Donald Trump revived a false claim during a Georgia rally that schools secretly send students for gender surgeries without parental consent.
In the final months of the 2024 presidential campaign, President Donald Trump told an outlandish lie that schools in parts of the US were sending children for gender surgeries without the knowledge of their parents.
Trump has now revived the lie for the final weeks of the 2026 midterm campaign.
At a rally in Georgia on Friday, he said, “We got critical race theory and transgender mutilization (sic) insanity out of our schools. I mean, we have five states where your child goes off to school as Tim and comes back as Tammy, three or four days later. It’s true. And teachers make – somebody makes a decision. Can you imagine? ‘Goodbye, Timmy. I love you so much. I’ll see you later.’ And you say, ‘Where’s my son? My son is in the hospital.’ Can you imagine? Can you imagine? They don’t even need approval. It’s sick. You’ll have five – I think Minnesota and some others – I think it’s five or six states. You know that, right?”