Joe Biden & Elizabeth Warren Both Support Taxpayer-Funded Transgender Surgery

Biden said of Obamacare,

"It does cover the surgery. It does cover transgender people. It does cover across the board," after bashing President Trump for removing gender transition surgery from the Affordable Care Act, Biden went on to say,

"Every LGBTQ person as well as anyone else should be able to have full health care without any limitations. No doctor can deny you. No hospital can tell you can’t get the service. It is simply against the law when I’m president.”

Watch the clip of what Joe Biden had to say in support of taxpayer-funder transgender surgery here:

Elizabeth Warren was also asked a similar question about transgender surgery at the forum and was reminded of her previous stance against taxpayer-funder transgender surgery for inmates.

In 2020, Warren had said, “I have to say, I don’t think it’s a good use of taxpayer dollars.”

But, now, she has changed her mind.

Warren declared,

“The way I think about this in America — equal means equal and that is true everywhere. It’s true in the workplace, it’s true in marriage and it’s true in health care. And we have to be willing to get out there and fight for it. It’s true for people who are straight. It’s true for people who are gay, bi, trans, intersex. It’s true for everyone."

Watch what Elizabeth Warren promised for transgenders if she becomes president here:

The Daily Caller has more to say about Biden and Warren's support of using American taxpayer money to pay for transgender surgeries:

Democratic presidential candidates Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren want American taxpayers to pay for transgender surgeries.

 

The 2020 candidates spoke at a LGBTQ forum GLAAD, the Advocate and the Cedar Rapids Gazette hosted in Iowa on Sept. 20, according to Vox. Both Biden and Warren touched on taxpayer-funded sex reassignment surgeries.

 

Biden promised to make transgender surgery legal under Obamacare. “It does cover the surgery. It does cover transgender people,” he said. “It does cover across the board. … Every LGBTQ person as well as anyone else should be able to have full health care without any limitations.”“No doctor can deny you. No hospital can tell you can’t get the service,” the former vice president added. “It is simply against the law when I’m president.”

Warren also weighed in on whether she supports taxpayer-funded transgender surgery. The Gazette’s Lyz Lenz reminded Warren that the presidential candidate formerly did not support gender affirming surgery for transgender inmates. Warren said in 2012, “I have to say, I don’t think it’s a good use of taxpayer dollars.”

Biden's comments regarding transgender surgery that he is promising to fund under Obamacare if elected president brought back up to surface the numerous allegations by women of him touching them inappropriately.

Vox said:

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the leading Democratic presidential contender, defended his record on LGBTQ issues at a forum on Friday, but in doing so, once again raised questions about his comportment towards women, and — after a misstatement in which he conflated sexual and gender identities — about his understanding of issues that affect queer and gender nonconforming voters. 

During a forum on LGBTQ issues hosted by GLAAD, the Advocate, and the Cedar Rapids Gazette, 10 Democratic candidates discussed their records on issues affecting the LGBTQ community, including the Trump administration’s transgender military ban, conversion therapy, protections for gender-nonconforming people, and court cases involving businesses that decline to cater to queer customers on religious grounds in front of about 700 people in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Friday.

During his session, Biden spoke with Lyz Lenz, a columnist for the Cedar Rapids Gazette, and worked to remind voters of his allyship, telling the room he believed in in LGTBQ rights from a young age. And he defended his record on same-sex marriage, reminding the room that he publicly supported it before President Barack Obama did. 

“I didn’t have to evolve,” he said, a reference to Obama’s famous comments explaining his shift while in office from supporting civil unions to supporting full marriage rights for same-sex couples.

But Biden’s many years of public service have given him a long voting history that left the candidate open to sharp critique. Lenz pressed Biden about his extensive record on issues that affect the LGBTQ community, including his votes as a US senator for legislation like the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as existing between one man and one woman, and a spending bill that included “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the military policy that banned openly gay people from serving in the military. 

At times, Biden seemed to struggle with his answers. The then-senator helped champion the 1994 crime bill that critics link to today’s cycle mass incarceration, and Lenz asked him about that bill’s specific impact on LGBTQ people of color. In response, Biden tried to argue that inmates should be imprisoned based on their gender identity, rather than on the sex they were assigned at birth — a stance in line with what advocates have called for — but appeared to conflate sexuality and gender identity.

“In prison, the determination should be that your sexual identity is defined by what you say it is, not what in fact the prison says it is,” Biden said.

Lenz also referred to Biden’s comments in February in which he referred to Vice President Mike Pence, a vocal opponent of many LGBTQ rights, as a “decent guy.” (Biden walked back those comments on Twitter shortly afterwards, saying there is “nothing decent about being anti-LGBTQ rights.”)

At the forum, Biden said that this was how one must speak when attempting to reach across the aisle “when you want to get things done.” When Lenz pushed back, saying Pence has not been decent to queer people, Biden responded, “You’re a lovely person.”

Lenz wrote on Twitter afterwards that Biden also called her “a real sweetheart” backstage. She later called these interactions “a little condescending,” and told the USA Today, “It’s 2019, you shouldn’t be calling women sweethearts.” 

Lenz’s frustrations with Biden’s language mirror those of some others he has interacted with on the campaign trail. In June, student activist K.C. Cayo asked Biden about his stance about the Violence Against Women Act, and said the way he leaned in to answer and his tone changed how they saw Biden. 

“I can now make the connection between the man I saw and the man accused of harassment by multiple women,” Cayo added. “I saw a man capable of those things: A man who can’t take responsibility, who doesn’t respect women, and who gets in their personal space.”

Biden has responded to past complaints by promising to change his behavior. And while Lenz’s concerns do not go as far as Cayo’s, they show he has not completely altered his approach. While that may not be a problem with his base, it could be a problem with voters he hopes to win over like members of the audience at Friday’s forum that Reuters spoke with, who were less than impressed with the candidate’s answers and behavior.