Pence's point on gender-affirming care for minors ignores parental consent rules for tattoos

Twice in the past few weeks, former Vice President Mike Pence has offered a model for determining whether minors should be able to receive gender-affirming care: the laws that govern whether minors can get a tattoo.

Pence, who is running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, raised the idea in a May 24 Scripps News interview. 

"Look, you can't get a tattoo under the age of 18 in most states in the country," Pence said. "And this idea that we would allow children to go through either chemical or surgical transition treatment really before they've come of age, before they have a full appreciation for the decisions that they make and the long term consequences — I've supported measures in my home state and around the country that would simply ban gender-transition treatment for young people. And I think that's in our children's best interests."

Pence said the law has "always limited what children under the age of 18 are able to do, whether it's (to) get a tattoo, whether it's (to) enter into a contract. And even criminal law deals with minors, in most cases, in different ways. So, I think there's justification for protecting our kids very, very broadly."

He repeated the comparison in a June 7 CNN town hall, saying, "There's a reason why you don't let kids get a tattoo before they're 18, right?"