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The ad features former and current nonbinary and transgender members of the Biden-Harris administration.
Former President Donald Trump’s latest anti-transgender attack ad against Vice President Kamala Harris has drawn sharp criticism from LGBTQ+ advocates.
The ad, posted to Trump’s social media channels Friday, claims that Harris supports taxpayer-funded gender-affirming surgeries for undocumented immigrants and prisoners, portraying her advocacy for transgender rights as extreme. The ad includes images of former and current nonbinary and transgender members of the Biden-Harris administration, including Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine, and ends with the tagline, “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”
GLAAD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis condemned the ad in a statement to The Advocate.
“This reeks of desperation and campaign malpractice,” Ellis said, pointing out that voters have “repeatedly rejected candidates who target transgender people and have strongly stated that they want extremists out of our doctor’s offices and private lives.” Ellis emphasized that transgender people are integral to communities across the nation — family members, neighbors, and colleagues—who, like everyone, want to be themselves and live safely. She criticized the ad for using divisive rhetoric instead of addressing the country’s challenges. “Extremists would rather deploy divisive strategies like this than defend how they stripped the right to choose, allowed COVID to kill millions, and wrecked the economy,” Ellis added.
Press relations manager for Advocates for Trans Equality Ash Orr told The Advocate in a statement that the ad uses “tired rhetoric about trans people, unsupported by actual facts. These attacks on our community cause real harm to our physical, mental, and emotional well-being.” Orr pointed out that “health care is a basic human right, and the Constitution guarantees that incarcerated individuals receive appropriate, standard-of-care treatment. This includes gender-affirming care, which is recognized as evidence-based, best-practice medicine by every major medical association.”
The false narrative around Harris’s stance began to gain traction after CNN ran a report on September 9 highlighting Harris’s response to a 2019 American Civil Liberties Union survey. The survey asked whether Harris would ensure that transgender people in state custody, including federal prisoners and detained immigrants, would have access to gender-affirming health care. Harris answered “yes” and emphasized the importance of providing medically necessary care to transgender people in government custody. Her answers aligned with her actions as California’s attorney general when she supported a settlement in Shiloh Heavenly Quine v. Beard in 2015, a case that allowed a transgender inmate to receive gender-affirming surgery.
The CNN report, which framed her response as “liberal,” sparked another round of right-wing attacks. During the first 2024 presidential debate between Harris and the former president, Trump falsely claimed that Harris supported “transgender operations on illegal aliens in prison.” His inflammatory remarks during the debate also included the wild, unsubstantiated assertion that Haitian immigrants with legal status in Springfield, Ohio, were “eating the dogs and cats” of American citizens — claims that were immediately fact-checked and debunked by moderators.
Amid these distortions, the reality of Harris’s position is straightforward. In 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Estelle v. Gamble that denying necessary medical care to prisoners violates the Eighth Amendment.
The court has found that federal law mandates that prisoners receive adequate medical care, and numerous subsequent federal court rulings have established that gender-affirming care falls under this legal obligation. Medical experts have consistently underscored the necessity of such care. The American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics all agree that gender-affirming health care — including hormone therapy, mental health support, and surgeries — is essential, evidence-based care for transgender patients.
Despite attempts to generate fear, public opinion on transgender rights and health care tells a different story.
According to a 2024 GLAAD voterpoll, 53 percent of registered and likely voters say they would oppose any political candidate who frequently discusses restricting health care access and sports participation for transgender youth. A significant 81 percent of likely 2024 voters, 83 percent of swing voters, and even 73 percent of Trump voters agree that decisions about health care for transgender youth should be left to parents. Voters are also overwhelmingly united in their frustration with politicians who focus on banning transgender health care rather than tackling critical issues like inflation and health care costs. The survey showed that 76 percent of likely voters, including 82 percent of swing voters, believe Republicans should shift focus to economic issues instead of limiting women’s rights and transgender health care.
“Former President Donald Trump’s latest ad serves as a convenient distraction to the real issues Americans are facing, like the rising cost of living and inadequate access to health care,” Orr said, adding, “It is both irresponsible and misleading for anti-trans politicians like former President Trump to suggest that providing lawful, dignified health care is wrong.”
Ellis emphasized that Trump’s ad demonstrates how “afraid” extremists are of the rising tide of LGBTQ+ visibility and acceptance. “LGBTQ people are resilient and creative, and our visibility and voting power is undeniable,” Ellis said. “Ads like this prove extremists are afraid and aware that LGBTQ acceptance is on the rise, and there’s no turning back.”
