Charlie Kirk compares trans people to “homeless encampments”

“It brings down your spirit. It makes you feel as if we can't solve problems. We're not even able to issue care. I think it creates a bad standard for our children. It creates a messy society. I don't like any of it.”

Video file

Citation From the March 30, 2023, Turning Point USA event, posted to YouTube 

CHARLIE KIRK (TPUSA FOUNDER): We don't have to think too deeply about it because conservative mayors like Rudy Giuliani, they've solved homeless crisis. So let's -- okay, so which one of the five fake religions does this fall under? The religion of tolerance. We should not have tolerance for public degeneracy or depravity of our streets. We should have compassion for the person and find healing for that person. But the activity -- I have no tolerance for somebody that goes around and exposing others with public nudity or publicly defecating. That act should be considered intolerable.

So what is the conservative solution? You should draw a very fine line. You should make it illegal, that doesn't mean you throw them in prison. But yes, you should spend time and energy and resources to continually say you can't go there, you can't do that, this is not your street, you can't do that. And what New York City found under Rudy Giuliani is, yeah, it's a messy nine months, but you do it humanely, you expand the homeless shelters, but eventually the homeless learn the rules and they follow the rules. And homelessness went down dramatically. You get more of what you subsidize. So if what you're telling me right now is the government is going to come in with housing and money, you're going to get more homelessness, not less homelessness.

And finally, it's a very complex issue. I have spent some time in homeless encampments and going through it. There is a group of people there that, of course, are mentally, you know, going through struggles and they need help and they need compassionate care. However, this goes to the entire trans thing as well. We should not have to accommodate clean streets, safe streets, and a society that functions because of somebody else's problem.

And so, you think about it, it's exactly the same thing as the trans thing, right? That I have to go walk through -- you know, I don't know how San Diego is, but downtown LA, where you -- it depresses your mood. It brings down your spirit. It makes you feel as if we can't solve problems. We're not even able to issue care. I think it creates a bad standard for our children. It creates a messy society. I don't like any of it. And so I don't think we should tolerate the act of public encampments all the while having, of course, a moral prerogative to give the people compassionate care.