Millions of dollars from Republican groups and figures are pouring into anti-transgender ads criticizing policies that support the trans community, despite the fact that these issues are among the least important concerns motivating voters heading into the 2024 election, according to a recent Gallup poll.

LGBTQ advocates fear the stepped-up campaign will sow fear and hatred against a group that makes up less than 1 percent of the U.S. adult population, according to an analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data — and already faces high rates of discrimination and violence. .

“After the election, trans Americans will have to face the dangerous consequences of the shameful lies and misinformation that far too many political candidates are purposefully spreading,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement.

In advertisements, former President Donald TrumpHis campaign said he would end transgender care in prisons and jails and restrict access to gender-affirming care and transgender participation in sports and more.

In interviews, Vice President Kamala Harris — who has been touted by some LGBTQ groups as part of the most “pro-LGBTQ” administration — said she would uphold the law when it comes to transgender care and voiced her support for the Equality Act, a bill to law that would protect LGBTQ Americans from discrimination.

Here’s what we know about the issues and how each candidate expects to legislate transgender policies.

Claim about ‘transgender operations’ in prisons, jails

Trump’s campaign seized on Harris’ previous comments stating her support for transgender inmates to receive care.

In 2019, she supported “the provision of essential medical care to provide transitional treatment”.

The Harris campaign, however, hit back at recent criticism from Trump, noting that the Bureau of Prisons under the Trump administration had a policy allowing incarcerated transgender people to receive sex-affirming medical care if it is needed based on an individual needs assessment . BOP documents confirm the policy.

“Do you still support the use of taxpayer dollars to help inmates in prison or illegal aliens in detention transition to a different gender?” Fox News anchor Bret Baier asked Harris during an October interview.

“I will follow the law, a law that Donald Trump has actually followed,” Harris said. “As you’re probably familiar by now, it’s a public report that under the Donald Trump administration, these surgeries were available on a medically necessary basis for people in the federal prison system.”

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, of the hundreds of incarcerated transgender people in BOP custody each year, none had undergone gender-affirmation surgery by the first instance in 2023.

BOP officials told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that as of early October, only two federal inmates had ever gotten the surgery.

Allegations of transgender ‘operations’ for children in schools

Trump often described hypothetical or unsubstantiated scenarios about children being “operated on” at school without parental permission during the campaign. The former president has repeatedly claimed, without any evidence, that schools are secretly sending students for surgeries, saying: “There are places, your boy goes to school, a girl comes back. OK? Without parental consent.”

According to Planned Parenthood, parental consent is required for any form of sex-affirming care given to minors, including puberty blockers or hormone therapy.

A study by Harvard School of Public Health researchers TH Chan found that gender-affirming surgery by transgender and gender-queer minors in the US instead found that cisgender minors and adults had substantially higher use of these gender affirming interventions. surgeries than their transgender counterparts.

Among trans teens ages 15 to 17, the rate of gender-affirming surgery was 2.1 per 100,000, the study found — a majority of which were chest surgeries. Doctors and researchers told ABC News that surgeries on people under 18 are rare and are only considered on a case-by-case basis.

Doctors say they work with patients and their parents to build a personalized and individualized approach to gender-affirming care for trans patients, which means not every patient will receive every type of care. They also said that receiving this care is usually a long process.

Numerous medical organizations — including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the CDC — have said that access to gender-affirming care is critical to the health and well-being of gender-diverse people.

Harris, when asked in October during an NBC News interview about whether transgender Americans deserve access to gender-affirming care, said he would “follow the law,” later adding that such care “is a decision which doctors will take in terms of what is medically necessary.”

In addition, Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz signed an executive order as governor of Minnesota that protects and supports access to gender-affirming health care for LGBTQ people in the state in March 2023.

Statements about transgender athletes

In a podcast with former professional wrestler The Undertaker or Mark William Calaway, Trump also made false claims about the controversial Olympic boxing match between Italian boxer Angela Carini and Algerian boxer Imane Khelif.

Khelif has been the target of controversy after reports falsely emerged claiming that Khelif is a transgender woman; she is not and was assigned female at birth, according to the International Olympic Committee.

Carini abandoned the Olympic match after just 46 seconds, further sparking false accusations. The Algerian Olympic and Sports Committee (COA) and the IOC have spoken out about the misinformation about Khelif’s gender and sex.

“The Algerian boxer was born female, was registered female, lived her life as a female, has a female passport,” the IOC said during a press conference.

Trump then referenced a San Jose State women’s volleyball game against New Mexico, falsely claiming that a trans athlete on the San Jose State team — while repeatedly fouling her — had hurt other players with the ball. San Jose State told the Los Angeles Times that the ball bounced off the student-athlete’s shoulder and the athlete was not injured or missed a play.

“They had one guy on the one team and he was so high in the air, and he broke that ball, you know, you don’t see that, and this ball came at her at a speed that he, you know. , she never saw it — she was really hit, but other volleyball players were hurt,” Trump said.

In addition, Trump has promised to “keep men out of women’s sports” in many of his speeches, making it a key issue in his campaign.

LGBTQ advocates say claims that trans women are “taking over” women’s sports are misleading — sports advocacy group Athlete Ally estimates to CNN that trans women make up fewer than 40 of the NCAA’s 500,000 athletes.

For more on the candidates’ history of LGBTQ policies, read on Here.