Biden blasts DeSantis-backed ban on transgender affirming care for minors as 'sinful'
President Biden attacked a Florida ban on gender-affirming care for minors as "cruel" and "sinful" during an appearance on 'The Daily Show.'
President Biden ramped up attacks on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a clip of a new interview Monday without naming him, calling the state's actions regarding transgender youth"close to sinful."
Florida's medical boards voted to ban puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and gender-affirming surgeries on children last November.
This follows a parental rights' bill the governor signed earlier in the year banning teachers from giving classroom instruction on "sexual orientation" or "gender identity" in kindergarten through third grade.
President Biden attacked Florida's response to transgender youth issues in a new interview with former Obama aide Kal Penn, one of several left-wing voices who's been guest-hosting "The Daily Show" in recent weeks.
President Biden calls the Florida ban on gender-affirming medical care 'close to sinful' in a new interview. (CBS/Paramount/YouTube/TheDailyShow)
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"What's going on in Florida is, as my mother would say, close to sinful. I mean it's just terrible what they're doing," Biden said.
"It's not like a kid [just] wakes up one morning and says ,'You know, I want to become a man' or ‘I want to become a woman.’ What are they thinking about here? They're human beings, they love, they have feelings, they have inclinations," Biden said.
He suggested the laws were "cruel" while calling on Congress to pass legislation to protect transgender youth, similar to laws on same-sex marriage.
President Joe Biden speaks during the annual House Democrats Issues Conference at the Hyatt Regency Hotel March 1, 2023 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
"It's just to me… it's cruel. The way we do it is we make sure we pass legislation like we passed on same-sex marriage. You mess with that, you're breaking the law, and you're going to be held accountable," the president warned.
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The White House has ramped up attacks on the Republican governor, who has been fueling 2024 buzz with stops in Nevada and Iowa last week.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre blasted DeSantis's "anti-woke" agenda on Friday, saying his policies were actually about "hate" instead of "protecting freedoms."
White House press secretary Karine Jean Pierre and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. (Getty Images)
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DeSantis said he would approve of a ban on sex-change surgeries leading up to the medical boards' vote.
"When they say gender-affirming care, what they mean a lot of times is… you're castrating a young boy, you're sterilizing a young girl, you're doing mastectomies for these very young girls. And here's the thing, what our guidance pointed to, and the Surgeon General did a great job, for these young kids, 80% of the cases resolve themselves as they grow up. And so you're doing things that are permanently altering them, and then they're not going to be able to reverse that," he said on a recent podcast.
The Florida Agency for Health Care responded to the White House's remarks following publication of this report.
"The ‘gender-affirming’ model pushed by the Biden Administration is decades behind other developed countries, including Sweden and most recently Norway," Florida Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Jason Weida said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "What is ‘sinful’ is the establishment pushing harmful surgeries and treatment with long-term effects on minors with no accountability or transparency.
"Last year, the Agency conducted a thorough review of several services promoted by the Federal Government to treat gender dysphoria and found that these services – sex reassignment surgery, cross-sex hormones, and puberty blockers – are not consistent with widely accepted professional medical standards and are experimental and investigational with the potential for harmful long term effects."