Liberal journalists know that Democrats can be vulnerable on transgender issues, so the badly named “independent fact checkers” are quick to screech against Republican ads. On Wednesday, PolitiFact threw a “Pants on Fire” flag at a commercial by the Senate Leadership Fund, a Republican super PAC.
"Pants On Fire" is a tag they use to denounce the worst lies, as the words imply. In this case, Loreben Turquero is putting the following claim in the same category she put "Michelle Obama is a man." Bryan White at PolitiFactBias.com first singled out this one:
“Sherrod Brown supports sex changes for minors. Irreversible surgery on kids. Like me,” Soren Aldaco.
PolitiFact used unsurprising logic for its argument: the Democrat says it's a lie.
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.
Aldaco had a double mastectomy at 19, the youngest of adults, in Texas. As Bryan pointed out, that put all the weight on the idea that Aldaco wasn't from Ohio, and the Ohio law, when the real issue is Brown's position on transgender issues.
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 [in Toledo] 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.”
PolitiFact and Turquero summarized its flaming-pants ruling: "We found no evidence that Brown has ever said he supports sex-changes for minors." The issue is legislation -- for it or against it? That's what voters need to know.
So Brown proclaimed "I will never agree" with politicians to ban gender surgeries on minors because it "brings politics" into health care, and these "fact guardians" suggest he hasn't publicly opposed it??
Even if Brown hadn't publicly taken a "pro-choice" decision here, why go to the extreme and throw a "Pants On Fire" in Brown's defense if he had never taken a position? Even if he hadn't taken a position, isn't it the job of reporters in Ohio to put Brown on the record, and not defend him as not taking a position? He was a U.S. Senator in 2023-24.
PolitiFact has demonstrated their usual aggression against the GOP side. It's issued five fact-check ratings on the Senate Leadership Fund this year, and nothing was true: one Half True, one Mostly False, two False, and this Pants On Fire. Meanwhile, Brown hasn't been found "false" in 2026: two Half True ratings, and a Mostly True. His opponent, Sen. Jon Husted, was given a False.
You can tell this "fact checker" is liberal because it uses the fact-denying phrase "gender-affirming care" or "gender-affirming medical care" without quote marks six times. Then look at what they do put in quotes:
The woman is Soren Aldaco, who has been outspoken about her experience identifying as transgender when she was younger, to later “detransitioning.”
