Under a Harris presidency, the push to broaden access to gender transition surgeries, as advanced by President Biden, is expected to continue, notwithstanding her earlier decision as California attorney general to reject a similar request from a prison inmate.
When Harris was the California Attorney General from 2011 to 2017, she drew backlash for denying an incarcerated inmate, Michelle Lael-Norsworthy, access to gender transition surgery. Norsworthy was sentenced to 17 years behind bars in 1987 for killing an acquaintance outside a bar.
At the time, Harris’ office contended the surgery was not necessary because the prison system was already providing adequate so-called gender-affirming care through hormone therapy and other treatments. In April 2015, however, a federal judge overruled Harris’ rejection of the procedure and sided with Norsworthy, stating the surgery was medically necessary to remedy the inmate’s psychological suffering.
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Harris later walked back her decision when confronted on the 2019 presidential campaign trail when she was one of the Democratic candidates, saying she takes “full responsibility” for what her office did.
“I was, as you are rightly pointing out, the attorney general of California for two terms, and I had a host of clients that I was obligated to defend and represent, and I couldn’t fire my clients, and there are unfortunately situations that occurred where my clients took positions that were contrary to my beliefs,” she said at the time during a news conference at Howard University. “And it was an office with a lot of people who would do the work on a daily basis, and do I wish that sometimes they would have personally consulted me before they wrote the things that they wrote? Yes, I do. But the bottom line is, the buck stops with me, and I take full responsibility for what my office did.”
Meanwhile, Harris also recently hired a senior adviser with a history of sexist messages online mocking women and gay people as well as seemingly criticizing Harris on social media during her failed presidential campaign in 2019.
The Harris campaign announced earlier this week it hired Kamau M. Marshall, who has deleted thousands of old posts this week as 2024 senior adviser after he previously held positions as Joe Biden’s strategic communications director in 2020, a senior adviser for the Biden-Harris campaign and was formerly a senior adviser to Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona.
However, Harris’ track record has otherwise remained steadfastly progressive. During her AG tenure, Harris also refused to endorse Proposition 8, which passed with more than half of the state’s support, and outlawed gay marriage from the California constitution. It was later overturned in court.
And last month, under the Biden-Harris administration, health officials urged an international transgender health nonprofit to omit the age limit in its guidelines for transgender surgical procedures for adolescents — and succeeded — according to the unsealed court documents.
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LGBTQ flag. (Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Daily News via Getty Images)
The documents, first reported on by The New York Times, revealed that staff for Rachel Levine, assistant secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services, pushed the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) to drop the age minimum requirement altogether to avoid seeing conservative lawmakers work to put such age restrictions into law.
After publication, the White House told Fox: “The Administration does not support surgery for minors.”
But the White House has since expressed support for gender transition surgeries for children, according to news reports.
“We continue to fight state and national bans on gender-affirming care, which represents a continuum of care, and respect the role of parents, families, and doctors — not politicians — in these decisions. Gender-affirming surgeries are typically reserved for adults, and we believe they should be,” White House Domestic Policy Council director Neera Tanden told The 19th, a gender and politics advocacy nonprofit newsroom.
After President Biden abruptly suspended his re-election campaign last week and endorsed VP Harris, LGBTQ and transgender advocacy groups rushed to endorse her, too.
“Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE) is proud to announce our endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris for the presidency,” the organization said in a statement. “Since taking office as our nation’s first woman of color Vice President, Harris has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to advancing the well-being of the transgender community.
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U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at her Presidential Campaign headquarters in Wilmington, DE, U.S., July 22, 2024. (Erin Schaff/Pool via REUTERS)
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“Throughout her vice presidency, Kamala Harris has collaborated with President Biden to lay a foundation for strong support of transgender Americans. The Biden-Harris administration has been the most pro-equality in our nation’s history, implementing significant measures since their inauguration.”
The Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ advocacy group in the U.S., also joined in and endorsed Harris in a lengthy statement.
“Vice President Kamala Harris is a trailblazer and has been a champion for LGBTQ+ equality for decades: from leading the fight in San Francisco against hate crimes and her work in California to end the so-called gay and transgender “panic defense” to her early support for marriage equality and her leadership serving as our Vice President.
Fox News Digital’s Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.
