JD Vance is not gay — and he really needs you to know that.
The Republican nominee for vice president continued to spread lies about transgender youth and gender-affirming care in a recent interview with gay conservative podcaster Tim Dillon, during which Vance bizarrely felt the need to assure viewers that he isn't attracted to men.
“I’m not a gay guy, but I’ve heard this from gay friends of mine…" Vance said, being interrupted by laughter from Dillon. He then went on to falsely say that gender-affirming care, a collection of practices that affirm LGBTQ+ identities, is "in some ways like the pharmaceutical answer to conversion therapy," a practice that attempts to erase LGBTQ+ identities.
"I’ve talked to this about gay friends who feel very personally affronted [by gender-affirming care]," Vance said. "They feel like if they were 14 years old, and maybe they’re confused … Would somebody have had them transition?"
The only LGBTQ+ friend of Vance's that has publicly spoken about gender-affirming care is Sofia Nelson, who rebuked him for supporting a ban against gender-affirming care for youth and accused him of targeting trans people to score political points even though Vance had previously supported Nelson's gender transition.
Gender-affirming care encompasses any combination of social, psychological, behavioral, and medical therapies that are meant to validate a person's gender identity. It can be as simple as someone changing their wardrobe and haircut, or seeing a talk therapist.
TheAmerican Medical Association, theAmerican Psychiatric Association, theAmerican Academy of Pediatrics, theAmerican Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, theWorld Medical Association, and theWorld Health Organization all agree that gender-affirming care isevidence-based and medically necessary not just for adults but minors as well.
On the other hand, "conversion therapy" is a universally-debunked practice that attempts to forcefully change the gender identity or sexual orientation of the patient, which has been compared to "torture" by its recipients and health care providers alike. It has been condemned by the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, American Psychological Association, American Medical Association, World Health Organization, and so on, which have called for conversion therapy to be banned.
Vance then claimed, without evidence, that gender-affirming care is purely a “profit-motivated entity [that] tries to manipulate government policy,” and that "people who are getting rich off this are also lobbying the American Medical Association." He did not address the countless other organizations and medical practitioners that support the care, nor the fact that most health care in the U.S. is for-profit.
Dillion also claimed in the conversation that those supporting trans youth want to "allow an eight-year-old to fully transition" or to let "a seven-year-old consent to a life-altering medical surgery." This is false — the most common form of gender-affirming medical care for trans minors are puberty blockers and hormone treatment, which are reversible and used to treat other conditions such as early onset puberty and certain types of cancer, according to the National Institute of Health.
Genital surgery is almost never performed on minors, and the minors who receive gender-affirming operations on their chests are overwhelming not transgender — in fact, 146 out of 151 (97 percent) breast reductions performed on American minors in 2019 were performed on cisgender males, according to a recent study in JAMA. Past reports have also found that cisgender teen girls get breast augmentations far more often than trans youth undergo gender-affirming chest surgeries.
All of this care is only administered in medical offices after rigorous screening, and virtually always with the consent of a parent or guardian.
And yet, despite being wrong about everything they discussed, Dillon had the audacity to say that those supporting trans health care are "not about logic."
