GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy says parents who engage in child sex changes are abusive

GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy sat down with child safeguarding advocate Chris Elston recently to discuss the issue of child sex changes, with Ramaswamy concluding that parents who transition their young children are abusive.

Ramaswamy and Elston, aka Billboard Chris, were discussing the reality TV show I Am Jazz that follows Jazz Jennings, a male child who was socially transitioned at around age 4 after displaying gender-nonconforming traits such as a liking for dresses and a sparkly bathing suit. The show documents Jazz struggling to navigate adolescence while undergoing experimental sex change procedures.

Elston explained to Ramaswamy that Jazz’s parents made the decision to socially transition their son at around age 4, after Jazz’s mother became convinced that Jazz’s extreme gender nonconformity was indication that her male child was a girl.

First came social transition, where Jazz was given a girl name and everyone referred to Jazz using female pronouns. The name Jazz was inspired by Princess Jasmine in the Disney movie Aladdin. Elston describes social transition as a psychological intervention, which is typically followed with puberty blockers the moment puberty hits.

“He starts to think of himself as a girl,” says Vivek Ramaswamy.

Extreme gender nonconformity in childhood is strongly correlated with homosexuality in adulthood, and all available research shows that on average 80 percent of children who experience gender dysphoria will desist in their cross-sex identities after puberty, crucially if not socially or medically transitioned.

Following the episode, Ramaswamy tweeted to say that a “mom or dad trying to change the gender of their child is munchausen by proxy. It’s not compassion. It’s abuse. Most people agree with this but feel afraid to say it out loud.”

Munchausen by proxy is a psychological disorder marked by attention-seeking behavior by a caregiver through those who are in their care. It affects a primary caregiver, often a mother. The person with Munchausen by proxy gains attention by seeking medical help for exaggerated or made-up symptoms of a child in their care.

Jazz Jennings’s story is meant to be inspirational. A tale of tolerance and inclusivity and triumph over adversity. But it’s difficult to see how it is anything other than a story of horribly misguided compassion and abuse. In almost every episode, Jazz is struggling to fit in, suffering from depression and an eating disorder, and finding it impossible to date.

Then in Season 3 comes the issue of surgery, with Jazz learning that having puberty blocked early means that there is not enough penile tissue to use in the creation of a “neo-vagina,” meaning a more complicated form of vaginoplasty was necessary that resulted in serious complications and three corrective surgeries.

Dr. Marci Bowers, the celebrity gender surgeon who performed Jazz’s vaginoplasty, has said that male children who have their puberty blocked early will never experience orgasm.

Following vaginoplasty, the surgical site needs to be regularly dilated to stop the body from closing up the wound. Jazz’s mother famously quipped in one episode post-surgery that she would take Jazz’s dilator, cover it in lubricant, and wake her sleeping child to insist that Jazz dilate.

“I have woken Jazz out of a dead sleep and taken the dilator and put the lubrication on it and said ‘here, you take this and you put it in your vagina if not, I will.’ But Jazz was bad. Even when I'm home once a day. I will be so mad if she goes away college and that thing seals up. I will wring her neck,” said Jeanette.

The show is now up to Season 8, and Jazz continues to struggle with binge eating, is obese, and is still struggling to date. In one episode, Jazz breaks down.

“I just want to feel like myself. Like that's it. I don't care at all. I want us to be happy and feel like me and I don't feel like me ever,” said an emotional Jazz.