GOP senator calls gender-affirming surgeries for minors ‘almost grotesque’ during hearing

Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) pressed Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra over health care for transgender youth at a budget hearing on Wednesday, during which he characterized gender-affirming surgeries as “almost grotesque” in an exchange.

[...]

Braun, a member of the subcommittee, began his line of questioning by raising concerns about the use of “puberty blocking and hormone therapy drugs for gender transition.”

“Anytime a physician prescribes it, they’re doing it off-label. Would you agree that off-label prescriptions for usages not approved by the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] are potentially dangerous for patients, especially kids?” he asked.

Becerra in response assured that the FDA “would raise alarms if they saw that a particular medicine or treatment were being misused” and added that, “at this stage, what we know is that for a drug to be out there available, it has to be safe and effective, as FDA has found.”

“So what I would simply say with regard to this particular subject is when individuals go in for care it is their physician who is making that decision with them about what type of medicine or treatment they should receive,” he continued.

Braun appeared to make a jab at the Biden administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic shortly after, before pressing the secretary about “sex-change surgeries.”

“If you use that same logic on what we’ve just navigated through COVID, it seems like there would have been a different point of view and, to me, for many parents across the country, this has more potentially tragic consequences, and it seems like it’s a double standard,” he began.

“Let’s look at surgeries that would be even more impactful, and I’m not going to mention the particulars there. It’s almost grotesque to mention what could occur. Could you explain what irreversible top and bottom sex change surgeries are and why that is on the portal as well?” he asked.

[...]