Donald Trump had recently finished a familiar riff about banning gender transition surgery for children when the former president, speaking to an audience of Evangelical voters, moved on to something new: a policy that would affect transgender adults.
“I will ban all taxpayer funding for sex or gender transitions at any age,” said Trump, receiving thunderous applause at the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference in Washington last month. The Republican leader, who moments earlier had also pledged to reinstate a ban on transgender men and women serving in the military, paused for several seconds to soak in the crowd’s adulation.
It’s the kind of moment — and the type of policy — increasingly common on the GOP presidential campaign trail this year.
As a complete aside, many, many years ago, before the internet was really a thing, and trans people were not nearly as visible, a friend once told me about a friend of theirs who was getting “bottom surgery” and, because that was literally the first time I’d ever heard that term, I had concocted an image in my head of like, a butthole widening or something, you know, to help him become a better bottom. It’s been 30+ years and they still make fun of me for that.
This is the best interpretation ive ever heard and I will now introduce it to my trans masc friend.