Tesla founder and Twitter CEO Elon Musk criticized the idea of allowing minors to undergo gender transition procedures on March 16, holding that children were being fed “propaganda” to convince them to undergo such “severe” treatments.
Musk’s revelation of his stance on the issue came in response to a video posted to Twitter on March 9 of Minnesota’s Lt. Gov. Penny Flanagan, a Democrat, promoting such procedures as “life-affirming and life-saving health care.”
“When our children tell us who they are, it is our job as grownups to listen and to believe them,” Flanagan said. “That’s what it means to be a good parent.”
Disagreeing with that assessment, Musk replied Thursday: “Not when they’re fed propaganda by adults. Moreover, every child goes through an identity crisis before their personality/identity crystallizes. Therefore, we shouldn’t allow severe, irreversible surgery or sterilizing drugs that they may regret until at least age 18.”
Not when they’re fed propaganda by adults.
Moreover, every child goes through an identity crisis before their personality/identity crystallizes.
Therefore, we shouldn’t allow severe, irreversible surgery or sterilizing drugs that they may regret until at least age 18.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 16, 2023
Flanagan’s comments were made at a March 8 press conference, during which Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Tim Walz signed an executive order supporting gender-affirming care in his state.
The order directs state agencies to coordinate to “protect people or entities who are providing, assisting, seeking, or obtaining” gender-affirming health services, including “all medical, surgical, counseling, or referral services, including telehealth services” an individual might seek to affirm their gender identity.
The directive prohibits the state from assisting other states’ law enforcement investigations into individuals seeking those services while also instructing state agencies to investigate and take “administrative actions” against “unfair or deceptive practices” relating to gender-affirming care.
“As states across the country move to ban access to gender-affirming care, we want LGBTQ Minnesotans to know they will continue to be safe, protected, and welcome in Minnesota,” Walz said in a statement. “In Minnesota, you will not be punished for seeking or providing medical care. This Executive Order delivers the urgent action that our LGBTQ Minnesotans deserve.”
The executive order coincides with the recent national push to allow minors injured by health care professionals who performed gender transition procedures on them to sue for medical malpractice.
In Arkansas, Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a law to that effect on Monday, giving minors up until 15 years after they turn 18 to file a lawsuit.
Similar legislation was introduced last year in the U.S. Senate by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and in the House by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), though neither bill has come up for a vote.
Meanwhile, some ex-transgender individuals, like Chloe Cole, have already begun to seek legal recourse.
“The adults who were supposed to take care of and guide me as a child failed to do so and they will take responsibility for it,” Cole told The Epoch Times in November after filing a lawsuit against Kaiser Permanente. “My parents were sold a lie, just like I was.”
Cole was prescribed puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones and had her breasts removed at age 15 by Kaiser Permanente medical professionals. Now 18, she recently founded the group Detrans United to support other “detransitioners” like herself, who are looking to reverse the procedures performed on them.
“My teenage life has been the culmination of excruciating pain, regret, and, most importantly, injustice,” Cole said in a Nov. 10 statement. “What is worse is that I am not alone in my pain. I will see to the fact that the blood and tears of detransitioners like myself will not lay waste. It is impossible for me to recoup what I have lost, but I will [ensure] no children will be harmed at the hands of these liars and mutilators.”