Marjorie Taylor Greene uses edited clip to falsely accuse Nikki Haley of supporting trans kids

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), a loyal supporter of Donald Trump, attacked GOP primary rival Nikki Haley by accusing her of supporting trans kids and their parents’ rights.

Greene shared a post on X from hate influencer Chaya Raichik, who runs the extreme anti-LGBTQ+ account LibsofTikTok.

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She said that parents are blocking their kids from joining the military because it’s too focused on inclusion.

“Remember when Nikki Haley said parents should be able to let their 12-year-old kids get se* change surgeries?” Raichik wrote. “This should’ve immediately ended her campaign. Completely disqualifying.”

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The clip she shared did not, in fact, show what she claimed it showed. The clip was from a June 2023 interview with CBS where Haley was asked about a hypothetical trans 12-year-old. Gender-affirming surgery is almost never performed on minors in the U.S., genital gender-affirming surgery is never performed on minors in the U.S., and the few cases of trans male teens accessing top surgery involve much older teens who meet a set of strict requirements, not 12-year-olds.

Haley said that the law should stay out of it and then said that surgery should be allowed when trans people are 18 years old.

“I think the law should stay out of it, and I think parents should handle it,” Haley told the reporter, an answer generally in line with conservatives’ claims that they support parents’ rights. “This is a job for the parents to handle. And then when that child becomes 18, if they want to make more of a permanent change, they can do that.”

Raichik, though, cut Haley’s response off at her first sentence and didn’t include the last sentence, which contradicts her claim about what Haley said.

“Add child sex change surgeries to the list of reasons no one should support Nikki Haley!” Greene wrote, uncritically sharing Raichik’s edited clip.

Haley is actually an extreme opponent of LGBTQ+ rights. In just the past year, she has claimed that trans girls are making cisgender girls die by suicide and said that she’ll “always fight” against trans girls getting equal opportunities in sports. She also kicked off her presidential campaign with an invocation from hate pastor John Hagee (who believes that Hurricane Katrina was a punishment for Pride parades) and called for a harsher version of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law at the same event.

Haley is currently second in the GOP primary race in RealClear Politics’s average of polls. Trump has 62.7% support in the average of polls, Haley has 11.0%, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is at 10.9%. The first primary battle of the season – the Iowa caucuses – is scheduled for next Monday.

On X, many of Greene’s followers believed her false claim that Haley supports 12-year-olds getting access to gender-affirming surgery.

“What’s wrong with this woman?” one commenter said about Haley. “She can’t possibly think that’s OK.”

“she’s a horrible person, what kind of people will support se* change surgery? someone having mental health issue,” another said about Haley.

“Neocon Nikki can’t stop getting lower and lower,” wrote another.