Trans surgery ban for children is ‘close to sinful’, says Joe Biden

Joe Biden has described efforts to block children from transgender medical treatments as “close to sinful”.

The US president said that federal laws should be passed to protect transgender rights as he hit out at Ron DeSantis’s restrictions in Florida.

The Florida governor is set to enact a measure banning transgender medical interventions in the state for under-18s, which Mr Biden called “cruel”, in a rare interview set to be broadcast on Monday night.

“What’s going on in Florida is, as my mother would say, close to sinful. It’s just terrible what they’re doing,” Mr Biden told The Daily Show.

“It’s not like a kid wakes up one morning and says, ‘You know, I decided I wanted to become a man or want to become a woman’ or ‘I want to change’. I mean, what are they thinking about here? They’re human beings. They love. They have feelings. They have inclinations.

“It just, to me, is, I don’t know… It’s cruel.”

He told host Kal Penn, who previously worked in the Barack Obama administration, that the way to combat such laws was by passing legislation in Congress – just as Mr Biden did last year when his administration codified same-sex marriage rights.

Mr Biden said: “It’s cruel, and 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 has repeatedly made clear his opinions on the issue. Hosting a number of trans activists at the White House late last year, he said it was “immoral” for Republican states to block children’s access to transgender treatments.

The Biden administration signed an executive order to enhance protections for transgender children and take steps to ban conversion therapy.

Meanwhile, Jill Biden was criticised by some Republicans last week for presenting an award to a transgender woman on International Women’s Day:

The president’s comments came as an unprecedented number of measures have been introduced in state legislatures this year seeking to restrict LGBT rights.

The proposed bills cover a wide range of policies, including some that seek to restrict transgender people from competing on sports teams or using bathrooms that align with their gender identity.

In the interview, Mr Biden also affirmed his support for same-sex marriage, describing an epiphany when he was young after seeing two “well-dressed men” kissing outside an office building in Delaware.

“I’ll never forget – I turned and looked at my dad. He said, ‘Joey, it’s simple. They love each other’,” he said.