As Ashton Colby faces the prospect of losing his routine gender-affirming care at the hands of the second Trump administration, at least one Trump supporter has his back: his dad, Rick Colby.

“I agree with just about everything Trump is doing except for transgender people,” Rick told CNN.

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“It doesn’t matter what your political affiliation is,” he continued. “My main concern is how to keep your child alive and help them to be happy and thrive and be productive members of society.”  

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Ashton, now 32, said his dad was very supportive following his top surgery. “He was there in the hotel room while helping me recover and drink protein shakes when I couldn’t use my arms. He’s made, literally, a life-or-death difference in my life.”

Ashton takes testosterone as a weekly injection in an ongoing treatment plan to manage gender dysphoria that he said, “I now luckily don’t have.”

While Trump has so far limited his attacks on gender-affirming care to trans minors, Ashton says he fears federal bans will expand to adults like him.

“I’ve been really worried that, even as an adult, my care might be taken away or made much harder to access.”

Rick says the “extreme right” doesn’t “believe being transgender is a real thing at all” and engages in efforts to “erase them and make life difficult, even though transgender people are American citizens and are trying to participate in the American dream and live their lives to be left alone like everybody else.”

“I identify myself as a conservative Republican who’s a dad of a transgender son who I love and support. That sets them off, because it doesn’t fit the narrative, which is, ‘everybody’s on the left doing this.’”

That proves his point, Rick says.

“It shows this is really an issue that transcends a political ideology, that there actually is an objective truth to it.”

Ashton is clear that he disagrees with a lot of his dad’s beliefs but says they’ve been brought closer by “answering the call to advocacy.”

His son’s transition, Rick said, allowed him to be in “a great place and be the person he was always meant to be, which is a man.”  

Ashton added, “I’m safe with him here.”

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