Originally Authored at TheFederalist.com
Vice President Kamala Harris told Fox News host Bret Baier she would “follow the law” when asked about her support for prisoner “sex change” surgeries. According to the law under the Biden-Harris administration, trans-identifying prisoners could be entitled to taxpayer dollars for the procedures.
On Wednesday, Baier presented Harris with an ad from former President Donald Trump’s campaign airing the then-California senator’s endorsement of trans surgeries for prison inmates. During a sit-down interview with the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) in 2019, Harris spoke about her time as attorney general when she “made sure that they changed the policy in the state of California so that every transgender inmate in the prison system would have access to the medical care that they desired and need,” including requested surgery.
“Are you still in support of using taxpayer dollars to help prison inmates or detained illegal aliens to transition to another gender?” Baier asked.
“I will follow the law,” she said, “and it’s a law that Donald Trump actually followed.”
“The Trump aides say that he never advocated for that prison policy,” Baier said, “and no gender transition surgeries happened during his presidency.”
“Well, you got to take responsible for what happened in your administration,” the vice president said.
“Yeah, no surgeries happened in his presidency,” Baier responded.
“It’s in black and white,” said Harris.
“Would you still advocate for using taxpayer dollars for gender reassignment surgeries?” Baier asked.
“I would follow the law,” she said.
To “follow the law” under Harris’ administration means yes.
Two years ago, the Department of Justice (DOJ) under the Biden-Harris administration struck a settlement with an Illinois inmate who became the first federal prisoner to receive approval for a tax-funded surgery while federally incarcerated.
Cristina Nichole Iglesias’ three-year lawsuit against the Bureau of Prisons concluded under the Biden-Harris administration in 2022 with Iglesias receiving a procedure last year. Iglesias filed the lawsuit in September 2020, when Trump was still in office, but did not settle with the government until Harris was vice president.
“The settlement and court order even required BOP to pay for any agreed-upon surgeries and post-operative care if Ms. Iglesias left federal custody,” according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which represented the plaintiff.
“Of the many falsehoods, obfuscations, and pivots by Kamala last night,” wrote conservative journalist Julie Kelly on X, “her claim that transgender surgeries at federal prisons started during the Trump administration [is] a full-blown lie.”
On Thursday, Fox News reported on the case of a death row inmate in California, who also received a tax-funded “sex change” surgery credited to the work of Harris. Now identifying as a female, 45-year-old Skylar DeLeon, who was given a death sentence in 2009, wrote in a letter to the Washington Free Beacon published this week that he underwent a “gender affirming surgery and breast augmentation” in April last year. DeLeon had previously gone by the name John Jacobson Jr., and is known as the “Yacht Killer” for his crimes.
“California began offering hormonal treatments for prisoners who claim to be experiencing gender dysphoria before Harris was elected as California’s attorney general,” the Free Beacon reported, “and Jacobson said in his letter to the Free Beacon that he started receiving hormone treatment when he arrived at San Quentin in 2009. But the state’s treatment of transgender inmates changed radically during her tenure.”
Harris has also endorsed providing taxpayer-funded surgeries for illegal migrants to attempt a gender change. In 2019, Harris about the issue in an ACLU questionnaire.
“As President will you use your executive authority to ensure that transgender and non-binary people who rely on the state for medical care — including those in prison and immigration detention — will have access to comprehensive treatment associated with gender transition, including all necessary surgical care? If yes, how will you do so?” the question read.
Harris said, “yes.”
“It is important that transgender individual who rely on the state for care receive the treatment they need, which includes access to treatment associated with gender transition,” she wrote.