As the fissures within the Democratic Party continue to widen during the rise of the Democratic Socialists, candidates such as Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed appear to be doubling down on extreme positions instead of moderating as the midterm elections approach.

On Friday during a rally at Michigan State University, El-Sayed insinuated that his disputed medical experience qualified him as an expert on gender transition procedures, and that his opinion should therefore not be challenged. In response to a question about restrictions on the procedures, he stated that hormone treatments and gender reassignment surgeries for minors should be completely free of any government regulations.

“I went to a whole a** medical school, everybody I graduated with also went to whole a** medical school,” El-Sayed crassly replied. “And then they went to whole a** residency. Right? And some of them went to whole a** fellowship. They took whole a** exams to provide whole a** health care. They are the experts that a patient wants to see when they seek care. And the decision about what health care is necessary ought to be held between a patient — and or their parents if they’re under the age of 18 — and their doctor. That’s it.”

Notably, El-Sayed has claimed multiple times during his campaign that he worked as a “physician” and has earned the right to be called a “doctor,” but previous reporting has found that he has never held a medical license and that the only clinical experience he has was a four-week sub-internship. The Senate candidate, who has been strongly endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and anti-Semitic commentators like Hasan Piker, also recently equated surgical castration involved in gender reassignment surgeries with circumcision.

El-Sayed’s doubling down on support for the procedures being carried out on children comes even as public support has cratered. A poll last month found that over 70% of respondents say that the procedures should be restricted from minors, showing that opposition has steadily grown since at least 2024. This public tide has come in conjunction with professional medical organizations like the American Medical Association and American Society of Plastic Surgeons recommending against the procedures for minors as scientific evidence continues to pile up showing the adverse medical outcomes for minors who have undergone them.

The Trump administration has also played a large part in the sea change that has occurred on the issue, issuing an executive order in January 2025 that directed Medicare and Medicaid funding to be cut off from hospitals that conducted the procedures on minors. In response, several major hospitals, including Texas Children’s Hospital, the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Connecticut Children’s Hospital, and Mount Sinai, have agreed to cease carrying out the procedures. This has come following a vast grassroots movement of parents, children’s advocates, and public health officials who have strongly spoken out to protect children from the procedures over the last half-decade, which has led to 27 states passing legislation to bar the procedures.

Still, while Democratic candidates like Texas’s James Talarico appear to be moderating their views on trans procedures for minors, candidates backed by the far-left DSA like El-Sayed have largely gone in the opposite direction, which has only added to concerns among Democratic Party officials on how DSA-endorsed candidates will fare in the midterms.

It is an open question whether El-Sayed, a practicing Muslim who publicly opposes giving any aid to Israel, will be able to garner widespread support among key voting blocs within the Democratic Party while supporting trans procedures for minors, particularly among Muslim voters. As reported by Fox News on Monday, a number of Muslim voters are expressing misgivings about voting for a candidate who strongly supports the LGBTQ and abortion agenda, which is staunchly opposed to the religious tenets of Islam.

However, several of the voters told Fox that El-Sayed’s views on moral issues like the LGBTQ agenda and abortion are not “widely known in the Islamic community” and that most Muslims “will be able to look past that come November.” They cited the fragility of the economy and cost of living, as well as expensive entanglements in foreign wars, as their chief concerns going into November.