Former President Donald Trump continues to repeat his lie that US schools are sending children for gender-affirming surgeries without their parents’ consent — even though his own presidential campaign found no examples of it.

Trump broke the story in late August. Era debunked by CNN and others in early September. But Trump, whose campaign has spent tens of millions of dollars on the late campaign’s transgender attack ads, revived the story in October as Election Day approaches.

trump card he made the request again Last week, while discussing education policy during a barbershop discussion in New York filmed by Fox News: “No transgender, no operations — you know, I’m taking your child — there are some places, your boy goes to school, he comes back a girl okay? Without parental consent.” He added: “At first when I was told it was actually happening, I was like, you know, it’s an exaggeration. No: it happens. It happens. There are areas where it happens.”

Trump did not name these alleged “zones.” But him made the claim once more during his time Friday interview with prominent podcast host Joe Rogan: “Who would want to have — there are so many — transgender operations: where they’re allowed to take your child when he’s in school and turn him into a man — a woman – without parental consent.”

Facts first: Trump’s statement remain false. There is no evidence that schools in any part of the United States sent children for sex-affirmation surgery without their parents’ approval or performed unapproved sex-affirmation surgery on site; none of this is “allowed” anywhere in the country. Even in states where gender affirmation surgery it is legal for people under 18, parental consent is required before a minor can be subjected to such a procedure.

The Trump campaign and four conservative groups contacted by CNN in September about Trump’s claim could find no evidence for it. Transgender health care experts said the situation Trump described simply isn’t happening in this country.

Landon Hughesa postdoctoral fellow at Harvard’s TH Chan School of Public Health and co-author of a recent study on the prevalence of gender-affirming surgery in the US, said in a September email: “There are no cases of children receiving surgery or accessing surgery from their schools.” Hughes added: “No provider in the US would perform surgery on a minor under the direction of a school, let alone without parental consent.”

“Of course, everything in this statement is false.” Dr Meredith McNamaraan adolescent medicine physician at Yale School of Medicine, said in a September email. “Of course, operations of any kind happen in a qualified medical center and not in a school. Of course, parents are the ones making medical decisions for their children, especially when it comes to gender-affirming care.”

For minors, parental consent is also required in the US for non-surgical sex-affirming medical treatments such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy. Various guidelines and standards for transgender adolescent health care from entities including American Academy of Pediatrics and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health explain that parental consent is required.

“Any gender-affirming medical or surgical care would legally require the consent of (both) parents/legal guardians and the consent of an adolescent under the age of 18.” Dr. Laura Taylormedical director of the Gender Affirming Care Program at the University of Southern California, said in a September email. “This includes puberty blockers, hormones and surgery.”

There are no definitive national figures on the number of minors who receive gender affirming surgerieswhich include breast or chest procedures, often called “top surgery” and genital reconstruction procedures, often called “bottom surgery.” But the limited data available do it clear that the vast majority of such surgeries occur among adults.

Taylor outlined a lengthy process before a minor undergoes sex-affirmation surgery.

“In teenagers, the decision to start hormones and/or have surgery would happen after consultations with an interdisciplinary team for a psychosocial assessment,” she said, in her bold characters. “The assessment includes understanding the dysphoria related to gender incongruence (distress caused by physical characteristics that do not match the person’s identity), how long it has been present, ruling out other reasons to explain the dysphoria, and ensuring that the adolescent and family can provide informed consent.”

Asked in September for any evidence for Trump’s claim that schools are secretly obtaining sex-affirmation surgeries for children, Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt offered none. Instead, she submitted a series of articles about the wider debate over how schools deal with gender identity issues.

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