Conservative writer and podcaster Ben Shapiro says it’s “evil” for parents to allow their underage children to undergo gender transition surgeries.
Shapiro, editor-in-chief of The Daily Wire, made the comment when he was asked during a question-and-answer session at Stanford University on Thursday night “what’s the harm” in allowing a person to transition “if someone is gonna be a happier person” because of it.
In response, the Harvard-trained lawyer said he’s “not in favor of banning people who are adults” who want to undergo gender transition therapy and surgery. He went on to say he is, though, in favor of barring minors from seeking the same treatment because they are “not capable of consent,” legally speaking.
“All of our laws are based on the ability of people to consent,” Shapiro explained. “If you’re a child, you can’t consent. So, I’m very much in favor of banning gender transition for kids. I think that it’s, frankly, evil. I think you’re making decisions for children who are not capable of making decisions for themselves that are permanent and have long-lasting, significant, and severe impact.”
Shapiro went on to say he isn’t seeing those on the right campaign for transgender surgeries and therapies to be outlawed for those 18 years and older. He is, though, seeing some on the progressive left argue children should be removed from their parents’ care unless they subscribe to “the left’s view” of how questions regarding sexuality from children of any age should be handled.
“If I say that men and women are separate, then the Left says that this is discrimination,” he said. “[I] am not going to go along with the general societal willingness to rewrite basic facets of human nature and human biology, and, frankly, mammalian biology, in order to suggest a delusion is true.”
You can watch the entire exchange in the above video.