FACT CHECK: GOP ads mislead by suggesting Beshear supports sex change surgeries for kids

This story originally reported that there was no public record of a gender-transition surgery being performed on a minor in Kentucky. The story was updated to reflect the Free Beacon story several weeks later, which revealed a University of Kentucky clinic saying it had performed a “small number” of "non-genital gender reassignment surgeries" on the chests of minors “in recent years,” which it no longer performs.

Editor's note: This article is one in an occasional series that will examine campaign ads put up by both sides during the 2023 fall election cycle.

For the past two months, PACs supporting Republican Daniel Cameron in Kentucky's race for governor have aired more than $2 million of TV ads attacking Gov. Andy Beshear, strongly suggesting the Democratic incumbent supports gender reassignment surgery for minors.

While Beshear did veto a wide-ranging bill targeting transgender kids this year that included a ban on such surgeries for minors — which there was no record of ever happening in Kentucky at the time — the governor has flatly stated he opposes such procedures for them, as do LGBTQ rights groups in the state.

"Andy Beshear has always opposed gender reassignment surgeries for minors — which do not happen in Kentucky," Alex Floyd, Beshear's campaign spokesman, said last month.

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Several weeks after this story was published, a Free Beacon story revealed that a University of Kentucky clinic had performed a “small number” of "non-genital gender reassignment surgeries" on the chests of minors “in recent years,” but no longer does so after the new law went into effect this summer.

Here is a detailed look at the claims of the Republican ads and Beshear's record on the issue.

RGA hits Beshear on 'gender reassignment surgery'

The TV ads in question have come from State Solutions and Kentucky Values, which are both PACs led and funded by the Republican Governors Association.

State Solutions started airing its first ad hitting Beshear in April before the May 16 primary, then started airing it again at the end of May — collectively purchasing more than $700,000 of TV air time.

The narrator of the State Solutions says that Beshear "would allow sex changes for children as young as 8 and 9 years old," while the text on the screen has a quote below Beshear's name and face reading "...Gender Reassignment Surgery for anyone under 18," citing an Associated Press story on the website of NBC News.

The cited AP story was on Beshear's veto of Senate Bill 150 in March, which was promptly overridden by the GOP-controlled Kentucky General Assembly. The story detailed the sweeping broadness of the bill — dictating usage of bathrooms, pronouns and curricula in school, as well as the health care services now banned for transgender minors, including hormone treatments, puberty blockers and gender reassignment surgery.

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In June, Kentucky Values began airing a TV ad with a very similar accusation, with a second version of the ad going up last week. The group has put nearly $2 million behind the TV ad buys.

In these two ads, the narrator states that Beshear "even supports allowing school employees to secretly help children change genders, without telling their parents." During the narration, the screen features the same quote from the State Solutions ad — "...Gender Reassignment Surgery for anyone under 18" — and same citation.

While the narrators in the three ads do not explicitly say Beshear supports children changing their gender via a reassignment surgery, the text on the screen in those moments, along with Beshear's name and face, clearly leave the impression that surgery is a type of sex or gender change Beshear supports.

Cameron's own campaign has made the same accusation explicitly in this same time period, as his campaign account tweeted June 28 that "Andy Beshear and his liberal allies believe kids should have access to sex change surgery and drugs."

What was in SB 150, and why did Beshear veto it?

Senate Bill 150 was already a wide-ranging bill targeting transgender youth in K-12 schools when it was amended late in the legislature's 2023 session to include the ban on gender-affirming care, then quickly passed before the governor's veto period so a veto could be overridden.

In addition to banning hormone treatments, puberty blockers and reassignment surgery for transgender youth — as well as requiring doctors to detransition minors in their care if they’re currently using restricted treatments — the bill:

• Prohibits discussions about gender identity, gender expression or sexual orientation in school for students of all grades;

• Prohibits transgender students from using the bathroom of their gender identities;

• Allows teachers to refuse to use a student’s preferred pronouns;

• Requires schools to notify parents if they refer a student to receive a school's health or mental healthservices.

