minutes into Vice President Kamala Harris’ Oct. 16 interview with Fox Information host Bret Baier, Baier performed a section of a Donald Trump marketing campaign advert.
“Kamala helps taxpayer-funded intercourse adjustments for prisoners” the advert’s narrator stated earlier than it lower to a clip of Harris chatting with somebody in entrance of a backdrop selling the Nationwide Middle for Transgender Equality Motion Fund.
“Each transgender inmate within the jail system would have entry,” Harris stated within the clip. Afterward within the advert, which was not proven by Baier, the narrator stated, “Even the liberal media was shocked Kamala helps taxpayer funded intercourse adjustments for prisoners and unlawful aliens.”
The Trump marketing campaign launched the advert Sept. 20 — 10 days after Trump made an analogous declare throughout his Sept. 10 debate with Harris, when he stated she “desires to do transgender operations on unlawful aliens which might be in jail.” We rated that Largely True.
The central declare stems from statements Harris made throughout her 2019 Democratic presidential major run in assist of gender-affirming care entry, together with for federal detainees.
Harris has not campaigned on this challenge in 2024 — and she or he and her marketing campaign have stated little about it in response to reporters’ questions on Trump’s claims.
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However when Baier requested her about it on Fox, Harris’ answered.
“I’ll comply with the regulation,” she stated. “And it’s a regulation that Donald Trump really adopted. You’re in all probability acquainted with now. It is a public report that below Donald Trump’s administration, these surgical procedures have been accessible on a medical necessity foundation, to individuals within the federal jail system.”
Federal regulation requires inmates to obtain entry to crucial medical care, and courts have discovered that this can embody medically crucial gender-affirming surgical procedure. Authorized obligations to supply this care have been additionally acknowledged by the Federal Bureau of Prisons below the Trump administration. Any efforts to categorically remove entry to gender-affirming surgical care would seemingly face authorized challenges.
The Bureau of Prisons’ coverage below the Biden administration lets prisoners request gender-affirming surgical procedure, however simply two federal prisoners have efficiently accessed these procedures and solely after multiyear authorized challenges, the primary in 2022.
PolitiFact might discover no file of immigration detainees receiving transgender surgical procedures. Steering from Immigration and Customs Enforcement requires individuals who have began hormone remedy to proceed to have entry and individuals who have to not be “assessed and handled.” Surgical procedure isn’t talked about. Stays in immigration detention amenities are usually quick.
Harris’ historical past on gender-affirming take care of federal detainees is extra nuanced than advert suggests
When Harris was California’s lawyer normal, she represented the California Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation because it sought to block a decrease courtroom order requiring the company to supply gender-affirming surgical procedure to a transgender inmate.
The inmate was finally paroled throughout the appeals course of making that case moot. However, as lawyer normal, Harris reached a 2015 settlement in an analogous case, main California to challenge new pointers and turn out to be the first state to supply restricted gender-affirming surgical procedures to inmates if deemed medically crucial.
“I had a number of purchasers that I used to be obligated to defend and signify and I couldn’t fireplace my purchasers,” Harris instructed reporters in 2019, when she was working for president and confronted questions on her representing the Division of Corrections in that case. “There have been sadly conditions that occurred the place my purchasers took positions that have been opposite to my beliefs. … However the backside line is the buck stops with me, and I take full accountability for what my workplace did.”
Harris stated she “labored behind the scenes to make sure that the Division of Corrections would enable transitioning inmates to obtain the medical consideration that they required, they wanted and deserved.” Based on the nonprofit information group CalMatters, 20 California inmates in state custody obtained gender-affirming surgical procedures from 2017 to 2022.
Harris’ 2020 Democratic major marketing campaign promoted her position in increasing entry to surgical procedures for California’s trans inmates.
She gave an interview to the Nationwide Middle for Transgender Equality Motion Fund’s founding director, Mara Keisling, on Oct. 4, 2019 — a clip of which Trump’s marketing campaign utilized in its advert.
“I made positive that they modified the coverage within the state of California so that each transgender inmate within the jail system would have entry to the medical care that they desired and wish,” Harris stated.
Harris stated one thing comparable in response to a 2019 American Civil Liberties Union candidate questionnaire.
“As President,” the questionnaire requested, “will you employ your government authority to make sure that transgender and nonbinary individuals who depend on the state for medical care — together with these in jail and immigration detention — could have entry to complete therapy related to gender transition, together with all crucial surgical care? If sure, how will you achieve this?”
Harris checked “sure” and wrote, “I assist insurance policies making certain that federal prisoners and detainees are in a position to get hold of medically crucial take care of gender transition, together with surgical care, whereas incarcerated or detained.”
Shortly earlier than the Sept. 10 Trump-Harris debate, Fox Information hosts requested Harris’ spokesperson Michael Tyler about Harris’ response to the ACLU’s query.
“That questionnaire, this isn’t what she is proposing, it’s not what she’s working on,” Tyler stated.
