Byron Donalds’ ad deceptively edited David Jolly clip on gender-affirming care

Ahead of U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds’ win in Florida’s Republican gubernatorial primary, he launched an attack ad against Democratic nominee David Jolly over transgender issues.

The Friends of Byron Donalds PAC ad shows short clips of Jolly speaking about issues involving transgender people, including Florida’s crackdown on rainbow street art and school sports participation.

The ad’s text says Jolly supports “gender changing surgeries on kids” and plays a clip of Jolly saying, “We embraced it, the medical pathways, the gender-affirming care.” 

The ad echoes what Donalds told patrons of a Doral restaurant in July, when he said that Jolly believes “it’s okay to change the gender of young kids.” 

Did Jolly say he supports surgeries for children to affirm their gender? No, the ad twists Jolly’s words from a 2025 podcast interview.

In context, Jolly was quoting someone else when he made the comment about gender-affirming care — a broad term that isn’t limited to surgery. 

When asked by reporters about medical care for trans youth, Jolly has said he supports families making medical decisions with a doctor. It is not standard medical practice for doctors to provide gender-affirming surgeries for young children.

PolitiFact contacted Jolly’s campaign about the ad and his position on gender-affirming surgeries for minors but received no response. 

Although he relayed a story about healthcare for a youth transitioning from one gender to another, we found no examples in the public record of Jolly talking specifically about gender-affirming surgeries for kids.  The Donalds’ campaign did not provide any in response to our inquiry.

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What Jolly said, in context

The clip of Jolly speaking about gender-affirming care comes from his September 2025 interview with “For St. Pete’s Sake,” a LGTBQ+ focused podcast hosted by members of Pinellas County’s Stonewall Democrats. In the interview, Jolly talked about a grandfather whom he said called Jolly a few years earlier about the man’s trans grandchild in high school. 

Jolly said the man said his grandchild was experiencing suicidal thoughts and wondering whether they should leave home. “As a family we embraced it, we sought the right pathways, the medical pathways, the gender-affirming care, for this grandchild,” Jolly recounted that the man as saying.

Jolly said the call happened a few years ago, when state lawmakers were weighing SB 254, which criminalized providing gender-affirming medical care to minors, making it a third-degree felony. By Jolly’s account, the man told him the family’s doctor could be arrested for providing gender-affirming care for his grandchild and the parents could lose custody under the bill.

The bill became law in May 2023. In addition to criminal penalties for healthcare providers, the law grants courts emergency jurisdiction over child custody disputes in cases where a minor is receiving gender-affirming care.

What Jolly has said about gender-affirming care for minors

Gender-affirming care includes a range of approaches to support a person’s gender identity, including using a different name or the person’s preferred pronouns. According to medical best practices, gender-affirming treatments available to adolescents can include puberty blockers, hormone therapy and, in rare cases, surgeries for older teens. Medical intervention for minors requires parental consent.

When Politico asked Jolly in July for his position on “gender medicine for minors,” he responded: “I simply subscribe to the old-school Republican position that government should stay out of your life, out of your doctor’s office, and out of your bedroom. The last person you need sitting on the foot of your bed during hard family conversations is Byron Donalds.”

In August, Jolly told a crowd in The Villages that Donalds was stoking a culture war because “I believe that local communities should be able to celebrate their own and that government should stay out of your medical decisions.” His campaign labeled the clip, “My response to Byron Donalds.”

Our ruling

A Donalds PAC campaign ad said Jolly said that he supports “gender-changing surgeries on kids” and uses a clip of him speaking about gender-affirming care. 

The clip was deceptively edited to make it look like Jolly was saying he “embraced” giving kids gender-affirming surgery. The full video shows Jolly was quoting another person, and he doesn’t mention surgery. 

When asked by reporters about medical care for trans youth, Jolly said he supports families having the ability to make medical decisions with their doctor. Gender-affirming care can include using a different name or a person’s preferred pronouns, and treatments are typically available only to adolescents and adults. In rare cases, that can include surgeries for older teens with parental consent — not young children.

We rate this statement False.

RELATED: In Iowa Senate race, Hinson ad distorts Turek’s stance on gender-affirming care for minors 

PolitiFact News Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.