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Claim: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz signed a law that would “take children away from their parents if the parents don’t want to consent to sex changes.”
Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, criticized his vice presidential campaign opponent, Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., about signing a law that seeks to protect parents who bring their children to Minnesota for gender-affirming care.
“I think it’s pretty weird to try to take children away from their parents if the parents don’t want to consent to sex changes,” Vance said Aug. 7 at a campaign event in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. “That’s something that Tim Walz did.”
Other conservatives made similar claims. Fox News host Jesse Watters said the law Walz supported “removes a child from their parents’ home if the parents don’t want to castrate them.” Political commentator Megyn Kelly wrote on X:
Walz has taken action to support access to gender-affirming care in Minnesota. But Vance’s claim mischaracterizes the reach of the Walz-approved law on parental custody.
When PolitiFact contacted Vance’s team for comment, spokesperson Luke Schroeder said, “The letter of this law is clear: a parent who dissents from their child receiving so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ can lose custody.”
The amended law does not do that, the bill’s sponsor and legal experts said. Before it was passed, it was nicknamed the “Trans Refuge Bill.” It establishes which state court has jurisdiction over multi-state child custody disputes that involve gender-affirming care.
Read the rest of this Fact-Check on PolitiFact
Grace Abels joined PolitiFact as a staff writer focused on LGBTQ issues in February 2023. She graduated from Duke University where she studied history and journalism. She worked at the Duke Reporters’ Lab analyzing fact-checking data and has previously written stories for The 9th Street Journal and Facing South magazine.
Loreben Tuquero is a reporter covering misinformation for PolitiFact. She previously worked as a researcher/writer for Rappler, where she wrote fact checks and stories on disinformation actors and techniques. She graduated from Ateneo de Manila University with a degree in communication.
