Minnesota Governor Tim Walz didn’t mince words when asked what the motivation was for the new movement among MAGA Republicans to convince President Donald Trump to pardon Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who killed George Floyd in 2020.

“Racism. It’s racist. OK? That’s what I believe,” Walz said in an interview with Semafor published Wednesday.

The calls to pardon Chauvin started with an online petition earlier this month, according to The Independent. The pardon push picked up steam this week when conservative commentator Ben Shapiro of the Daily Wire launched a webseries, “The Case of Derek Chauvin.” Shapiro claims the officer was convicted on “extraordinarily scanty evidence,” saying Floyd did not die from having Chauvin’s knee on his neck for over nine minutes, but rather from drugs in Floyd’s system and heart disease.

READ MORE: Derek Chauvin Sentenced to 22-and-a-Half Years for Murder of George Floyd – Less Than Maximum Possible Sentence

Walz, however, disputes this interpretation of events.

“This was a man who murdered George Floyd on TV,” Walz said, adding that a pardon “would undermine the faith in the system.”

The White House, however, has denied that a Chauvin pardon is in Trump’s plans. Earlier this month, Trump said he hadn’t even heard about a push to pardon Floyd’s killer, and on Wednesday, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt repeated that a pardon is “not something he’s considering at this time,” according to The Grio.

However, some commentators, like The Hill’s Juan Williams are skeptical, pointing out that Trump has pardoned two police officers convicted of killing a Black man in the first days of his second term.

In 2020, after the killing, Trump condemned Chauvin.

“We all saw what we saw. It’s hard to conceive anything other than what we did see. It should have never happened,” Trump said.

If Trump were to pardon Chauvin, it would be largely moot. Presidents can only pardon those convicted on federal charges. Chauvin was convicted on both federal and Minnesota state charges. In the event Trump cleared the federal charges, the main thing that would happen is that Chauvin would be moved from the federal prison in Big Spring, Texas to a Minnesota state prison.

Minnesota sentenced Chauvin to 22 and a half years for murder; on the federal level, he was sentenced to 21 years for violating Floyd’s civil rights. Barring a federal pardon, the two sentences are running concurrently, not consecutively.

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President Joe Biden said he “strongly opposes” a section of a bill that would strip funding for gender care for trans kids in military families, but signed it anyway.

The National Defense Authorization Act gives $895 billion to the Department of Defense, State Department, Department of Homeland Security and intelligence agencies, as well as national security programs at the Department of Energy. The bill was passed with bipartisan support in the House and Senate.

Normally, this would be a straightforward funding bill, but earlier this month, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) added a provision blocking TRICARE, which funds health care for service members, from paying for gender-affirming care for children. This will affect approximately 2,500 trans kids, according to Newsweek.

READ MORE: Lone Dissenter Calls Texas Supreme Court Transgender Ruling ‘Cruel, Unconstitutional’

Biden signed the bill on Monday, although called out that section in a statement.

“My Administration strongly opposes Division A, title VII, subtitle A, section 708 of the Act, which inhibits the Department of Defense’s ability to treat all persons equally under the law, no matter their gender identity.  By prohibiting the use of appropriated funds, the Department of Defense will be compelled to contravene clinical practice guidelines and clinical recommendations,” Biden wrote.

“The provision targets a group based on that group’s gender identity and interferes with parents’ roles to determine the best care for their children.  This section undermines our all-volunteer military’s ability to recruit and retain the finest fighting force the world has ever known by denying health care coverage to thousands of our service members’ children.  No service member should have to decide between their family’s health care access and their call to serve our Nation,” he continued.

The news created quick backlash, with people calling out what they see as hypocrisy and a failure to protect trans kids.

“And just like that, the first anti LGBTQ bill in nearly 3 decades was signed by Biden and passed by a Democratic senate. It included a ban on gender affirming care for trans children of military families. So much for having our back, you god damn liar,” journalist Alejandra Caraballo wrote on the social media platform Bluesky.

And just like that, the first anti LGBTQ bill in nearly 3 decades was signed by Biden and passed by a Democratic senate. It included a ban on gender affirming care for trans children of military families. So much for having our back, you god damn liar. www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-roo…

— Alejandra Caraballo (@esqueer.net) 2024-12-24T13:11:07.737Z

Caraballo is referring to the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy signed by President Bill Clinton in 1993. While allowing LGBTQ people to serve in the military, it prohibited them from talking about or expressing their queerness, even while off duty. Military officials were, however, also prohibited from asking if a service member was gay. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was repealed by President Barack Obama in 2010.

