Fact check: Trump revisits his lie that schools secretly send children for gender-affirming surgeries

CNN
—

Former President Donald Trump continues to repeat the lie that American schools send children for gender-affirming surgery without parental consent – even though his own presidential campaign failed to find a single example of such an event.

Trump published this story in late August. It was debunked by CNN and others in early September. But Trump, whose campaign did spent tens of millions of dollars about ads attacking transgender people late in the campaign, she revisited the story in October as Election Day approached.

Trump reapplied last week while discussing education policy in a New York hairdresser’s discussion filmed by Fox News: “No transgender, no surgery – you know, they take your child – there are places like that, your boy goes out to school and comes back as a girl. All right? Without parental consent.” He added: “At first, when they told me this was actually happening, I said, you know, this is exaggerated. No: it happens. It happens. There are areas where this happens.”

Trump did not name these alleged “areas.” But he is he submitted the application again during his Friday interview with prominent podcast host Joe Rogan: “Who would want to perform – there are so many of them – transgender surgeries: where they can take a child to school and turn him into a man – into a woman – without parental consent.”

First the facts: : Trump’s claim remains FALSEHOOD. There is no evidence that schools in any part of the United States sent children for gender-affirming surgeries without parental consent or performed unapproved gender-affirming surgeries on-site; nothing like this is “allowed” anywhere in the country. Even in states where gender affirming surgery is legal for persons under 18 years of age, with parental consent is required for a minor to be subjected to such a procedure.

The Trump campaign and four conservative groups contacted by CNN in September about Trump’s claims were unable to find any evidence of them. Transgender health care experts said the situation Trump described simply doesn’t happen in this country.

Landon Hughespostdoctoral fellow at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and co-author of the book: a recent research on the prevalence of gender-affirming surgery in the U.S., said in a September email: “There are no cases of children receiving or having access to surgery in schools.” Hughes added: “No doctor in the United States would perform surgery on a minor under the direction of a school, much less without parental consent.”

“Of course, everything about this statement is false.” Dr. Meredithe McNamaraan adolescent physician at the Yale School of Medicine, said in a September email. “Of course, any type of surgery is performed in a qualified medical center, not in a school. Of course, parents make medical decisions for their children, especially when it comes to gender-affirming care.”

For minors in the U.S., parental consent is also required for non-surgical gender-affirming treatments, such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy. Various guidelines and standards regarding medical care for transgender teenagers from entities including: American Academy of Pediatrics and World Professional Association for Transgender Health explain that parental consent is required.

“Any gender-affirming medical or surgical care would legally require the consent of (both) parents/legal guardians and the consent of a teenager under 18 years of age,” she added. Dr. Laura Taylorthe medical director of the gender-affirming care program at the University of Southern California said in a September email. “This includes puberty blockers, hormones and surgery.”

There is no final national data on the number of minors who receive the benefit gender-affirming surgerieswhich include breast or chest surgery, often called “upper surgery”, and genital reconstructive surgery, often called “lower surgery”. However, the limited data available makes it so This Of course that the vast majority of this type of surgery concerns adults.

Taylor outlined the lengthy process before a minor can undergo gender confirmation surgery.

“In teenagers, the decision is made to start using hormones and/or surgery After consultation with the interdisciplinary team for a psychosocial assessment,” she said in her bold self. “The assessment includes understanding gender non-conforming dysphoria (distress caused by physical characteristics that do not match a person’s identity), how long it has occurred, ruling out other causes of dysphoria, and ensuring that the adolescent and family can provide informed consent.”

Asked in September about any evidence to support Trump’s claim that schools were secretly performing gender-affirming surgeries on children, Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt provided none. Instead, she submitted a series of articles about the broader debate over how schools deal with issues of gender identity.