Trump’s restricting gender-affirming care for minors — Both sides in Las Cruces react
Gender-affirming care is currently legal in New Mexico. Now with President Trump's new executive order to restrict gender-affirming care for those under 19 years old, LGBTQ groups and Republicans have strong reactions to it.
On Tuesday, the President signed an order saying that the federal government will not "fund, sponsor, promote, and assist the transition of a child's sex to another," already impacting hospitals across the nation.
The medical care he refers to includes surgeries, hormones and puberty blocker usage on minors.
The reason Trump says he's signed is to prevent children from making a decision that is irreversible and possibly regrettable in some cases. ABC-7 spoke to the president of PFLAG's Las Cruces Chapter, an LGBTQ advocacy group, to see if she agreed.
"Is there some part of you that thinks that it might be a good idea for a minor to wait until they're older to make these kinds of decisions?" ABC-7's reporter Nicole Ardila asked.
"No, sexuality and gender is usually established by 5 or 6 years old..." said Cassanda Calway, president of the chapter. "People need to be able to be who they are and feel free in their skin and feel like they're really who they are," she added. "and w"And what concerns me is it cuts them off from that, and it cuts. You have to live in a body that you don't feel right and somebody is forcing that on you."
According to Zeke Rodriguez from the Republican Party of Doña Ana County, New Mexico is where residents from neighboring states like Oklahoma and Texas go to for procedures that are illegal in those states, like abortions and gender-affirming care.
And he agrees with Trump's actions.
"People do not like LGBTQ issues getting pushed on children, and that issue overall is something that people are pretty passionate about. So it seems like president trump is privy to that knowledge and understands that the majority of us agree with the federal government not funding those types of surgeries...," said Rodriguez.
"The thing that most people don't understand is that people who get this gender affirming care, about 50% of them are more so suicidal ideation. And so if you're doing something that can cause more mental harm than you know, good. That's something we all need to look at," he added.
If the executive order gets approved, it will stop local medical centers that receive federal funding from providing these services to children and teenagers.