In the wake of anti-trans ads from Republican candidates in the 2024 election, Democrats have been accused of moving to dump transgender rights from their platform. Some elected Democrats have even called out the party’s prior embrace of LGBTQ rights.

“The Democrats have to stop pandering to the far left,” Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) told the New York Times. “I don’t want to discriminate against anybody, but I don’t think biological boys should be playing in girls’ sports.” He then offered some advice to his party: “Democrats aren’t saying that, and they should be.”

“Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face,” Rep. Seth Moulton, (D-Mass.) said. “I have two little girls, I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.”

The minimal pushback on the National Defense Authorization Act is just another signal that Democrats are backing down on defending one of the most vulnerable populations in American society.

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A Missouri court upheld a ban on gender affirming care for minors, citing ethical concerns.

Judge R. Craig Carter filed his ruling Monday in the case Noe v. Parson, deciding that the state’s ban on providing gender affirming care for minors did not run afoul of the constitution. The case was brought by several trans teens and their families, and filed by Lambda Legal, the ACLU of Missouri and Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP.

The law bans all care, including puberty blockers, hormones and surgery for people under 18. Minors who obtained this sort of care prior to August 28, 2023 are protected, and the law is set to expire on the same day in 2027.

The Missouri court ruled that it was “required to deny the plaintiff’s prayers for relief.”

READ MORE: Lone Dissenter Calls Texas Supreme Court Transgender Ruling ‘Cruel, Unconstitutional’

“This Court finds an almost total lack of consensus as to the medical ethics of adolescent gender dysphoria treatment. The evidence at trial showed severe disagreement as to whether adolescent gender dysphoria drug and surgical treatment was ethical at all, and if so, what amount of treatment was ethically allowable. States do have an abiding interest in protecting the integrity and ethics of the medical profession,” Carter wrote.

Carter ruled that since gender dysphoria is a mental disorder, and mental disorders are generally treated “by actually treating the mental aspect, like prescribing Zoloft to treat depression,” care that affects the body is not in line with “western medicine.”

“However, the gender dysphoria treatment prohibited by Missouri uses drugs and surgeries to either inhibit normal healthy human growth or surgically remove and replace healthy human organs. Such an approach to treatment is well outside normal medicine, and medical ethicists are unable to agree on the propriety thereof,” he wrote.

Carter also questioned “why the number of individuals with gender dysphoria has skyrocketed over the last decade,” parroting claims from anti-transgender advocates that it’s a “fad.” However, a 2022 study published by the medical journal Pediatrics debunked the claims of “social contagion” increasing the number of trans youth. The theory was initially posed by Dr. Lisa Littman in 2018, who wrote a paper describing “rapid onset gender dysphoria.” Littman’s paper was published by the journal PLOS One, who later issued a correction, pointing out that she did not actually speak to trans teens, but their parents.

Gender affirming care for minors typically involves prescribing puberty blockers, which delay the onset of puberty. Prior to puberty, care is generally limited to social changes—like wearing clothes or pronouns that align with the gender the child identifies as, according to Advocates for Trans Equality. Hormone replacement therapy in minors is exceedingly rare, and surgery is even more so.

Though Carter wrote in his ruling that “the potential harms from these interventions are serious,” puberty blockers are fully reversible. Not only that, but a study published in The Lancet found that 98% of those on puberty blockers went on hormone replacement therapy upon turning 18. But should a teen realize they aren’t trans, all they need to do is stop taking the blockers, and their body will go through puberty as normal. Puberty blockers have been used for years and are safe,  according to Cedars-Sinai, and are most commonly used to stop precocious puberty, a condition affecting 1 in 5,000 children—including some as young as 6.

Lambda Legal has vowed to appeal the Missouri court’s ruling.

“We are extremely disappointed in this decision, but this is not the end of the fight and we will appeal. However, the court’s findings signal a troubling acceptance of discrimination, ignore an extensive trial record and the voices of transgender Missourians and those who care for them, and deny transgender adolescents and Medicaid beneficiaries from their right to access to evidence-based, effective, and often life-saving medical care,” Lambda Legal and the ACLU of Missouri said in a joint statement.

Image by Ted Eytan via Wikimedia Commons