In his annual State of the Nation address, U.S. President Donald Trump, on Tuesday evening (local time), used the speech before both chambers of Congress in Washington to argue against the acceptance of transgender people. The 79-year-old former president criticized medical treatments for transgender youths and voiced support for a ban.
Trump spent considerable time on the case of Sage Blair, a Virginia teenager whom he had invited to speak at the speech along with her family. “In 2021, Sage was 14 years old when school officials in Virginia tried to socially transition her to a different gender, treated her as a boy, and kept this from her parents,” Trump asserted. The girl reportedly ran away from home, was placed in a foster home, and endured a long period of “horrible” suffering. The case, he argued, shows that Democratic-led states “tear children away from the arms of their parents.”
He added that Blair had since received a full scholarship to Liberty University. He described the private college as one that is hostile to queer people, where homosexual students are expelled if they do not live celibately.
“The Democrats Are Destroying Our Country”
Trump used the example to portray the Democrats as “crazy” for supporting transgender youths. “The Democrats are destroying our country, but we rescued it just in time, right?” he said.
The Blair case is highly politicized — as reported by her ultra-conservative family, she is said to be a victim of human trafficking. Solid, verifiable details are scarce, in part because official investigative records are limited due to her age.
LGBTQ activists criticized Trump for his renewed attack on transgender people. Josh Ackley wrote in The Advocate: “A complex and deeply personal situation was reduced to a simple moral narrative intended to generate applause. In a matter of moments, the experience of a single family became the basis for a sweeping nationwide ban.”
According to scientific research, treating transgender youths significantly lowers their risk of suicide. Recently, a study on this topic was published in the Journal of Pediatrics (TheColu.mn reported).
During his nearly two-hour speech, Trump lavished praise on his own policies — sometimes with bizarre statements such as: “Our country is winning again. In fact, we are winning so much that we don’t know what to do with it. People tell me: ‘Please, please, please, Mr. President, we’re winning too much. We can’t stand winning. Before you arrived, we just lost everything — but now we’re winning so much.’ And I say: ‘No, no, no, you will win again. You will win big; you will win bigger than ever before.'”
According to a recent Washington Post poll, however, 60 percent of the U.S. population now opposes Trump’s policies. (dk)
