Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said minors should be barred from having gender transitions because the changes are permanent. .“It’s an epidemic, but we’re going further now as a country,” said Ramaswamy in a Tuesday video. .“Where parents are taught the thing you’re supposed to do is affirm your kid’s gender confusion that the schools themselves created by going through surgery, by going through chemical intervention in the form of puberty blockers.” .The video starts off with Ramaswamy saying there was an issue with the Nashville school shooting people should pay attention to. The issue was the shooter was transgender. .Nashville Police Chief John Drake released the names of the victims in the school shooting at a private Christian school and revealed perpetrator Aiden Hale was a transgender man on Monday. .READ MORE: UPDATED: Nashville police chief identifies victims in school massacre, confirms shooter transgender.The three children who were killed were nine-year-old Covenant School students Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney. The adults who died were janitor Mike Hill, substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, and administrator Katherine Koonce. .Drake went on to say Hale's gender identity might have influenced targeting the school. He said there was another target in Nashville, but a threat assessment by him determined it was too risky. .Ramaswamy called this “a symptom of a deeper epidemic in our country of radical gender ideology in our schools, creating more gender dysphoria than there ever was.”.He added gender transitions cause irreversible damage in children. .The Republican presidential candidate went on to say society rejects allowing children to make permanent changes. An example he offered was tattoos. .In all 50 American states, children cannot get tattoos until they are 18. He said this is because people do not want them making stupid decisions which they will regret for the rest of their lives. .If the United States is a country which says people cannot get a tattoo until they are 18, he said people should “certainly not be undergoing surgery for genital mutilation and chemical intervention through puberty blockers before the age of 18 either.”.He pledged to implement a federal ban on transgender surgeries and drugs before the age of 18. .“If you can’t get a tattoo, it certainly doesn’t make sense to allow kids to make these decisions which many of them, most of them, will regret for the rest of their life,” he said.
