[ad_1] Republicans in the United States have taken aim at former president Donald Trump for hedging this week on the explosive issue of transgenderi
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Republicans in the United States have taken aim at former president Donald Trump for hedging this week on the explosive issue of transgenderism — and refusing to give a clear answer on whether he believes it’s possible to change one’s sex.
Mr Trump responded with a long-drawn “Ummm” and an uncomfortable laugh when host Megyn Kelly, in a Thursday interview on her The Megyn Kelly Show on Sirius XM, asked: “Can a man become a woman?”
“In my opinion,” Mr Trump finally said, shaking his head slightly, “you have a man, you have a woman.”
“I, I, I think part of it is birth,” he continued.
“Can the man give birth? No.”
But he seemed to leave the door open on that criterion.
“They’ll come up with some answer to that also some day,” Mr Trump went on.
“I heard just the other day they have a way that now the man can give birth. No, I would say I’ll continue my stance on that.”
His feeble answer drew derision from conservatives, the New York Post reported.
“Don’t tell me a man can become a woman because it’s not true,” Republican presidential candidate Governor Ron DeSantis said in a speech to the Concerned Women for America in Washington, DC.
“Don’t tell me a man can get pregnant because it’s not true.”
“There is value in standing up for what is true,” the Florida governor said in comments that did not call out Mr Trump by name.
“And what woke agenda is, is it represents a war on the truth itself.”
Longtime Trump antagonist Erick Erickson joined in.
“When a former president cannot and does not immediately say ‘no’ when asked if a man can become a woman, he does not need to be president again,” the right-wing commentator posted on X, formerly Twitter.
Mr Trump’s halting exchange with Kelly came moments after he railed against puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors.
“I’m so against it,” Mr Trump said of what he called “the mutilation of children”.
“Many of them, I’ve heard like 62 per cent, when they grow up, when they’re older, they say, Who did this to me? Why did you do this to me?”
Mr Trump insisted that his stance on the issue has never wavered — even though he allowed biological men to compete in the Miss Universe pageant when he owned it.
“I don’t think I’ve changed,” he said.
“I think I just, you know, at the beginning it was such a small subject.”
The wide-ranging interview — Kelly’s first sit-down with the former president since they clashed during a Republican debate in 2016 — sparked uproar over Mr Trump’s claim to have no idea who gave Dr Anthony Fauci a Trump-signed presidential commendation for spearheading the White House response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
This article originally appeared on the New York Post and was reproduced with permission
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