Ads misleadingly link Ohio’s Sherrod Brown to Texas woman who had gender transition-related surgery

New Republican-funded ads aim to connect former U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Ohio, to a young woman’s traumatic experience following a gender transition-related surgery.

In a Senate Leadership Fund ad published Sept. 28, a woman said, “Sherrod Brown supports sex changes for minors. Irreversible surgery on kids. Like me.”

She continues, “At 11, I was groomed by strangers online. At 15, a doctor told my family I was transgender. Hormone injections, then surgery, without my parents’ consent. I was a kid. I was confused. Sherrod Brown isn’t. He knows the consequences. Ohio’s kids deserve better. So did I.”

In a Sept. 24 ad, the same woman said her experience led to “years of trauma.” “I wasn’t born in the wrong body. I was a kid. But Sherrod Brown supports sex change surgery for minors and admitted he would never oppose it,” she said.

The woman is Soren Aldaco, who has been outspoken about her experience identifying as transgender when she was younger, to later “detransitioning.”

The ads make it seem as though Brown’s position on gender-affirming care for minors played a role in Aldaco’s experience. But records and reports show he had nothing to do with it. The surgery took place in Texas — not Ohio — when Aldaco was 19, no longer a minor. 

The Senate Leadership Fund is a Senate Republican-affiliated super PAC supporting incumbent U.S. Sen. Jon Husted in the race. The group can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to campaign for federal candidates. 

Aldaco’s transition-related surgery in Texas

In 2023, Aldaco sued five people and four companies in Tarrant County, Texas, for medical negligence and other allegations. 

In a February op-ed published by The Wall Street Journal, Aldaco wrote that she began identifying as transgender at the age of 11. At 17, she said, her stepmother accompanied her to visit a nurse practitioner, who prescribed testosterone and estrogen blockers. She had an elective double mastectomy at 19, she wrote.

In a Fox News op-ed published the same month, she said she was “sexually groomed by adult strangers” in internet chatrooms.

“I was 11, freshly groomed, when I started identifying as trans — 15 when doctors got involved, 17 when they prescribed hormones without valid consent, and 19, still a teenager and a college kid, when I underwent a double mastectomy — and I’ll never get back the seven years of childhood that recent reporting has omitted,” Aldaco said in a statement emailed to PolitiFact.

Aldaco told Fox News Digital in March that the nurse practitioner who prescribed her hormones did not confer with her biological mother.

Brown’s response and position on gender affirming care

Brown has released an ad in response calling the Senate Leadership Fund’s ads a “complete lie.”

“Records show not only is this woman actually from Texas, she didn’t have any surgery as a minor,” the ad said.

An earlier ad from Brown’s campaign emphasizes that Ohio law prohibits performing transition-related surgeries on children.

Gender transition surgery for minors is exceedingly rare, and no medical guidelines support providing it for young children. 

A 2024 Ohio law prohibits gender-affirming medical care for minors. State lawmakers passed it in December 2023 and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed it. The Legislature overrode that veto, and the law was implemented in April 2024.

Brown’s public comments about gender-affirming care for minors have been limited. The Senate Leadership Fund has pointed to a 2023 news interview when Brown said, “A child’s health care decisions are between them, their parents, their families, their doctors — not politicians. I will never agree with anybody that wants to bring politics into the family situation with health care, period.”

He did not say in that interview that he supports sex-change surgery for minors. We rated a similar claim that Brown supports “forcing childhood sex change surgery” from the Senate Leadership Fund False. 

WVTG reported Oct. 9 that “Brown hasn’t publicly supported or opposed the issue,” adding that Brown said in a recent campaign stop, “That’s settled law.”

Chris Gustafson, spokesperson for the Senate Leadership Fund, told PolitiFact that Brown’s 2023 statement is proof that Brown “does not support any limitations on transgender/gender-affirming procedures on children.”

Our ruling

A Senate Leadership Fund ad featuring Aldaco says Brown “supports sex changes for minors. Irreversible surgery on kids. Like me.”

Aldaco had transition-related surgery in Texas when she was 19 years old. Brown had no role in it.

Ohio bans gender-affirming medical care for minors, and such surgery for minors is exceedingly rare with no medical guidelines supporting it. We found no evidence that Brown has ever said he supports sex-changes for minors. 

We rate this claim Pants on Fire!

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.