"It’s a shift led by Trump, whose proposed federal funding ban is just one of an array of policies designed to position himself as the Republican candidate most fiercely opposed to transgender rights. But the change isn’t confined to the former president’s candidacy, with many of Trump’s rivals also offering blunt assessments about the legitimacy of medical procedures that help people transition to their self-identified gender while adopting many of the former president’s own positions, including a ban on federal funds for gender transition surgery that LGBTQ advocates call a dramatic new front for the party’s anti-transgender agenda."