During a recent interview on “Meet the Press,” Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and NBC News anchor Chuck Todd engaged in a heated debate over the issue of biological s*x and gender confusion in children and teenagers. Todd questioned Ramaswamy’s position that it is cruel to affirm gender confusion in minors, rather than allowing them the freedom to make their own healthcare decisions.

Ramaswamy explained that existing laws already limit what minors can do with their bodies, such as purchasing and consuming tobacco. He emphasized that it is legitimate to prevent [certain] mutilation or chemical castration through puberty blockers for the purpose of transitioning. Todd offered an opposing view, suggesting that gender should be viewed as a spectrum rather than binary.

Ramaswamy, however, stood by his understanding of biology and his confidence in the binary nature of gender. A Harvard-educated biologist and Yale-educated lawyer, he explained that the biological definition of gender is determined by an individual’s chromosomes. Women have two X chromosomes, while men have both an X and a Y chromosome.

Despite Todd’s claims that scientific research supports the idea of gender as a spectrum, Ramaswamy cited the DSM-5 (the accepted handbook for mental disorders) to support his argument that gender dysphoria is classified as a mental health disorder. He argued that it is not compassionate to affirm a child’s gender confusion and promote gender transitioning when a deeper issue may be at the root of their distress.

“Gender dysphoria for most of our history, all the way through the DSM-5, has been characterized as a mental health disorder,” Ramaswamy told Todd.

“And I don’t think it’s compassionate to affirm that. I think that’s cruelty,” he added of the idea that gender is a spectrum. “When a kid is crying out for help … let’s be compassionate and get to the heart of that rather than playing this game as though we’re actually changing our medical understanding for the last 100 years.”