—Rolled out sweeping new policies that erase the federal government’s recognition of transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people. A new HHS webpage, titled “Protecting Women and Children,” employs President Trump’s narrow and scientifically baseless definition of sex and asserts that gender-affirming care is a form of child abuse. The department is promoting a rigid definition of sex that excludes transgender identities, falsely framing gender-affirming care as “chemical and surgical mutilation” and targeting trans inclusion in sports. In fact, every major medical association and leading world health authority supports health care for transgender people and youth. The site section titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” repeats far-right rhetoric used to justify bans on transgender women athletes. HHS also released a video featuring anti-transgender activist Riley Gaines, who praised Trump’s executive order barring transgender women from competing in women’s sports. The Advocate reports that “HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., sworn in less than a week ago, declared that the department is ‘bringing back common sense and restoring biological truth to the federal government.’ In a press release, he added that, ‘The prior administration’s policy of trying to engineer gender ideology into every aspect of public life is over.’”
—Added a baseless disclaimer to the top of government websites for Health and Human Services after a federal judge ordered that web pages that contained vital information about trans people and other marginalized groups be reinstated. The pages were posted again with a false header that reads, “Any information on this page promoting gender ideology is extremely inaccurate and disconnected from the immutable biological reality that there are two sexes, male and female… The Trump Administration rejects gender ideology and condemns the harms it causes to children, by promoting their chemical and surgical mutilation, and to women, by depriving them of their dignity, safety, well-being, and opportunities. This page does not reflect biological reality and therefore the Administration and this Department reject it.” The statement is false and contradicts global medical standards defining gender and sex. Transgender people exist. Every major medical association and leading world health authority supports health care for transgender people and youth.
—Repeatedly promoted the falsehood that HIV is not the cause of AIDS, instead attributing the condition to other factors such as recreational drug use, particularly amyl nitrite (“poppers”), and lifestyle stressors. This is AIDS denialism, a fringe belief that has been thoroughly debunked by the scientific community. In fact, the connection between HIV and AIDS is well-established science. In 2008, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier for their discovery of HIV as the cause of AIDS. HIV causes AIDS. The scientific consensus, supported by numerous studies and the success of antiretroviral treatments in managing HIV and preventing AIDS, firmly establishes HIV as the cause of AIDS.
—Ended his independent presidential campaign and endorsed Donald Trump, citing a “war on children” among his reasons for the endorsement. Kennedy has baseless theories link environmental chemicals to homosexuality or gender dysphoria.
—Supports a ban on transgender health care for minors, a position that contradicts medical consensus. He called transgender health care a “non-existential” issue. Health care for transgender people and youth is supported by every major medical association and leading health authority. Efforts to ban and criminalize this care are not based on medical or scientific expertise, and frequently spread misinformation about what the care is. For more information from leading health authorities and about reporting on evidence-based care, click here.
—Tweeted misinformation about transgender health care for young people including that it involves “castration drugs (puberty blockers) and surgical mutilation.” This is baseless.
—Agreed to be a featured speaker at a Moms for Liberty event called “Joyful Warriors” in 2023. Moms for Liberty is an anti-LGBTQ, a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated extremist group, that purports to defend so-called “parental rights.” He later pulled out of the event citing a changed schedule.
🚨Summit Speaker Announcement
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.2024 Presidential Candidate#m4lsummit23
Join us next week in Philadelphia! https://t.co/QOOFNA7RxI pic.twitter.com/g4CSBVlDJ9
— Moms for Liberty (@Moms4Liberty) June 20, 2023
—Made false claims that COVID-19 was “ethnically targeted” to attack certain ethnic groups while sparing Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people, a conspiracy theory that drew accusations of antisemitism and racism.
—Told Joe Rogan that Wi-Fi causes cancer and “leaky brain.”
—Repeated a falsehood promoted by Peter Duesberg writing, “most HIV-infected Africans showed no sign of illness.” This is a lie. Estimates of tens of millions have died from AIDS in Africa over recent decades, and AIDS is now the leading cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa.
—Falsely linked vaccines to various medical conditions, including the scientifically discredited belief that vaccines for children cause autism. Kennedy advertised misleading information about vaccine ingredients and circulated retracted studies linking vaccines to various medical conditions.
—At an anti-vaccine rally, compared vaccination records to the persecution of Jews by the Nazis. He said, “Even in Hitler Germany [sic], you could, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland. You could hide in an attic, like Anne Frank did… I visited, in 1962, East Germany with my father and met people who had climbed the wall and escaped, so it was possible. Many died, true, but it was possible.” In fact, Frank and some 6 million other Jews were murdered by Nazis. Frank and her family hid in an attic in the Netherlands, not Germany, before she was caught and was sent to a concentration camp, where she died.
—Falsely told Louisiana lawmakers in 2021 that the coronavirus vaccine was the “deadliest vaccine ever made.”
—His nonprofit organization Children’s Health Defense was removed from Facebook and Instagram for repeatedly violating guidelines by spreading medical misinformation.
—Claimed that chemicals in our water are causing kids to be transgender. He told anti-trans conspiracy theorist Jordan Peterson that kids are “swimming through a soup of toxic chemicals,” including atrazine, a common herbicide, and that, “A lot of the problems we see in kids, and particularly boys, it’s probably underappreciated that how much of that is coming from chemical exposures, including a lot of the sexual dysphoria that we’re seeing.” There is no evidence to indicate that the herbicide causes gender dysphoria in humans. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says, “Most people are not exposed to atrazine on a regular basis.”
—Suggested that poppers, not HIV, causes AIDS (below in Tweet) and that, “But for [Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony] Fauci, it was really important to call it a virus because that made it an infectious disease, and it allowed him to take control of it.”
Unearthed: RFK Jr. pushed HIV/AIDS denialism, attributing AIDS not to HIV, but to a “gay lifestyle” and recreational drugs:
“There were people that were part of a gay lifestyle, they were burning the candle at both ends, …there were poppers on sale everywhere at the gay bars.” pic.twitter.com/BK2WXxjyg8
— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) June 20, 2023
—Shared an opinion piece from his Twitter account that argued that the mpox emergency declaration is disproportionate, and which suggests that the public health industry is now dependent on emergencies to justify its existence and funding. The institute that published the piece opposed COVID-19 vaccine mandates. LGBTQ people and all people of color disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.
—Falsely and repeatedly endorsed the idea that mass shootings have increased because of heightened use of antidepressants.
—Said that Republicans stole the 2004 presidential election.
