Everything Donald Trump got wrong about trans people in Tucson

Donald Trump is continuing his misinformation campaign about trans people in the run-up to the US 2024 presidential election.

Among the untruths the former president told a rally in Tucson, Arizona, on Thursday (12 September), was that pupils were undergoing sex-change operations at school. He also perpetuated the “groomer” conspiracy theory.

In addition, he falsely accused Olympic boxing champion Imane Khelif of being transgender, wrongfully insinuated that trans college swimmer Lia Thomas had an unfair advantage during a meet in 2022, and called trans inclusion “insanity.”

Here are is how we know he was wrong – or flat-out lied – about things as he campaigned for a return to the White House.

‘Children are getting gender-affirming surgeries at school’

In the past few months, Trump has continually claimed that pupils across the US are undergoing gender-reassignment surgery during school time and are coming home having had a “brutal operation”.

On a number of occasions during the rally, Trump said schools had “changed the sex” of children, without – unsurprisingly – offering up any evidence for the wild claim.

“Can you imagine your child goes to school and they don’t even call you, and they change the sex of your child?” he said.

This is complete nonsense, a total fabrication. There are no reported instances, or any evidence, of children receiving major surgery on a whim at a school anywhere in the world.

Not only that, but gender-affirming surgeries are seldom performed on children anywhere, let alone by a school nurse. They are performed only under strict guidance from doctors and are typically for teenagers who are in the process of switching to hormone therapy. Even then, these procedures are almost never related to genital reconstruction.

A study published in USA Today found that just eight per cent of gender-affirming surgeries were performed on children aged between 12 and 18. There are no reported cases involving anyone younger.

Despite this, at least 26 states have banned trans healthcare, including safe and effective puberty-blocking treatment, almost entirely for transgender youngsters.

‘Imane Khelif is a transgender woman and has an advantage in sports’

Algerian boxer Khelif became the focus of a misinformation campaign after anti-trans talking heads suggested that she was a trans woman.

In response to the “acts of aggravated cyber harassment” she faced, Khelif has begun a cyberbullying lawsuit against right-wing pundits, including author JK Rowling and tech billionaire Elon Musk.

Apparently, Trump didn’t get the memo, spending a portion of the rally lying about Khelif’s gender identity, saying she was “a man who transitioned”.

Khelif is neither transgender nor intersex, as some people have suggested.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC), who defended Khelif’s right to compete in Paris in the summer, said: “This is not a transgender case. There has been some confusion that somehow it’s a man fighting a woman. This is just not the case, scientifically.

“On that, there is consensus. Scientifically, this is not a man fighting a woman.”

Regardless of Khelif’s gender identity, there is no specific research that suggests trans people have an inherent advantage over cisgender competitors in sporting events.

In fact, an IOC-backed study highlighted the “complexity” of trans inclusion in sport and suggested that some transgender athletes could be disadvantaged by a number of factors.

‘College swimmer Lia Thomas set Olympic record because she is trans’

Trump got this one very, very wrong. Not only did Lia Thomas not set an Olympic record, she was not even allowed to compete at the Paris Games this year.

Thomas’s win at a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) division one swim meet in 2022 became a pivotal point in the debate over trans inclusion in sports, with some using it as a chance to misgender the US swimmer and claim she didn’t deserve her victory.

The former president continually misgendered Thomas at the rally, saying that she “was having lunch while the other young ladies were recovering”, which is completely untrue.

“[Thomas] was enjoying a nice lunch as the rest of them were swimming. How demeaning to women, right? Demeaning. How ridiculous.”

This is wrong on every level. Not only did Thomas not compete at the Olympics, the record-setting win which Trump was most likely referring to, was not decisive enough for her to have recovered more quickly than the other swimmers.

She also did not set a new record at the NCAA event where the controversy began. However, fellow swimmer Kate Douglass broke 18 records at the meet.

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