Sherrod Brown and medical transitioning for minors 2

Back on Oct. 16, 2026 PolitiFact Bias published "Sherrod Brown and medical transitioning for minors: PolitiFact sustains its reputation for ineptitude." We highlighted the big problems with a fact check of the (GOP) Senate Leadership Fund for saying Democrat Sherrod Brown supports sex changes for minors, including irreversible surgery. PolitiFact rated that claim "Pants on Fire."

Before that PolitiFact mangling of the truth, the liberal bloggers posing as neutral journalists did another similar fact check of the Senate Leadership fund.

Though we failed to take note of it in our earlier fisking of this similar fact check, one of the keys to understanding opposition to sexual transitioning of minors stems from their contention that minors cannot give informed consent on these procedures that can have profound consequences on them over their entire lifetimes.

The obvious parallel is statutory rape. Under the law, a minor cannot give informed consent to sexual activity, so a minor's willing participation in sex leaves the other partner presumptively guilty of statutory rape.

Carry that parallel over to medical care, and the critics say a minor cannot give informed consent to those medical practices. Under that assumption, if parents, doctors and the patient agree to sexual transitioning and perform those procedures on the minor child, the resulting procedures were forced on the child.

PolitiFact:

Gender transition surgery for minors is exceedingly rare, and no medical guidelines support providing it for young children. Any medical care for transgender minors — which may include puberty blockers and hormone therapy — requires parental consent.

Would parental consent allow a minor child to consent to sex?

(W)e found no evidence Brown has said he favors forcing minors to undergo gender-related surgery.

What if Brown said he supported allowing parents and doctors to consent to gender-related surgery for minor children?

In the interview, Brown said, “A child’s health care decisions are between them, their parents, their families, their doctors — not politicians. I will never agree with anybody that wants to bring politics into the family situation with health care, period.’”

PolitiFact can find no evidence Brown has said he favors forcing minors to undergo gender-related surgery.

This is one of those cases where the position of the Senate Leadership Fund is so foreign to the thinking in the PolitiFact newsroom that they can't even begin to address the foundation of the argument. It likely never occurs to them that informed consent has anything to do with it. Ideological alignment with the left lets PolitiFact ignore the real argument and issue ratings as if it didn't even exist.

There's a word for that. Bias. PolitiFact bias.

If Brown believes parents can provide informed consent on behalf of minors for gender-related surgery, does he likewise believe parents should be able to consent to sex on behalf of their minor child? Maybe a journalist should ask him.