Transgender men should have the right to federal abortion funding, Julian Castro told the Democratic Party’s progressive base during the party’s presidential candidates debate in Miami.
But according to transgender activists, Castro got his terminology wrong and accidentally argued that men have a right to federal abortion funding:
Castro was asked: “Would your [health] plan cover abortion, Mr. Secretary?” He answered:
Yes, it would. I don’t believe only in reproductive freedom, I believe in reproductive justice. And, you know, what that means is that just because a woman — or let’s also not forget someone in the trans community, a trans female, is poor, doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have the right to exercise that right to choose. And so I absolutely would cover the right to have an abortion.
Pro-transgender activists insist that women do become men, and men do become women, merely by declaring they have an opposite-sex “gender identity.”
This insistence means that Castro’s term — “trans female” — actually refers to a person with a male body who cannot get pregnant, despite the person’s female “gender identity.”