republicans are spending $10 million in ohio on an ad about surgery on kids. the woman in it was 19. math is hard.

via News5 Cleveland, The New Transsexual, the Washington Examiner and Erin in the Morning

"Surgery without my parents' consent," says the young woman in a Republican ad, per News5. And then: "I was a kid."

She was 19. The surgery was in Texas. And the man the ad blames for it, Sherrod Brown, has never been a senator from Texas, a surgeon, or her parent.

what the ad says

The Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC tied to Senate Republican leadership, put the first ad up on September 24 in Ohio's Senate race, where Brown is trying to take the seat back from Republican Jon Husted. The Washington Examiner, which got it first, reported the group is spending nearly $10 million while it runs. It stars Soren Aldaco, a 23-year-old detransitioner. "After a 20-minute meeting, doctors told my parents I was transgender," she says. "That led to hormone shots, a botched double mastectomy, and years of trauma. I wasn't born in the wrong body. I was a kid." Then: "Sherrod Brown supports sex change surgery for minors, and admitted he would never oppose it."

The "admission" is a 2023 interview in which Brown said, as the Examiner describes it, that these medical decisions should stay between families and their doctors rather than politicians.

what the records say

Morgan Trau at News5 Cleveland checked. Aldaco's own attorneys, in her public lawsuit that went to the Texas Supreme Court, say she had the double mastectomy as an adult. She was 19, she lived in Texas, and she was treated there. Ari Drennen at The New Transsexual went to the court's opinion, which puts the surgery on June 11, 2021, and notes that her testosterone did start at 17, so the "hormone shots" line describes treatment that began when she was a minor. The surgery the ad is actually about did not. Ohio, for the record, has banned gender surgery for anyone under 18 since 2024.

Aldaco is entitled to tell her story, and her lawsuit against the therapist who wrote her surgery letter is still alive. What is being argued over is the frame a super PAC paid to put around it. Asked by News5 about her age, Republican strategist Bob Clegg said it does not matter where she lives, and that she is talking about how she should never have been allowed that kind of medical intervention.

meanwhile, at the rally

For ten days this was an ad. On Saturday it was the stump speech. Donald Trump rallied for Husted at Vandalia-Butler High School outside Dayton, per Mediaite, and got to it fast. "I saw the policy about transgender for everybody. The mutilization of your children," he said, in a passage Erin in the Morning transcribed. "Can you imagine saying we will not allow the mutilization of your children so that they can become transgender?"

By our count of the full broadcast, he came back to the "mutilization" of children three more times over the next hour and a quarter. In Ohio, the surgery he was describing has been illegal for minors since 2024.

Husted, you may recall, is the senator who fired his political director over an SS photo last month. His side's closing argument is now a 19-year-old in Austin. The Examiner reports most recent polls have Brown ahead by single digits, which may explain why everybody suddenly needs to talk about children.