Donald Trump has begun waging a pretty explicit war on transgender individuals, writing executive orders that ban gender-affirming care for trans kids and using his inaugural address to deny the existence of non-binary people. It strikes reporters as odd, then, that he’s not so against gender-affirming care when it’s his own hair transplant.
“Gender-affirming care can look like a lot of things,” said Dr. Carly H. Wyatt, general surgeon at New York Presbyterian hospital. “For some trans women, it’s facial feminization surgery that sculpts the brow bone and jaw. For nonbinary or transmasc people, maybe it’s top or bottom surgery. And for Trump, it’s a hair transplant that doesn’t even look that good.”
Sources confirm “gender-affirming care” is any sort of surgery or hormonal treatment that helps someone better align their appearance with the standards of the gender they are. So a boob job could technically count as gender-affirming care for cis women, and Trump’s hair transplant definitely counts for whatever he’s got going on.
While it has not yet been confirmed, plastic surgeons believe Trump had a punch-graft hair transplant in the 70s, left and right rotational flap hair surgeries in 1991, and two more transplants in 2002 and 2011.
“It’s just strange that he’s decided to ban gender-affirming care for trans people considering he’s such a fan of the stuff himself,” Dr. Wyatt continued. “Normally you’d expect someone who’s had the hair moved from his lower scalp to upper scalp this many times to understand how life-changing it can be when cosmetic surgery makes you feel more like a man.”
This isn’t the only area where people are noting the stark hypocrisy of Trump’s policy decisions considering his life experience.
“He’s banning trans people from the military when we couldn’t even get him to serve in the military when it was necessary,” Dr. Wyatt continued. “Just a strange series of choices considering it seems like he’s very okay with other people fighting his battles for him.”
