A Republican super PAC ad attacking Democrat Sherrod Brown over transgender surgery for minors stars a woman who isn't from Ohio and had her surgery as an adult, News 5 Cleveland reported.
The Senate Leadership Fund, a leading GOP group, has run multiple ads accusing the former senator of "forcing childhood sex change surgery." Two of the newest feature Soren Aldaco, a social media influencer and detransitioner.
"Sherrod Brown supports sex changes for minors, irreversible surgery on kids like me," Aldaco says in one.
In the ads, Aldaco says she was told she was transgender at 15, received hormone shots and later underwent a botched double mastectomy without her parents' consent. But Aldaco had that surgery in Austin in June 2021, when she was 19, according to court records from her malpractice suit, which the Texas Supreme Court allowed to proceed this summer. She lived and was treated in Texas, not Ohio, News 5 noted.
Ohio already bans gender-affirming surgery for minors. Rep. Anita Somani, a Columbus-area Democrat and OB-GYN, told the station the ads "are lies."
Republican strategist Bob Clegg defended the spots, arguing Aldaco is making a broader point about medical intervention, and he brushed off her age at the time of surgery.
"How many mature 19-year-olds have you met?" Clegg said.
He also noted that the GOP-controlled Ohio Supreme Court is reviewing the state's ban, which he called only a "temporary prohibition." The attacks stem from Brown's 2023 comment that medical decisions should be left to families and doctors.
Brown has answered with his own ad, in which Ohioans point out that such surgeries on minors are already illegal in the state.
The ads come as Republicans spend heavily to hold Senate seats in states Trump won easily. Brown leads Sen. Jon Husted 49% to 46% in a recent New York Times/Siena poll.
