CLEVELAND — The political ads are coming at us fast and furiously this election cycle, and 3News got emails from a couple of viewers asking us to VERIFY a new one about Ohio U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown.
THE CLAIM
The ad, paid for by the Senate Leadership Fund super PAC (which was created to help Republicans build a majority in the U.S. Senate), makes two separate claims within this statement:
"Brown backed Biden, voting to let transgender biological men participate in women's sports and supported allowing puberty blockers and sex-change surgeries for minor children."
SOURCES
Our sources to VERIFY these claims are:
- Brown's interview with WSYX in Columbus
- Brown's campaign
- The U.S. Senate website
EXPLANATION
Let's start with the claim that Sen. Brown supported allowing puberty blockers and sex reassignment surgeries for minor children. The ad cites an interview with WSYX in Columbus as proof of this.
During that 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."
Brown's campaign told me, "Sherrod’s comments cited in the ad were not in support of puberty blockers or gender reassignment surgeries, but instead a call to keep politicians out of decisions that should be made between families and doctors."
Now, let’s look at the claim about women's sports. When making the claim, the ad refers to a vote in the U.S. Senate from March of 2021.
When we pull up this vote on the U.S. Senate website, we see it had nothing to do with allowing transgender people to participate in women’s sports. It was actually only about money.
Specifically, Brown voted against including an amendment in the American Rescue Plan Act that would have stripped federal funding from Ohio schools if those schools allowed transgender people to participate in women's sports. The amendment failed almost exclusively along party lines and the legislation passed without its inclusion, with Brown supporting the overall bill.
ANSWER
So we can VERIFY the claims in this ad about Brown are false. He did not vote "to let transgender biological men participate in women's sports," and did not support "allowing puberty blockers and sex change surgeries for minor children."
Remember, if you see something you want us to fact check, you can send it our way at VERIFY@wkyc.com.