Abdul El-Sayed brilliantly turns the table on Jesse Watters in debate over trans healthcare

Michigan Democrat and Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed is running his campaign right. Instead of throwing trans people under the bus in hopes of appealing to a phantom moderate majority, he’s standing up for us whenever possible.

On Fox News yesterday, El-Sayed slapped anti-trans propaganda in the face during a discussion with conservative sh*t-starter Jesse Watters. And Watters was definitely not expecting the result.

Watters kicked things off by baiting El-Sayed to give his take on providing trans youth with gender-affirming care. Of course, Watters didn’t phrase it that way, but in the most reductive, gross terms possible. “You’re a doctor, right?” Watters asked the Rhodes Scholar and MD. “You think it’s okay for a parent to slash his kid’s ding-a-ling off?”

El-Sayed countered with a question Watters clearly wasn’t expecting to hear. “Do you really want to have this conversation?” He asked Watters. “Are you circumcised?”

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Suddenly, Watters was all a-fluster. I guess it’s all fine to talk about ding-a-lings when you’re discussing trans people, but when it comes to your own junk, it’s a bridge too far.

“Yeah, but I mean, that’s a personal question,” Watters said.

 “I think it’s a problem that you think that you get to decide what happens between a parent, a doctor and a patient,” El-Sayed said. “And I’m just saying that, yes, circumcision is surgery on a kid’s ding-a-ling.”

Trans people everywhere were stunned: did a liberal politician actually just stand up for us on live TV? On Fox News, no less?

It was the perfect redirect, and a masterclass in avoiding falling into one of the right-wing’s favorite traps. For too long, cis politicians across the spectrum have taken the bait: rumored Democratic 2028 candidates like Gavin Newsom and even Pete Buttigieg have, in the recent past, expressed feelings that trans participation in sports has gone too far. In her 2024 run, Kamala Harris didn’t make trans rights a part of her platform, but it didn’t stop the opposition from claiming that “Kamala is for they/them, Tr*mp is for you.”

Now, politicians like El-Sayed and Zohran Mamdani are thinking smarter. They’re not satisfied with capitulating to anti-trans talking points. Instead, they’re redirecting the question and finding a way to ask an even better one in the process. As in: why do you guys care so much about what trans people do with their bodies? Perhaps even more to the point: why are Republicans suddenly advocating for the government to get involved with peoples’ bodies and private health journeys? Aren’t they supposed to be all about small government?

El-Sayed’s response was so simple, and so visibly effective. Unsurprisingly, in the past, El-Sayed has stated that he will stand up for LGBTQ+ people no matter what.

“I don’t know what it’s like to be gay or to be trans, but I do know what it’s like to be discriminated against,” he told Pride Source this Pride month. “My job is to show up and be curious and understand what the unique manifestations of that kind of discrimination look like, but also to stand up when it’s hard, not just when it’s easy.”

He just took the first step toward proving it last night.

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