A number of courts have discovered gender-affirming surgical procedure to be medically crucial for prisoners
The U.S. Supreme Courtroom for the reason that Seventies has dominated that prisons are legally required to supply crucial medical care to inmates, or threat violating the Structure’s Eighth Modification, which prohibits merciless and weird punishment towards individuals accused or convicted of crimes. State and federal courts have additionally dominated in favor of inmates who sued for entry to gender-affirming care.
The medical group, together with main medical organizations such because the American Medical Affiliation take into account gender-affirming surgical procedure to be medically crucial well being care as a therapy for gender dysphoria or gender incongruence.
“I had one consumer describe ready for surgical procedure as excruciating ache,” stated Shawn Meerkamper, managing lawyer on the Transgender Legislation Middle, a civil-rights advocacy group. “These instances are simply stuffed with tales about individuals self harming, making an attempt self surgical procedure, making an attempt to take their very own lives… it is vitally a lot not beauty. It is extremely a lot not one thing that individuals pursue on a whim.”
Nonetheless, the variety of individuals affected by these insurance policies are fairly small — and the quantity of people that have sought and obtained this federally funded care is even smaller. The Federal Bureau of Prisons counts 2,261 transgender inmates in custody — about 1.4% of the overall federal jail inhabitants. And the two inmates who obtained gender-affirming surgical procedures did so after lengthy authorized battles.
Bureau of Jail insurance policies on the therapy of transgender inmates have shifted between administrations. However Harris was proper that the Trump administration additionally acknowledged the authorized obligations to supply gender-affirming care. The New York Occasions on Oct. 16 highlighted a 2018 Justice Division price range memo that famous the “statutory mandate to supply primary medical and psychological well being care” to prisoners and famous that “transgender offenders might require… surgical procedure” as a part of medical therapy.
The Bureau of Prisons below Trump issued a Transgender Offender Guide that referred to “hormone or different medical therapy” being supplied, however didn’t particularly point out surgical procedure.
The Biden administration’s Transgender Offender Guide says the bureau might take into account gender-affirming surgical procedure requests from transgender prisoners who’ve one yr of clear conduct. A council and medical specialists will take into account these requests, however not essentially approve them, the handbook says.
However specialists stated that finally, a White Home administration has little say over this matter — the courts have made the choice for them.
“The president doesn’t management prisoners’ entry to gender affirming care,” stated Wanda Bertram, communications strategist for the Jail Coverage Initiative, a legal justice reform nonprofit. “Courts have persistently upheld that individuals have a proper to such care in federal detention (jail and immigration), and anybody who’s president would, presumably, be certain by these rulings.”
What about transgender surgical procedures in immigration detention amenities?
The Trump advert didn’t specify what it meant by “unlawful aliens.” However once we requested Trump’s marketing campaign in regards to the declare, it pointed us to Harris’ feedback about incarcerated immigrants.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has detention facilities all through the nation the place noncitizens are detained. However PolitiFact discovered no proof on-line or in speaking with specialists of anybody receiving gender-affirming surgical procedure in immigration detention.
Neither had Bridget Crawford, the director of Legislation and Coverage at Immigration Equality, an LGBTQ+ and migrant targeted nonprofit.
“Immigration Equality has been working with LGBTQ immigrants for 30 years and isn’t conscious of any gender affirming surgical procedures ever being carried out for people in immigration detention,” Crawford stated. “Given the very restricted provision of healthcare in immigration detention, ICE will not be set as much as present surgical take care of transgender immigrants.”
Stays in immigration detention are usually quick — lower than 50 days on common, removed from sufficient time for an individual to be medically evaluated and permitted for a gender-affirming surgical process.
A Transgender Care Memorandum issued by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2015 says that “transgender detainees who have been already receiving hormone remedy when taken into ICE custody shall be supplied continued entry, and all transgender detainees will need to have entry … based mostly on medical want.” Surgical care isn’t talked about.
Our ruling
A Trump advert stated Harris “helps taxpayer-funded intercourse adjustments for prisoners and unlawful aliens.”
After representing California in a case that fought a courtroom order to supply such care in jail, Harris made quite a few statements throughout her run for president within the 2019 Democratic major run clarifying her place: She stated she favored entry to gender-affirming surgical procedure for individuals in prisons and immigration detention.
Harris has not campaigned on this challenge in 2024, however when requested about it Oct. 16, she stated, “I’ll comply with the regulation.”
Federal regulation requires that prisons present crucial medical care to inmates, and a number of other courts have dominated that gender-affirming care, together with surgical procedure, is included. Regardless of these courtroom rulings, entry to gender-affirming surgical procedure in prisons may be very restricted, and the variety of transgender prisoners in federal prisons who’ve obtained it’s minuscule — two. We discovered no file of gender-affirming surgical procedures being supplied in immigration detention.
The assertion is correct however wants clarification or extra data. We price it Largely True.
