At first, Haley hemmed and hawed, stating that “Trump was the right president at the right time” but that “rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him.”

When she finally got to the question, she said:

Now, can a man become a woman. There’s been a lot that’s been talked about when it comes to all of these roles and all of these issues. I strongly believe that we should not allow any gender change surgeries to anyone before the age of 18. Period. We– kids now can’t get a tattoo until they’re 18. We shouldn’t have them permanently change their body until they’re 18. And that includes puberty blockers, that includes any sort of hormones that would do that.

After the age of 18, we want to make sure people can live any way they want to live. I don’t think government needs to be in control of anybody’s life. You go live the way you want to live, you should be free to live the way you want to live, and every– government and everybody else should stay out of your way.

Haley never actually answered the question the caller asked about whether one can change their gender.

Journalist and political commentator Megyn Kelly posed a similar question to Trump in September 2023. He gave a similar response, but ended up affirming that men cannot give birth.

Kelly asked Trump whether a man can become a woman. The former president’s response was a combination of hesitancy and ambiguity. After a long “ummmmmm,” Trump offered, “In my opinion, you have a man, you have a woman. I, I, I, think part of it is birth.”

He continued: “Can the man give birth? No. They’ll come up with some answer to that also someday.”

What is odd about Trump’s and Haley’s responses is that there does not seem to be any real political risk to telling the truth about gender. Most Americans agree that sex is assigned by birth.

The survey of more than 10,000 adults, which was conducted May 16-22 and published Tuesday, found that 60% say a person's gender is determined at birth, up from 56% in 2021 and 54% in 2017.

Views on gender identity differ by age groups and even more sharply by political affiliation. Half of adults ages 18 to 29 say someone can be a different gender than the one assigned to them at birth, compared with about 4 in 10 of those ages 30 to 49 and about a third of those 50 and older, the report found. Democrats and those who lean toward the Democratic Party were four times more likely than Republicans and conservative-leaning people to say that someone’s gender can be different than the one assigned to them at birth.

Another poll conducted by the Washington Post found similar results. But it also revealed that most Americans are opposed to the use of “gender-affirming care” on minor children and support laws prohibiting it. These treatments involve puberty blockers, hormone treatments, and even surgery on kids who are suffering from gender dysphoria.

So, what gives?

Why would folks like Haley and Trump be so hesitant to give the straightforward truth about gender ideology when the majority of Americans agree with them? One can understand why progressive politicians would fear taking such a position publicly. But Republicans? Not really.

Perhaps they fear the media backlash that would inevitably come from making controversial statements like “men cannot become women and women cannot become men.”

Democrats and the press would pounce on the opportunity to call Republican candidates “transphobes” for daring to suggest that sex is fixed at birth. Maybe Trump and Haley believe they might alienate a valuable part of the voting base.

But the reality is that the numbers show that they would be in line with most of the American public on gender. Instead of fearing the left, Republicans should care more about their values and public opinion, which is clearly on their side on this matter.