By Peter AitkenShareNewsweek is a Trust Project memberPresident Donald Trump appeared to edit a post on Truth Social in which he included a provision that transgender surgery could occur with parental consent, which prompted backlash from prominent right-wing figures.
In his original Truth Social post, which went up at 10:39 a.m. ET, the president laid out five major points of his SAVE America Act, including, "NO TRANSGENDER MUTILATION SURGERY FOR CHILDREN, WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN APPROVAL OF THE PARENTS."
The post had been removed and replaced at 4:12 p.m. ET with a post that did not include "WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN APPROVAL OF THE PARENTS."
Newsweek reached out to the White House by email on Thursday evening for comment.
Why It Matters
Republican efforts to ban transgender surgeries have largely focused on restricting gender‑affirming medical care for minors through state legislation and congressional action. GOP-backed bills in states such as New Hampshire and Utah seek to prohibit or limit access to gender‑affirming surgeries and related treatments for those under 18, often by banning Medicaid funding or defining such procedures as impermissible for minors.
At the federal level, Republicans have pushed similar goals through legislation and executive‑branch policy under the Trump administration. These efforts have become a central part of the GOP’s broader approach to transgender policy, drawing sharp criticism from Democrats and medical groups while energizing conservative voters who support stricter limits on transgender health care.
...What To Know
The initial post spread on social media, with former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene hitting out at it and declaring that Trump had "crossed all my lines."
"The House passed my bill Protect Children’s Innocence Act that makes it a felony to trans any child under 18 even if their parents are supporting or pushing it on their own children," Greene wrote on X. "My bill was a reflection of Trump’s own executive order banning child trans surgeries and so called gender affirming care. Now Trump is reversing his stance???!!! What is wrong with him???"
Greene called the notion "disgusting, wrong, and a complete perversion of God’s creation," to which she was stunned to see "THE PRESIDENT SAYS ITS OK AS LONG AS THESE SICK PARENTS AGREE!!!"
Conservative political commentator Matt Walsh also criticized the post, writing that the phrase was "meaningless" as "kids who are mutilated almost always have parental consent."
"The consent of the parents is not the issue," Walsh wrote on X. "The issue is that the procedure is barbaric and insane, no matter if parents agree to it or not."
Riley Gaines, host of The Riley Gaines Show on Fox News, who rose to prominence after tying transgender athlete Lia Thomas in the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships, posted on X in seeming reaction to the president's post that "No child should ever be allowed to surgically remove healthy, functioning body parts under any condition or any circumstance."
It was around this time that the president made the apparent edit, taking out the line "WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN APPROVAL OF THE PARENTS," to which Gaines around 20 minutes later posted on X that "President Trump has clarified # 5. Parental consent will never make child abuse acceptable."
Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a Republican, needled the president over his edit by writing that the post had "transitioned."
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