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(NewsNation) During the fourth Republican presidential debate on Wednesday, candidates disagreed on the appropriateness, or lack thereof, of transgender issues.
Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley argued over rules governing the use of restrooms by transgender students, while businessman Vivek Ramaswamy compared being trans to having a mental condition and former New Jersey Governor Christopher Christie argued that children may make decisions regarding gender-affirming care.
Both this debate and previous ones were missed by former President Donald Trump, who has so far maintained a sizable lead in the competition.
Christopher Christie
Despite his personal views on various forms of gender-affirming treatment, the former Governor of New Jersey stated that parents should be the ones deciding on a child’s health.
“Every family out there who is watching now, you start to turn over just a little bit of this authority. I get to make the decisions about my children, not anyone else. You’re not going to like the power they take from you next.”
Christie has made a number of contradictory remarks and actions toward LGBTQ Americans. He has vetoed a bill that would have made it easier for trans people to obtain birth certificates that align with their gender and has implemented protections for them in schools.
He vetoed legislation in 2012 that would have made same-sex marriages legal in New Jersey at the time. The next year, he decided not to challenge a court’s decision that permitted the marriages, effectively giving up on that battle.
Christie continued by making New Jersey the second state to forbid licensed professionals from attempting to convert queer teenagers through so-called conversion therapy.
He stated to the moderators on Wednesday that he supports “less state” as a Republican.
“Without the state telling them what those beliefs may be, we may enable families to teach beliefs that they believe in in their houses,” Christie said.
Vivek Ramaswamy
Ramaswamy reiterated the untrue assertion that “transgenderism is a mental health disorder” on Wednesday.
Trans identity is no longer listed as a mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which was revised by the American Psychiatric Association in 2012.
By comparing gender-affirming care for children with tobacco or drinking before the legal drinking age, he proposed banning “genital amputation and chemical castration.”
Nikki Haley
Haley and DeSantis debated so-called bathroom bills, or laws governing which restrooms transgender and gender non-conforming students are permitted to use.
DeSantis criticized Haley for vetoing one of these bills in South Carolina a number of years back.
Haley retorted that “We had maybe a few kids who were dealing with an issue, and I said, ‘We don’t need to bring government into this,’ when the issue was first brought to her attention ten years ago.” She continued, “Now, the problem has exploded.”
Haley remarked, “What I have always said is that boys go into boys’ bathrooms and girls into girls’ restrooms.”
Furthermore, she disapproved of the notion of students competing on sports teams that were assigned to a different gender than they were at birth.
Ron DeSantis
The former Governor of South Carolina, Haley, referred to DeSantis as a liar and made reference to a comment he had made during the 2018 member forum during their conversation.
According to a report by The Tampa Bay Times, the Republican Governor had stated that “bathroom wars” weren’t “a great use of our time.”
Florida now forbids transgender men and women from using restrooms and locker rooms designated for a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth.
DeSantis remarked, “I don’t believe men should be using the restrooms of young girls.” “I believe it to be wrong, and I believe we have every right to protect them.”
