“Trump’s Bold and Controversial Claim on Gender-Affirming Care: Why Even His Own Campaign Can’t Support It!”

The GOP nominee pushed a false claim about surgeries for children similar to one he recently pushed at a far-right group’s event.

Donald Trump rolled out a bonkers, evidence-free claim about gender-affirming care for children during a campaign rally on Saturday.

“Can you imagine you’re a parent and your son leaves the house and you say, ‘Jimmy, I love you so much, go have a good day at school’ and your son comes back with a brutal operation,” Trump told the crowd in Mosinee, Wisconsin.

“Can you even imagine this? What the hell is wrong with our country?”

The false claim arrives just over a week after the former president spewed similar talk at an event that featured anti-transgender hate hosted by the far-right group Moms for Liberty, which has been labeled an “anti-government extremist group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“The transgender thing is incredible. Think of it. Your kid goes to school and comes home a few days later with an operation. The school decides what’s going to happen with your child,” Trump told Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice.

Trump’s prior claim is false, too, as there’s no evidence showing schools in the U.S. sending children into gender-affirming surgeries — or administering them on school grounds — without parental consent, CNN noted.

Gender-affirming care can also be lifesaving, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, while operations such as genital surgery and mastectomies are rarely performed on minors.

CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale took to social media to knock Trump over his “lie,” adding that the GOP nominee’s own campaign “could not find a single example of this ‘school secretly sends child for gender-affirming surgery without parental consent’ thing having ever happened anywhere” in America.

Justice told CNN last week that while children weren’t “getting surgery in school,” she was “thankful” to Trump for pushing the false claim at the Moms for Liberty event.

Trump: Can you imagine you’re a parent and your son leaves the house and you say, Jimmy, I love you so much. Go have a good day in school and your son comes back with a brutal operation. pic.twitter.com/ChmwpavFAH— Acyn (@Acyn) September 7, 2024

Critics on social media didn’t hold back on Trump, with some referring to the amount of people injured and killed due to gun violence in schools.

The former president’s remarks arrived just days after two students and two teachers were killed during a shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia.

I cannot overstate this… if you are afraid that your child is going to have a gender affirming surgery at school but you aren’t afraid they may be shot at school, there is no way we’re living in the same nation. https://t.co/gxQVHIBOH8— Michael O’Brien (@DrOBrienMD) September 7, 2024

No. But I can imagine Jimmy ending up on a goddam slab in a goddam morgue as a victim of yet another school shooting because these are fundamentally unserious idiot people. There are enough real things to be afraid of. No need to invent any like the rubes do. https://t.co/HvkVM4DbAb— Jeff Timmer (@jefftimmer) September 7, 2024

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Boiled-brain Fox News culture war gibberish about a thing that even his own campaign can’t prove has ever happened. https://t.co/DniLvCC8IC— Mike Rothschild (no relation) (@rothschildmd) September 7, 2024

Can you imagine you’re a parent and your son leaves the house, and you say, Jimmy I love you so much. Go have a good day in school and your son doesn’t come back because of a guy armed with an AR-15?

Because that actually happens, all across this country. https://t.co/pIPpWZ8MPZ— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) September 7, 2024

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The stakes are high this year, and our 2024 coverage could use continued support. We hope you’ll consider contributing to HuffPost once more.