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Under Donald Trump’s administration, trans inmates had access to the same medical care that his campaign is attacking Kamala Harris for supporting.
On Monday, the Harris-Walz campaign issued a sharp response to former President Donald Trump’s latest attack ads focused on transgender people, accusing him of hypocritically distorting Vice President Kamala Harris’s stance on gender-affirming care. Trump’s campaign has spent millions on ads that have aired more than 30,000 times, claiming Harris supports taxpayer-funded gender-affirming surgeries for those incarcerated, even though Trump’s own administration upheld similar policies. In recent weeks, these ads, shown during NFL and college football broadcasts, have portrayed Harris as extreme on the issue of gender-affirming care for incarcerated transgender individuals.
However, as highlighted in a Monday segment on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, the Trump administration provided similar care to transgender inmates under federal law during his presidency.
Cohost Jonathan Lemire referenced a New York Times report that exposed Trump’s Bureau of Prisons for following the same federal guidelines for transgender health care that the former president is now criticizing. In 2018, the bureau issued a memo stating that under federal law, prisons were obligated to offer medical care, including hormone therapy and gender-affirming surgeries, to inmates — these treatments are medically accepted as necessary for those with gender dysphoria. While Trump’s administration added a higher threshold for surgeries, Lemire noted the policy remained in place.
“Trump appointees at the Bureau of Prisons provided an array of gender-affirming treatments, including hormone therapy, for a small group of inmates,” Lemire said.
Mika Brzezinski added, “Not only was it a Trump policy, they actually looked at that policy and added wording to it. So it’s not like they didn’t know they had that policy where prisoners can receive gender-affirming care.”
Gender-affirming care is widely recognized as medically necessary by major medical organizations, including the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association. These organizations have affirmed that treatments such as hormone therapy and surgeries are critical for individuals with gender dysphoria, helping prevent serious mental health issues like depression and suicide. The U.S. Supreme Court has also ruled that withholding necessary medical care, including gender-affirming treatments, violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
Joe Scarborough called the attack ads hypocritical, pointing out, “These are Donald Trump’s documents from the Justice Department. ... This is what Donald Trump’s Justice Department sent to Congress talking about gender-affirming care that inmates would need.” He expressed confusion about the Harris campaign’s lack of pushback against the deluge of ads. “For the life of me, I don’t understand how the Harris campaign allows 30,000 commercials to run on NFL games ... and then they’re going, ‘We don’t think this ad is having an impact,’” Scarborough said.
Communications director for the Harris-Walz campaign, Michael Tyler, addressed the attack in response to the hosts’ questioning. Tyler pointed out that Harris had already spoken on the issue during her interview with Fox News host Bret Baier last week, emphasizing that Harris, like Trump’s administration did in this regard, is committed to upholding the law.
“The vice president spoke to this when she sat down with Bret Baier, calling out exactly the point that you’ve been making: that not only will she follow the law as president, as she has done as vice president, but this is exactly what the Trump administration itself was doing when they were in power,” Tyler said. “The reason that they’re spending millions of dollars in this misleading attack is the fact that they don’t have a candidate who is up for the job. In the final stretch of the campaign… you’ve seen him over the course of the weekend, where he gets up on the stage and, instead of offering his closing argument as his campaign said, he was going to talk about Arnold Palmer’s manhood, or goes again on Fox News and talks about geese and cats and dogs. They don’t have a candidate who’s up to the task in the final stretch.”
Harris addressed Trump’s hypocrisy during her interview with Baier, pointing out that gender-affirming care was provided to inmates under Trump’s administration as well. “I will follow the law, and it’s a law that Donald Trump actually followed,” Harris said. “I think [Trump] spent $20 million on those ads trying to create a sense of fear in the voters because he actually has no plan in this election that is about focusing on the needs of the American people.”
She added. “Twenty million dollars on that ad, on an issue that, as it relates to the biggest issues that affect the American people, it’s really quite remote. And again, his policy was no different.”
Despite the relatively small number of transgender inmates in federal custody — around 1,200 out of 145,000 — Trump’s campaign has fixated on this issue.
Data supports the notion that anti-transgender messaging may not be a winning strategy for Trump. A 2024 GLAAD voter poll found that a majority of voters oppose political attacks on transgender rights. The survey revealed that 53 percent of registered voters said they would vote against candidates who focus on restricting transgender health care or banning transgender athletes from sports. Additionally, 81 percent of voters—including 73 percent of Trump supporters—believe that families and doctors, not politicians, should make decisions about transgender healthcare for minors.
Experts recently toldThe Advocate about the effectiveness behind anti-trans ads this election cycle, noting that while these ads may resonate with Trump’s base, they risk alienating moderate voters. Andrew Flores, an associate professor at American University, said that campaigns focusing on trans issues have historically failed to win elections. “It is not entirely clear that this is a winning strategy ... much of this is a gamble, and I’m not convinced it’s a good bet,” Flores said.
Tyler reinforced that the Harris-Walz campaign remains focused on presenting real solutions for the American people while Trump continues to rely on divisive tactics. “What this campaign is going to do is be clear-eyed about the Vice President’s vision, and we’re going to continue to put Donald Trump’s nonsense front and center in front of the American people,” Tyler said.” So whether they are hiding their candidate or not, we are going to make sure that he is exposed over the course of the final 15 days of this campaign.”
