The Dispatch: More from CWR...

Trump attacks Harris on her support of tax-funded transgender surgeries for prisoners

Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris arrives to speak on stage during the final day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center on Aug. 22, 2024, in Chicago. (Credit: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 14, 2024 / 10:47 am (CNA).

With Election Day less than a month away, former president Donald Trump is running campaign advertisements in swing states that criticize Vice President Kamala Harris over her support for taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries for prisoners.

“It’s hard to believe, but it’s true,” a narrator says in one advertisement while showing Harris standing next to Sam Brinton, a former Department of Energy official who is male but is wearing women’s clothing.

“Even the liberal media was shocked Kamala [Harris] supports taxpayer-funded sex changes for prisoners and illegal aliens,” the narrator continues, adding: “… Kamala’s for they/them. President Trump is for you.”

The advertisement features Harris’ response to a 2019 questionnaire sent out by the American Civil Liberties Union in which she promises to use executive authority to ensure that people in prisons — including immigrants charged with entering the country illegally — can obtain gender transition surgeries through government-provided medical care.

“I support policies ensuring that federal prisoners and detainees are able to obtain medically necessary care for gender transition, including surgical care, while incarcerated or detained,” Harris said.

“As [California] attorney general, I pushed the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide gender transition surgery to state inmates,” she added.

The advertisement also includes a brief clip from a 2019 interview with the National Center for Transgender Equality Fund in which Harris doubles down on the position.

A second Trump advertisement out this month touches on the same subject and details a case in which convicted murderer Shiloh Quine, who is male, reached a legal settlement with then-California Attorney General Harris to obtain government-funded transgender surgery while in prison.

“He murdered a father of three, sentenced to life in prison,” a narrator says. “Kamala Harris pushed to use tax dollars to pay for his sex change.”

Harris initially represented the Department of Corrections in court, which was refusing to pay for the transgender surgery. However, she ultimately agreed to a settlement in 2015, which required the state to finance the operation.

The settlement made California the first state to pay for a prisoner’s transgender surgery, the Associated Press reported at the time.

In a 2019 news conference Harris said she only defended the department’s policy because she “was obligated” to do so as the attorney general. She said there were times when her clients “took positions that were contrary to [her] beliefs” but that she “worked behind the scenes” to pressure the department to change its policies.

In October 2015, the California Department of Corrections set new guidelines that guarantee government-funded transgender surgeries for prisoners who seek those operations.

Where do the voters stand?

Although public polling on taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries is limited, one poll from America’s New Majority Project this year found that a large majority of Americans oppose tax money paying for those operations.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans surveyed said they do not believe taxpayer-funded health care programs should be required to fund transgender surgeries. Nearly 60% of those surveys went further, saying they would support a law that prohibits tax money from funding those surgeries.

Another poll of likely voters conducted this month showed that a majority of respondents supported a federal ban on transgender procedures for children.

The poll, conducted by Noble Predictive Insights, found that 59% of voters surveyed support a ban, which includes 82% of Republicans, 36% of Democrats, and 56% of independents.

However, issues related to transgenderism and gender ideology rank low on the list of priorities for most Americans heading to the ballot box, according to public polls.

A Gallup poll released last week found that “transgender rights” was the least important issue to registered voters surveyed when presented with 22 election issues.

When asked whether an issue was extremely important, very important, somewhat important, or not important, only two issues were not viewed as extremely or very important by the majority of reporters — climate change and transgender rights.

Only 18% of voters surveyed said transgender rights was “extremely important” and another 20% said the issue was “very important.” Another 25% said the issue was “somewhat important” and 36% said it was not important.

The top issues were the economy, which 90% of voters said was extremely important or very important, and democracy in the United States, which 85% of voters ranked as extremely important or very important.

Other top issues included terrorism and national security, Supreme Court justice picks, immigration, education, and health care.

Apart from transgender rights and climate change, other issues ranking lower on the priority list were trade with other nations, relations with China, race relations, and relations with Russia.


If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!

Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.


About Catholic News Agency 12603 Articles
Catholic News Agency (www.catholicnewsagency.com)

20 Comments

  1. Things will get really bad of Harris wins the election. The Dem party is now openly anti Christian. See how the Dem governor of Michigan mocks the celebration of Communion. It is redolent of what the French organizers of the Olympics did with the Last Supper. The anti-Christian agenda is global. See this:
    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/10/10/video-michigan-governor-gretchen-whitmer-mocks-catholics-by-feeding-leftist-influencer-doritos-on-her-knees/

    Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer Mocks Catholics by Feeding Leftist Influencer Doritos on Her Knees

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/10/12/michigan-bishops-protest-gov-whitmers-mockery-holy-communion/
    Michigan Bishops Protest Gov. Whitmer’s Mockery of Holy Communion

  2. The President of the United States is also Commander in Chief of our military and has control over our nuclear arsenal. Any Catholic who votes for an imbecile as President bears responsibility for any catastrophic decisions that affect the lives of millions..

  3. Harris is a fraud, and people are beginning to admit what’s before their eyes.

    The Las Vegas Review-Journal, by no means a right-wing mouthpiece, recently endorsed Trump.

    Their article explaining their stance was brutal — and spot-on. Here’s a chunk of it:

    A vapid, unpopular vice president in an unpopular administration who flamed out spectacularly in her 2020 run for the Oval Office was within weeks recast as a purveyor of “joy” and an amalgamation of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Mahatma Gandhi.

    Ms. Harris next began disavowing a host of her previous policy positions. A San Francisco leftist who sympathized with the defund-police movement, raised the prospect of dismantling Immigration and Customs Enforcement and supported sanctuary cities now passes herself off as a tough-on-crime border hawk.

