Since the 2023 wave of state laws protecting minors from gender transition procedures, most advocates have moderated their approach, such as by arguing that transgender genital surgeries are never or almost never performed on children. But U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee in Michigan, apparently missed the memo to moderate. In a heated exchange on “Jesse Watters Primetime” this week, El-Sayed defended transgender surgeries on minors by equating them to circumcision.

“Sex changes for minors: do you support that?” Watters queried. After a moment’s pause, the following exchange ensued.

Abdul El-Sayed: “Look, I remember having great conversations with my conservative friends about right to try legislation. … I just think the government shouldn’t tell you what kind of health care you should have, and if you’re a minor —”

Watters: “You want to try on kids?”

El-Sayed: “If you disagree with that, if you disagree that health care decisions need to be made by a doctor and parents and the patient, then I think we agree to disagree.”

After a moment of crosstalk, the exchange continued:

Watters: “So you think it’s okay for a parent to cut his kids thing-a-ling off? You think that’s okay?”

El-Sayed: “Do you really want to have this conversation? Are you circumcised?”

Watters: “Yeah, but that is a personal question, doctor.”

El-Sayed: “Okay, so you should probably want to move on. you should probably want to move on. Yeah, I’m just saying —”

Watters: “Circumcision is different than castration.”

El-Sayed: “It’s a problem that you think that you get to decide what happens between a parent, a doctor, and a patient. And I’m just saying that, yes, circumcision is surgery on a kid’s ding-a-ling. So, if you really want to bring that up, you can. I just think you guys are really selective about how you want to talk about these things.”

Credit where credit is due: El-Sayed showed off a terrific debating flair in this exchange. He chose a way to couch his position that made it seem most credible, most like something to which the other side would agree. He also attempted to turn the tables on his questioner, throwing in his own question to make the host uncomfortable and nudge the conversation along to safer ground.

But the basic weakness El-Sayed faced is that no amount of lipstick can make a pig walk upright. However much he wants to bloviate about personal medical decisions, the reality is that gender transition procedures are not backed by firm scientific evidence, and most of the evidence that does exist suggests that these procedures cause net harm — in marked contrast to circumcision.

In fact, the preponderance of evidence against gender transition procedures prompted the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) in February to officially recommend “that surgeons delay gender-related breast/chest, genital, and facial surgery until a patient is at least 19 years old.”

In response to that news, the American Medical Association (AMA) responded that it “agrees with ASPS that surgical interventions in minors should be generally deferred to adulthood.”

Being asked to perform such a procedure (a hysterectomy for no reason but gender transition, though not on a minor) prompted Dr. Karla Solheim to reconsider and ultimately reject the whole evidentiary basis for gender transition procedures, even though she identifies as lesbian and lost her position as the Iowa state chair of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) as a result.

El-Sayed spent a lot of time insisting that “health care decisions need to be made by a doctor and parents and the patient.” If the doctor is following the professional guidelines set by the ASPS, he or she would never perform a gender surgery on a minor. If El-Sayed had wanted to, he could have said as much. But he chose not to, preferring to leave the door to transgender surgeries for minors open as far as possible.

Admittedly, the last paragraph relies on the assumption that El-Sayed is up-to-date on the facts of the debate, which may not be the case.

However, El-Sayed did rely on the latest talking points. In 2024, the Biden White House angered transgender activists by suggesting that gender transition “surgeries should be limited to adults.” After backlash, the revised White House position was to “continue to fight state and national bans of gender affirming care, which represents a continuum of care, and respect the role of parents, families, and doctors — not politicians — in these decisions.” El-Sayed cited a similar medical trinity of parents, patients, and doctors.

Pro-lifers will likely recognize this combination from the abortion debate. Yet this line of argumentation is quite inconsistent with progressive positions on other issues. For instance, when it comes to abortion pill reversal, multiple states (including California, Colorado, and New York) have tried to prevent women from making their own medical decisions (although courts have usually stopped them).

It stretches El-Sayed’s words too far to interpret his circumcision comments as an anti-Semitic dig. El-Sayed has employed anti-Semitic tropes, like blaming the influence of Jewish money in U.S. politics, or falsely accusing Israel of “apartheid and genocide.” But circumcision is widely practiced among Muslims too (who claim descent from Ishmael, the circumcised son of Abraham). In any event, El-Sayed’s parallel between circumcision and gender transition surgeries on minors only makes sense as a rationale for the latter if circumcision is also considered acceptable.

But, after he recovered from the initial shock, Watters succinctly stated the point that El-Sayed never successfully refuted, “Circumcision is different than castration.”

Indeed, the fact that “circumcision is different than castration” has been obvious since biblical times. Under the Mosaic law every male who wished to join the covenant community had to be circumcised (Exodus 12:48), but no one who had been castrated was allowed to do so (Deuteronomy 23:1). The New Testament also recognizes the difference, with Paul’s stinging words, “But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed. I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!” (Galatians 5:11-12).

Even with the final word, El-Sayed only managed to mumble something about both being surgeries on the same organ, which is like equating surgery to reset a broken bone with amputation of that limb. Such a weak retort to such an obvious distinction shows that El-Sayed is only playing the sophist to defend the indefensible.