Twitter CEO Elon Musk slammed the Democrat lieutenant governor of Minnesota this week over remarks that she made at an event where Democratic Gov. Tim Walz signed an executive order forcing state agencies to protect “gender-affirming” health care, including surgery.
Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan addressed the crowd as she wore a shirt that read “Protect Trans Kids” with a picture of a dagger on it.
“Let’s be clear: this is life-affirming and life-saving health care,” she declared. “When our children tell us who they are, it is our job as grown-ups to listen and to believe them. That’s what it means to be a good parent.”
Flanagan faced intense backlash online for her extremist remarks, including from Musk.
“Not when they’re fed propaganda by adults,” Musk said. “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
The trans issue is something that Musk views as important since one of his children identified as transgender and publicly attacked him.
In a subsequent interview with the Financial Times last fall, Musk blamed the far-Left for turning his biological son against him, the newspaper said.
“It’s full-on communism … and a general sentiment that if you’re rich, you’re evil,” says Musk. “It [the relationship] may change, but I have very good relationships with all the others [children]. Can’t win them all.”
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Flanagan’s remarks this week come as Walz called the efforts by states around the nation to restrict “gender-affirming” care “persecution,” saying, “We’ll make sure that Minnesota’s place as a welcoming, loving, neighborly state where you are welcome and will be free of persecution or anything else that we’re trying to see in some other states.”
He singled out Minnesota’s next-door neighbor, South Dakota, where Gov. Kristi Noem signed a bill banning the prescription of puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and sex-change surgeries for minors in February.
“I don’t know what a group of people in Pierre who decide to make life miserable and more dangerous for people are thinking, but it’s not going to happen in Minnesota,” Walz boasted.
Minnesota’s state house will consider a bill from a transgender representative that would make Minnesota a “trans refuge state” and would bar the state from obeying court orders or child protection laws from other states that would block them from “gender-affirming” health care in Minnesota.
In another state adjoining Minnesota, the Iowa senate passed a bill barring doctors from providing puberty blockers, hormone therapy, or sex-change surgeries to children under the age of 18.
Arkansas was the first state to ban sex-change procedures for minors in 2021; Utah followed in January 2021. Florida’s Board of Medicine and Board of Osteopathic Medicine, with the encouragement of Gov. Ron DeSantis, banned sex-change procedures for children under 18; GOP Governors Tate Reeves of Mississippi and Bill Lee of Tennessee have signed bills banning sex-change procedures for minors.
Hank Berrien contributed to this report.