In Beshear's veto message, he wrote that he did so because "my faith teaches me that all children are children of God and (SB 150) will endanger the children of Kentucky" and "cause an increase in suicide among Kentucky's youth."

Citing the high suicide rate of LGBTQ youth, Beshear wrote that "improving access to gender-affirming care is an important means of improving health outcomes for the transgender population." He did not specify in the veto message any particular kind of gender-affirming care, such as hormones, puberty blockers or surgery.

Beshear added that he vetoed SB 150 because it "allows too much government interference in personal healthcare issues and rips away the freedom of parents to make medical decisions for their children," while turning educators and administrators "into investigators that must listen in on student conversations."

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In a press conference after his veto, which was quoted in the ad-cited AP story, Beshear said he "heard from children that believe this bill is picking on them, and asking — in many ways — why? I told them that I was going to show them that there is at least one person in Frankfort that cares for all of our children in the commonwealth, no matter what.”

Beshear and LGBTQ groups oppose reassignment surgery for minors

Beshear's stated opposition to gender reassignment surgery for children has not put him at odds with other LGBTQ rights groups, who expressed no opposition with that specific part of SB 150 as it moved through Frankfort.

While the ACLU of Kentucky represented transgender children who sued to block the sections of SB 150 banning hormone treatments and puberty blockers, the lawsuit did not address its ban on gender reassignment surgeries, which went into effect without challenge.

In late June, just after a federal judge issued the temporary injunction sought by the ACLU, Ban Conversion Therapy Kentucky executive director Rebecca Blankenship and government affairs director Michael Frazier said in a joint statement that "bans of sex reassignment surgeries for minors are perfectly appropriate and uncontested by every pro-LGBT organization in this Commonwealth. But puberty blockers and hormone therapy save lives."

Chris Hartman, the executive director of the Fairness Campaign who also lobbied heavily against SB 150 in Frankfort, also said they did not lobby legislators on the section of the bill banning gender reassignment surgeries for kids, as "that wasn't within the standards of practice, the best care recommendations, and to our knowledge wasn't happening in Kentucky."

"What we were concerned about was puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy," Hartman said.

While U.S. District Judge David Hale issued a temporary injunction June 28 blocking the section of SB 150 banning hormone treatments and puberty blockers, last week he stayed that injunction until the 6th Circuit rules on an appeal by Attorney General Cameron.

The ban on gender reassignment surgeries for minors, which was not challenged in the ACLU lawsuit, went into effect June 29.

Republicans stand by accusations against Beshear

Responding to this story, RGA spokeswoman Courtney Alexander stated that “if Andy Beshear doesn’t support sex change surgery for minors he should have signed the bill that would ban sex change surgery for minors, plain and simple.”

“Once again Andy Beshear is saying one thing while doing another, and Kentucky voters will continue to learn about Beshear’s far left record.”

Republican Party of Kentucky spokesman Sean Southard also issued a statement backing up the claim, though he did not cite the veto of SB 150, rather Beshear’s veto of Senate Bill 83 in 2022, which banned transgender girls from playing girls’ sports from grades six through 12 and college.

Southard said that in Beshear’s veto statement for that bill, he “offered KHSAA guidance as a suitable alternative to a ban on boys playing girls' sports. That guidance offered by Beshear included allowing kids to have life-altering surgery to change their sex. Andy Beshear endorsed that guidance."

While KHSAA policy before SB 83 allowed transgender girls to play girls’ high school athletics if they had both surgical changes and hormone treatments, students who are 18 and 19 years old (not minors) are eligible to play high school sports — and also still legally permitted to have gender reassignment surgery under SB 150.

Additionally, no transgender girl was ever known to have participated in girls’ high school sports in Kentucky before SB 83 went into effect, just as there was no known instance of a minor obtaining gender-reassignment surgery in Kentucky.

Reach reporter Joe Sonka at jsonka@courierjournal.com and follow him on Twitter at @joesonka.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Fact check: GOP ad suggests Beshear backs kid sex change surgeries