They were just 59 words of the president's State of the Union -- a tiny sliver in a 62-minute speech. But the reality of Joe Biden's transgender agenda is much more vast and all-encompassing than anyone could dream. At a time of war, inflation, and crises from every direction, the White House is spending precious time fighting anyone who dares to believe that children shouldn't be allowed to mutilate their bodies or permanently sterilize themselves under age.
In Texas, where leaders have called this kind of gender transition "child abuse," the president has unleashed the full force of the United States government. While he's wary to take strong action against Vladimir Putin, Biden is more than willing to go to war against parents and communities who's only request on transgender "therapy" is that minors wait. To this president that represents "a cynical and dangerous campaign." The idea that Governor Greg Abbott (R-Texas) has asked state officials to open up child abuse investigations on cases like these is, Biden declared without irony, "government overreach at its worst." (This, of course, coming from a man who's forced Americans to inject foreign substances into their bodies.)
Biden's pot-kettle statement would have been outrageous enough on its own. But this administration, whose transgender obsession knows no bounds, refused to stop there. Instead, his HHS Secretary, Xavier Becerra, set in motion a series of guidelines outlining the "rights of transgender youth" and promised to take "immediate action" if those rights become threatened. "HHS is closely monitoring the situation in Texas," Becerra insisted, "and will use every tool at our disposal to keep Texans safe."
According to the White House, "These announcements make clear that rather than weaponizing child protective services against loving families, child welfare agencies should instead expand access to gender-affirming care for transgender children," the statement read. "Children, their parents, and their doctors should have the freedom to make the medical decisions that are best for each young person -- without politicians getting the way." (Naturally, this doesn't apply to COVID vaccinations.)
Meanwhile, the Texas initiative was already under fire from the Left, where legal challenges have already put Abbott's order on ice for now. Doing the far-Left's bidding, District Judge Amy Clark Meachum absurdly decided that children's access to these dangerous, unproven treatments are "constitutional rights" and demanded Texas's investigations to come to an immediate halt.
Roger Severino, who served in Donald Trump's HHS, has a hard time believing that this is where the president is devoting his efforts:
"If he truly cares about children, he will support them in sometimes difficult circumstances. You let nature take its course and you do not sterilize children before they have the capacity to make that sort of life-altering decision. Imagine a 12- or 13-year-old child put in a position to say whether or not they ever want to have kids of their own. Think about that... Even the leading transgender advocacy groups are saying you should wait until after 18 for the surgeries. That should also apply to puberty blockers, because we don't know all the full risks."
The bottom line, Severino insists, is protecting our children:
"Now this administration is ignoring that, and it has moved to make [gender transition surgeries and drugs] an essential health benefit in insurances on the exchanges under Obamacare. They're moving in April to issue a rule under an anti-discrimination provision to say that all insurance must cover it, and all doctors must perform these transgender surgeries that remove healthy, perfectly functioning reproductive organs. And there's no exclusion for children... So people need to be aware that our federal government is moving headlong on a crash course to do this -- when the states are now pushing back and the science does not support taking these risks."
In Europe, Severino points out, they've actually pulled back on these permanent surgeries for children because there have been so many devastating consequences. And yet here, our top doctor for HHS -- a man who identifies as a woman -- is on board with locking kids into a future of despair, poor health, and regret. But then, the Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center says, what do we expect? This is an ideologically-driven administration. Look at Becerra, he says:
"He didn't have a background in public health, yet he was still appointed to the top health position in the country as secretary of Health and Human Services. It made no sense. It is just inexcusable that he has been AWOL during the pandemic, yet laser-focused on LGBT issues, on abortion, on pushing back on the states that are working to protect kids."
As for Biden, says Severino:
"To think that the president of the United States had to dedicate time to discuss this issue when there are so many things going on in the country, it shows that he is playing to his base... And unfortunately, despite whatever pretensions that Biden put out as being some sort of a moderate, he is not. He is beholding to the far-Left of his party -- and especially on the social issues. The culture war continues, and in fact, it's gotten worse. He has not united us. He has driven wedges, and children should not be pawns in this fight. Yet they've become so, and that is tragic. This is not a game. These are real children's lives that are at stake."
This column originally appeared here.
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