(LifeSiteNews) — As Democrats from California to Pennsylvania continue to run from the transgender issue, one progressive candidate is leaning all the way in—and emphatically declaring her support for “sex changes” for gender dysphoric children.
Tina Shah, an ER doctor and former Biden administration official, is one of four Democrats hoping to run against New Jersey Republican Congressman Tom Kean Jr. in the November midterm elections. The seat, according to Fox News, is “considered one of the most competitive House districts in the country.”
Shah is running on her medical credentials: the first sentence in her campaign website bio is: “As a physician, I first took an oath to do no harm.” Without irony, she then accuses the Republicans of blocking access to “critical healthcare,” including abortion—an act of violence that destroys a developing child in the womb.
But there is more than one way for the medical establishment to destroy a child, and Shah is willing to endorse the other one, too. In a video obtained by Fox News, Shah is asked whether even children have the “right to transgender healthcare.” Shah did not hesitate. “This is a no-brainer,” she stated. “Healthcare is a right, period. It includes transgender children.”
It is important to explain what is meant by the phrase “transgender healthcare.” This refers to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and double mastectomies. Puberty blockers have an impact on brain development, reduce the density of bones, and stunt growth. They risk barring the user from reaching peak IQ, inhibit sexual function, thicken the blood, raise risk of heart attack by up to five times, create a higher risk of diabetes, blood clots, and cancer, and can result in vaginal atrophy.
READ: Transgender ideology has become political kryptonite for the Democrats
That’s just the beginning. As the manufactured consensus around “transgender healthcare” slowly implodes, it is becoming clear that doctors cannot both swear to “do no harm”—and then perpetrate treatments on children that result in irreversible damage.
But as Fox News noted, Shah’s view aligns with that of the Biden administration she served; her former boss, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, “denounced Republican-led states cracking down on child sex-change procedures during the Biden administration. Shah served as a senior advisor to Murthy in 2021 and 2022.” The Biden administration made the implementation of the transgender agenda one of their key priorities, and it cost them badly in the 2024 election.
Republicans naturally seized on the issue immediately. “Radical Democrat Tina Shah said it loud and clear: She’d be a vote for radical policies like “sex changes” for minors and taxpayer-funded drag queens,” said Maureen O’Toole, spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “Shah is completely out of step with Garden State families.”
In fact, Shah is one of the few Democrats willing to openly campaign in favor of transgender “treatments” for minors—and in a swing state, to boot. As the evidence against such “treatments” piles up, even organizations like the American Medical Association have retracted their support for them, and Fox News noted that “a handful of Democrats crossed party lines in 2025 to vote for GOP-authored legislation that would have criminalized child sex changes. Kean was among nearly all Republicans who supported the bill.”
Shah is clearly gambling that the GOP will be unpopular enough during the midterms due to economic issues and Trump’s plummeting poll numbers that she could win in spite of her support of “sex changes” for minors—and if she does, she can then hold up her victory as evidence that the issue need not be a political liability if the Democrats simply come out and own it.