    A progressive once named the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate and who favored abolishing the filibuster, packing the Supreme Court and limiting political speech now shape-shifts into a defender of “democracy” and the nation’s institutions.

    A key component in an administration that openly sought to put fossil fuel providers out of business now claims to be a proponent of fracking.

    A candidate who cast the tie-breaking vote for the spending package that lit the fuse to rampant inflation, devastating American families, now claims to represent the interests of the middle class.

    A politician who says she would have done nothing differently over the past four years wants voters to believe she is an agent for “change.”

  4. I know so many people, many of them Catholic, who are opposed to everything Kamala Harris stands for, but they find Pres. Trump “uncouth” or “a womanizer”, and/or they don’t approve of how he responded when the MAGA extremists stormed the U.S. Capitol building. So these folks plan to give away their vote to an obscure long-shot candidate with no chance of earning even a few thousand votes. They say that they are “standing by their Christian principles.” I think they are helping VP Harris win the election and inflict Americans with unbridled abortion and deviant sexuality rights that we will have to pay for out of our taxes or go to jail, and that our children will be taught (online and in school) are good policies. I think we need to be wise as serpents and gentle as doves, and keep in mind that Saint Peter was uncouth and impetuous, had a big mouth and said a lot of stupid stuff, and even betrayed his Lord–but He was chosen by God to be the First Pope, and died a martyr for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. “Polite” doesn’t always mean “righteous.” Decades ago, Mad Magazine had a feature about so-called movie and TV villains who were always polite and civil, while the “good guys” (cops, secret agents, etc.) were often rude, willing to break the law to help people, and womanizers, too! Pres. Trump is definitely the “good guy”, and VP Harris is definitely the “villain” in our current election.

    • Trump is accused of being a womanizer. Yet a very strong case could be made that Harris slept her way to higher office with politically powerful men. Harris was Willy Brown’s slut in San Francisco and was rewarded with positions as District Atty in San Francisco and then City Attorney. She was appointed to lucrative oversight committees which were “no-show” jobs – again because she was Willy Brown’s whore (Willy Brown was a married man at the time). I don’t want any Catholic lecturing the rest of us about Trump’s morality until a full display of Harris’ life is also up for examination. Look at the guy she’s married to now – another powerful man who is (was) a partner in a law firm who made millions. Yet her husband is reasonably accused of the physical abuse of a woman in public. Where’s the moral outrage on the part of Catholics? There is none.

      Harris hasn’t worked a day in her life in the private sector. She’s always had jobs at the taxpayer’s expense and even these jobs were garnered because she used her sexual wiles to win the favor of powerful men. I dare any journalist to ask her how many abortions she’s had.

    • This is very good Ms. Whitlock. I had not thought of this. You are right. The so-called uncouth, deplorable, imbecile, etc. is our only hope now. Let us pray that Catholics do not help Harris win by not voting for DT. Just a simple comparison between what he achieved in his four years in office and what this Biden-Harris administration has done in a similar amount of time should be sufficient to make us vote for DT

  5. The “meat” of the story matters not. The headline says it all. “Trump Attacks”… In a forum based on beliefs the CWR and MR Arnold have reduced the message to a mere street brawl. Yet, is it presumptuous to assume that the CWR and MR Arnold have both led sheltered lives where brawling is not a common occurrence? As so common in reporting, there is the trend to embellish using a tone of ruffians and rap artists. Trump Can you see and feel my extreme displeasure with the childish Arnold and the CWR for stooping so low in the reporting of important events and opinions of apolitical figures. Rise up CWR to level where you once stood. The gutters are no place to proclaim our faith. reach down the hand of information to lift your reader not join them.

    • You will have to criticize National Catholic Register too, since they, along with CWR, also run news from Catholic News Agency. NCR also uses the same title, so it likely is part of a prearranged contractual deal. CNA syndicates its news gathering, investigation and writing, and entities like CWR and NCR contract to print CNA articles.

      Why is the headline a stooping? Perhaps the well-versed or gifted writer would choose a word other than ‘attack,’ but all readers of the article learn that the ‘attack’ was not literal, not pugilistic, not in any way comparable to a fist or gun fight. It was simply verbal. One tool of the trade of journalism is to choose words for emphasis. The author surely followed that rule.

      What word would we choose to describe the hard-earned tax dollars of citizens being used, against their will and against natural law, to mutilate the sex organs of criminals? Such surgery in and of itself is an injustice against God and against all men. Why should any taxpayer be compelled to pay for it?

      What word would be appropriate to demonstrate the outraged indignation of the ‘attacked’ and unjustly taxed citizen? What else (except by the ballot) can the taxpayer do but use strong language against such a base, unnatural, and unjust practice?

    • Sadly the reality is that in a very few weeks we will either have a president elect who supports parental rights to protect children from mutilation or one who does not.
      It’s not just going to be inmates castrated on the public’s dollar in a Democrat administration. I don’t care for gutters either but it seems a fitting place for this sort of barbarism.

    • politics is like that; bullying on steroids funded by billions in contributions

      I took a Sociology class once and one of the sayings I found doing some research for a paper was “Politics is too serious a subject to be left to the politicians.” (I may have the wording slightly off)

    • Surgical castration of sex offenders is actually an option in our state. At least until the courts strike it down.
      You know it’s really sad that woke cosmetic surgery for felons is being supported by politicians but some correctional facilities today still lack any drug rehab programs.

  6. funny how this is all about Harris when it was loser trump who suggested this first when he was in the white house. you people need to get your facts straight. for one thing, i dont want a porn fanatic loser in the white house.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

All comments posted at Catholic World Report are moderated. While vigorous debate is welcome and encouraged, please note that in the interest of maintaining a civilized and helpful level of discussion, comments containing obscene language or personal attacks—or those that are deemed by the editors to be needlessly combative or inflammatory—will not be published. Thank you.


*