Abdul El-Sayed Defends Child Gender Transition as Akin to Circumcision

Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed likened sex change surgeries for minors to circumcision in a Monday night interview, arguing that the decision to undergo either procedure should be left to parents, patients, and doctors.

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“If you disagree with that — that health-care decisions need to be made by a doctor, and their parents, and the patient — then I think we agree to disagree,” El-Sayed told Fox News’ Jesse Watters. “You want to put government inside a clinic or a hospital, selectively.”

When Watters pushed back, El-Sayed made the conversation personal, asking the host whether he is circumcised.

“Do you really want to have this conversation, are you circumcised?” El-Sayed asked Watters. “It’s a problem that you think you get to decide what happens between a parent, a doctor, and a patient. Circumcision is surgery on a kid’s ding-a-ling so if you really want to bring that up, you can, I just think you guys are really selective about how you want to talk about these things.”

Unlike circumcision, gender transition surgeries and hormone treatments leave patients with permanent side effects such as loss of fertility, chronic pain, and sexual disfunction. A groundbreaking study published earlier this year found that there is no evidence that such procedures improve mental-health outcomes for gender-dysphoric children, as activists often claim.

A Pew Research poll found a majority of Americans support banning health professionals from providing gender transition procedures to minors, and a similar majority also opposes policies that allow insurance companies to cover said procedures.

In Michigan, the debate over accommodations for trans-identifying children has focused recently on athletic eligibility. The state’s athletic association, the Michigan High School Athletic Association, allows trans-identifying students to file for waivers that allow them to compete against members of the opposite sex, drawing significant backlash from parents concerned about safety and fairness.

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Asked about the athletic eligibility issue during the Monday night interview, El-Sayed refused to engage with the question.

“You have not asked me one time about the issues that people actually care about in Michigan,” El-Sayed said when asked about the sports eligibility issue.

“You can play this game if you want,” El-Sayed fumed. “I just want to understand what you’re getting at here.”

“I’m getting at whether you think men should play in women’s sports … it’s a big issue,” Watters asked again.

El-Sayed again avoided the question, saying “at the end of the day, the decision of who gets to play what sports ought to be decided by the people who govern sports.”

He added that it was “insane” that Watters would ask him about the issue of fairness in sports.

“I’m running for U.S. Senate,” he said. “Jesse, this is insane.”

El-Sayed will take on Republican Mike Rogers in the general election in November.

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