Sherrod Brown is facing a Senate Leadership Fund ad that uses Soren Aldaco to claim he supports surgery for minors. Records show Aldaco was 19 and living in Texas when she had surgery, not a minor in Ohio.
The ad says, "Sherrod Brown supports sex changes for minors, irreversible surgery on kids like me." Aldaco also appears in another version saying, "After a 20-minute meeting, doctors told my parents I was transgender," and, "That led to hormone shots, a botched double mastectomy, and years of trauma."
Soren Aldaco in the ad
In another ad, Aldaco says, "Surgery without my parents' consent," and, "I was a kid." The age and location records point the other way: she was 19, and her treatment took place in Texas.
Anita Somani said, "Under 18, there is not a single surgery that's been done here in the state, so I think the ads are misleading," and later added, "They are lies." She said Ohio prohibits transgender surgery on minors.
Ohio and Texas records
The contrast between the ad and the records is straightforward. The ad presents Aldaco as a child in Ohio, while the records place her as an adult in Texas when the surgery happened.
That leaves the ad with a narrower claim than it makes on camera. Bob Clegg said, "it doesn’t matter where Aldaco lives."
Sherrod Brown's 2023 remarks
Brown said in 2023 that medical decisions should be made between families and their doctors, not politicians. The Senate Leadership Fund built its attack around that position, but the Aldaco example does not match the child-surgery framing in the ad.
The unanswered point is the evidence the Senate Leadership Fund used when it chose Aldaco for the ad. That choice now sits at the center of the dispute over whether the spot describes a minor in Ohio or an adult in Texas.
