Tim Walz believes 10-year-olds can choose their own gender: 2017 townhall

In a 2017 townhall, current Minnesota governor and Kamala Harris' running mate Tim Walz explained his belief that children in the 4th grade, aged just 10 years old, are capable of choosing their own gender. Walz said "these are children my son's age— a fourth grader, a 10-year-old—who just wants to go to the bathroom and their identity is they are male or female."

Walz, then a congressman from Manakto, made the remarks during a townhall at Minnesota's Rochester Community and Technical College on February 23, 2017. The townhall came just as headlines were being made by the Trump administration, which had rescinded changes made to Title IX under the Obama administration that stated that biological sex and gender identity should be treated exactly the same way under the Civil Rights Act.

"I'm not one of those who gets politically charged," Walz said in the 2017 remarks, "and I would ask all of us, let's— and I try and do this— I try and do this for my own sanity, and I try and do it because I think it's the right thing to do: putting ourselves, literally, in the other people's shoes, and wonder why they're doing what they're going to do."

"And when I think through this, when I say this as a teacher," Walz continued, "there's about 150,000 of our children identified in our schools, in our public schools, trans students." Walz was a teacher in Mankato, Minn. for many years and was the faculty advisor for the first gay straight alliance club at that school. These kinds of clubs later morphed into "gender and sexualities alliance" clubs that promote gender ideology and trans identity. 

In 2023, a study found that there were almost 30,000 transgender persons in Minnesota and that the state had the 14th highest trans population in the nation, with about .59 percent of the state population. After Walz became governor in 2018, he enacted a law making the state a "trans refuge" so that children who were unable to get sex changes in other states could go to Minnesota for the service.

"And as a teacher," Walz continued, "my number one responsibility in the classroom was the safety, security and belongingness of every single child in that classroom." For this, he received a round of applause. "For those who have concerns, and I'm not, I will not minimize people's concerns," he said, "who are concerned that this is going to make an unsafe situation, whatever, I ask you that in many cases, these are children my son's age— a fourth grader, a 10-year-old—who just wants to go to the bathroom and their identity is they are male or female, and they just go in that bathroom and use it."

Obama had said that Title IX, which offered protections for women in education, also should allow men who claim to be women access to those same protections, including using the bathroom and locker room facilities of their choice. Trump's Department of Education head Betsey DeVos altered the guidelines back to the way they were originally intended, removing Obama's requirement that schools allow boys to use girls bathrooms if those boys claim to be girls.

The Trump administration said that the documents in which Obama conflated biological sex and gender identity did not "contain extensive legal analysis or explain how the position is consistent with the express language of Title IX, nor did they undergo any formal public process. This interpretation has given rise to significant litigation regarding school restrooms and locker rooms."

States and school districts, the Trump administration said, should make these determinations, not the federal governement. The Biden administration again reversed the Title IX regulations, requiring all schools that receive federal money to comply with gender ideology or face a loss of that funding. These policies have been implemented across every federal agency per an Executive Order Biden signed into office. 

Trump protected women under Title IX, where Obama and Biden removed those protections. It is not clear where Harris stands on this issue, but it is likely that her view is more similiar to those that Walz has expressed. The Biden administration is currently being sued for their policy.