Donald Trump had recently finished a familiar riff about banning gender transition surgery for children when the former president, speaking to an audience of Evangelical voters, moved on to something new: a policy that would affect transgender adults.
“I will ban all taxpayer funding for sex or gender transitions at any age,” said Trump, receiving thunderous applause at the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference in Washington last month. The Republican leader, who moments earlier had also pledged to reinstate a ban on transgender men and women serving in the military, paused for several seconds to soak in the crowd’s adulation.
It’s the kind of moment — and the type of policy — increasingly common on the GOP presidential campaign trail this year.
They are. Namely for poor people, veterans, government employees. Basically people who the government provides healthcare for. My bottom surgery was partially subsidized through the ACA as I was unemployed at the time and because it’s a medically necessary procedure (according to the AMA and APA) that I’d been pursuing for years.
As a complete aside, many, many years ago, before the internet was really a thing, and trans people were not nearly as visible, a friend once told me about a friend of theirs who was getting “bottom surgery” and, because that was literally the first time I’d ever heard that term, I had concocted an image in my head of like, a butthole widening or something, you know, to help him become a better bottom. It’s been 30+ years and they still make fun of me for that.
This is the best interpretation ive ever heard and I will now introduce it to my trans masc friend.