Tim Walz owes Democrats some answers on ‘gender identity’ and children

I have some questions for Minnesota Governor and Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz (D), and I hope journalists will start demanding answers from him.

Specifically, does he stand by his 2023 decisions turning Minnesota into a “trans refuge,” especially given the overwhelming evidence that what is euphemistically referred to as “gender-affirming care” harms children?

In April 2023, Walz signed a bill into law giving Minnesota courts the ability to make initial custody determinations in cases where “the presence of a child in [the] state is for the purpose of obtaining gender-affirming health care,” and temporary emergency jurisdiction in cases where a child present in the state “has been unable to obtain gender-affirming health care.” This so-called “gender-affirming care” can include puberty blockers, opposite-sex hormones and other interventions.

So the effect of this law is that Minnesota courts have the power to remove children from their own parents’ custody if the parents (inside or outside of Minnesota) wish to protect their children from harmful hormones or surgeries.

The phrase “gender-affirming care” sounds nice, but as investigative journalist Gerald Posner explained in the Wall Street Journal last year, such interventions are more like a human experiment that borders on child abuse.

The case is rapidly crumbling for allowing minors to take such drugs and have surgeries with irreversible complications if they merely claim to have a “gender identity” different from their biological sex. As political scientist Leor Sapir recently explained, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons has recently stated that it “has not endorsed any organization’s practice recommendations for the treatment of adolescents with gender dysphoria,” that there is “considerable uncertainty as to the long-term efficacy for the use of chest and genital surgical interventions” and that “the existing evidence base is viewed as low quality-low certainty.”

This follows on the April 2024 publication of the Cass Report, a nearly 400-page report commissioned by the UK’s National Health Service. It found that there was only “remarkably weak evidence” to support the use of puberty blockers and opposite-sex hormones for minors, concluding that such “care” is “built on shaky foundations.” In the face of the evidence, five European countries have already severely restricted the use of such interventions.

As I argue in my book “The Reckoning: How the Democrats and the Left Betrayed Women and Girls,” Democratic Party leaders have sacrificed women and children on the altar of a regressive, nebulous and sexist conception of “gender identity.” “Gender identity” as a concept denies the material reality of sex and as such ignores that women and girls exist as a sex class.

This conception is harming thousands of children. Recent reports suggest that thousands of girls (including some younger than 12) in the U.S. have had their breasts removed to “affirm their gender,” and not for any medically necessary reason. I say all this as a lifelong Democrat, feminist and leftist who is active in the group Women’s Declaration International, and who until recently served as the president of its U.S. chapter. 

Given this, why did Walz sign a law making Minnesota a “trans refuge” state, giving Minnesota courts the ability to remove children from their parents’ custody if the parents wanted to protect their children?

Did Walz simply not know in 2023 that there is an emerging global consensus that so-called “gender-affirming care” for minors is unsafe? And regardless of why Walz signed the bill, does he still stand by that decision, given the now-incontrovertible evidence that “gender-affirming care” harms children?

Rank-and-file Democrats all over this country want to vote Democrat in the November presidential election to defeat Donald Trump but feel uneasy doing so because of Democratic Party leadership’s insistence on sacrificing children on the altar of “gender identity.”

Those Democrats deserve some answers from the governor. I hope journalists will start asking the tough questions and getting us the answers we deserve.

Kara Dansky, a former president of the U.S. chapter of Women’s Declaration International, is an attorney, public speaker, writer and consultant who advocates for the rights of women and girls.