

White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller during the 2019 White House Easter Egg Roll
A White House official went on a rant about gender-affirming care at a White House press briefing, where he claimed that teachers are turning five-year-old boys into girls behind their parents’ backs, something that isn’t actually happening.
Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller said that the administration will be “coordinating with state and local law enforcement to fight child abuse in our school system.” Child abuse in schools is already illegal, so he explained that the administration wants state and local authorities to prosecute cases where teachers turn kids trans as child abuse, even though that is not happening in schools.
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“It is child abuse to change a child’s gender,” Miller said, “particularly if you do not inform the parents. In other words, if a five-year-old or a six-year-old goes to school- or a seven-year-old goes to school, and the teach tries to turn the boy into a girl or the girl into a boy, that is child abuse. And this administration is treating that as child abuse and as a gross violation of parental rights.”
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He then reiterated some of the executive orders signed by the president banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors, referring to lifesaving treatments like puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy as “chemical castration,” “castration drugs,” “barbaric,” and “child torture.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) shared a clip of Miller’s words on X and added that “Sex change operations on children are barbaric child abuse.” Gender-affirming genital surgery is not performed on transgender minors in the U.S.
Miller was discussing the release of a new report from the Department of Health and Human Services in which the unnamed authors said that there isn’t evidence to support gender-affirming medical interventions. The report flies in the face of major medical associations’ support for gender-affirming care as safe and effective and their opposition to bans on such care.
“We urge the administration to respect and support people for who they are – and to let families and doctors make decisions based on what keeps people healthy, not government ideology,” said Casey Pick of the Trevor Project.
The idea that schools and teachers are turning kids transgender behind their parents’ backs has been an urban legend shared online by the right for the past several years, even though it’s not happening. Usually, conservatives are referring to cases where adolescent trans students confide in their teachers about their identities and the teachers don’t out them to their parents, something many conservatives confuse with teachers forcing students to be trans.
Conservatives haven’t come up with any cases of this happening. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) once claimed that a school had turned a kid transgender behind their parents’ backs, but local reporters found that the parents had actually been emailing with the school and encouraged the school to apply its transgender student policy to their child.
“This gender situation has thrown us for a loop. I sincerely appreciate your support. I’m going to let her take the lead on this,” the mother emailed the school before her family’s story got attention on rightwing media.
During the Biden administration, Miller started a conservative legal organization called America First Legal. It took on several anti-LGBTQ+ cases, including suing Target for selling Pride gear.
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