Former President Donald Trump has again spread false claims about gender-affirming care for children, this time during a campaign rally in Wisconsin. Addressing his supporters on Saturday, Trump suggested that schools are secretly performing gender-affirming surgeries on children without parental consent. His assertions, which lacked any supporting evidence, appear to be part of a broader strategy to exploit cultural divisions on transgender rights for political gain.
“Can you imagine you’re a parent, and your son leaves the house, and you say, ‘Jimmy, I love you so much, go have a good day at school,’ and your son comes back with a brutal operation?” Trump said to the crowd in Mosinee. “Can you even imagine this? What the hell is wrong with our country?” The audience applauded his comments, but fact-checkers and experts have widely refuted them.
No Basis in Reality
The idea that schools are performing or arranging gender-affirming surgeries on minors without parental consent is a falsehood. There is no documented case of such surgeries being conducted in U.S. schools or anywhere without the involvement of a legal guardian. Gender-affirming care for minors is typically limited to counseling, social transitioning, and puberty blockers, with more invasive procedures such as surgeries reserved for adults or minors with extensive family, psychological, and medical consent.
Gender-affirming surgeries on minors, particularly surgeries like genital reconstruction or mastectomies, are exceedingly rare, according to medical professionals and organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). The AAP emphasizes that gender-affirming care, when appropriate, can be a lifesaving intervention for transgender youth by reducing the risk of depression, anxiety, and suicide.
In fact, the complex process leading up to any form of medical intervention for transgender youth involves medical professionals, mental health counselors, and families. These decisions are made over time and involve extensive discussions. The notion that a child could return home from school having undergone surgery is, as CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale noted, not just an exaggeration but a complete fabrication.
“There’s no truth to Trump’s claims,” Dale wrote on social media. “His own campaign cannot point to a single instance of this happening.”
Amplifying Misinformation
Trump’s misleading claims are not new. Just over a week earlier, he made similar statements during a discussion with Tiffany Justice, co-founder of the far-right Moms for Liberty group, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled an “anti-government extremist group.” Trump made a similar claim that kids were undergoing surgeries in schools without their parents’ knowledge at that Moms for Liberty event.
“The transgender thing is incredible,” Trump told Justice. “Think of it. Your kid goes to school and comes home a few days later with an operation. The school decides what’s going to happen with your child.”
Justice, while conceding to CNN that children are not getting surgeries in school, still thanked Trump for promoting the false claim, praising him for raising the issue to energize conservative voters.
Trump’s rhetoric around transgender issues has become a focal point of his campaign as he seeks to rally his base by tapping into cultural anxieties around LGBTQ+ rights, especially the rights of transgender individuals. His remarks at the rally are part of a broader campaign effort to label progressive policies as radical and harmful to children.
Dangerous Consequences
The spread of misinformation around gender-affirming care has real consequences. For transgender youth, these false narratives contribute to a hostile and unsafe environment, exacerbating mental health struggles. According to The Trevor Project, an organization dedicated to LGBTQ+ youth, more than half of transgender and nonbinary youth have seriously considered suicide in the past year. For many in the transgender community and their allies, Trump’s remarks feel not only dishonest but harmful.
“This kind of rhetoric is not only baseless but dangerous,” said Dr. Alex Kent, a psychologist specializing in LGBTQ+ youth. “By promoting false information, it feeds into a larger narrative that transgender individuals are somehow a threat to society, when the reality is that they are the ones most often marginalized and vulnerable.”
Major medical organizations, such as the American Medical Association and the World Health Organization, support gender-affirming care because they acknowledge that affirming a person’s gender identity through medical and psychological support can be crucial to their well-being. Trump’s ongoing narrative, according to advocates, paints a misleading and harmful picture of these procedures, further stigmatizing already vulnerable groups.
Leveraging the Culture War
Trump’s falsehoods about transgender surgeries reflect his broader political strategy of focusing on cultural and social issues to galvanize conservative voters. By portraying transgender rights as extreme, he taps into the fears of parents who are concerned about the role of schools in their children’s lives and the impact of progressive values. This tactic mirrors other culture war issues Trump has embraced, such as his claims about critical race theory and “woke” culture.
Beyond gender-affirming care, Trump has also routinely spread misinformation about abortion, including his frequently repeated claim that some states allow “executions of babies after birth.” Infanticide is illegal in all 50 states, yet Trump continues to assert otherwise as part of his broader appeal to social conservatives.
By focusing on these issues, Trump is attempting to divert attention from more pressing policy matters, such as his role in appointing Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, a landmark ruling that guaranteed federal protections for abortion. For many in his base, however, these cultural issues are a potent rallying point.
The Bottom Line
Trump’s false claims about gender-affirming care for children are part of a long history of fabrications that have marked his political career. From the baseless assertions about widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election to his continued promotion of conspiracy theories, Trump’s relationship with the truth has been tenuous at best.
For transgender individuals, their families, and allies, Trump’s rhetoric represents an ongoing attack on their rights and dignity. As Trump continues to campaign for the 2024 election, his reliance on disinformation, particularly regarding transgender issues, shows no signs of slowing down.
Ultimately, the spread of such misinformation risks not only eroding trust in public institutions but also deepening divisions within an already polarized society. For the transgender community, it adds another layer of fear and misunderstanding in a country where their rights and identities are still under constant scrutiny.
As fact-checkers continue to debunk Trump’s claims, the challenge remains in ensuring the truth about transgender healthcare is heard amidst the noise of political rhetoric.
