US President Donald Trump has claimed he ordered hospitals to begin offering “reverse surgery” for transgender people. The President made the claim during a recent campaign event in South Carolina.

“In fact, hospitals now are doing reverse surgery at my order,” Trump told supporters at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center. “They’re doing reverse surgery. Nobody ever heard about it.”

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President Trump made the statement while appearing at an event for Senator Darline Graham ahead of the Republican primary runoff against Ralph Norman. Darline Graham was appointed to the Senate following the death of her brother, long-standing representative Lindsey Graham.

Graham has made transgender people a central issue of her campaign after a series of embarrassing stumbles when asked about other issues. In a televised debate, Senator Graham admitted she didn’t know much about national security when asked a question about Taiwan and China.

“I’m just going to be honest here,” Graham said. “I’m not that informed on national security.”

“National security is not my thing, not my area of expertise,” she continued. “But I do support the military.”

She later claimed that South Carolina has a population of 50 million people, when in reality only 5.5 million people live in the state. In follow-up interviews, Senator Graham said that while national security was important, local people were more concerned about the cost of living and transgender girls playing sport.

Whether Republicans pick Senator Graham or Ralph Norman as their candidate, they will face Democratic challenger Dr Annie Andrews, a pediatrician. When Republican members voted on who would be their candidate on 11 August, none of the five candidates in the field secured a majority, leading to a runoff re-vote between the top two performers.

President Trump also took aim at Dr Andrews during his speech in support of Senator Graham, saying the medical professional was a “far-left political hack who supports transgender for everybody” and accusing her of telling “confused children they’re trapped in the wrong body.”

Dr Andrews, however, has previously said that she does not support gender-affirming surgery for people under the age of 18 and that she supports evidence-based care decided by doctors, parents and patients.

Critics however have point pointed out that the Trump administration has been focused on blocking funding for transgender healthcare since returning to power in 2025.

Adrian Shanker, who served in the Biden administration as deputy assistant secretary for health policy and senior adviser on LGBTQI+ health equity at the Department of Health and Human Services, spoke to The Advocate about President Trump’s comments.

Describing the President’s comments as “wild”, he said politicians should not be mandating people’s care.

“I don’t really know what President Trump means by reverse surgeries, but the reality is that he should leave medical decision-making up to the patient and their providers to discuss what medical care is right for a certain patient,” Shanker said. “These kinds of decisions really don’t have room for politicians in the middle of that conversation.”

Research has shown that very few people who transition gender regret their decision and undertake surgery to return to their previous gender.

In 2022 the World Professional Association for Transgender Health said evidence of later regret is scant, but people undergoing gender transition should be informed of the possibility during psychological counselling before undertaking medical treatment.

A study published in 2023 by OHSU, an Oregon based health provider that provides gender reassignment services, found that of 1989 that people who engaged with their program between 2016 and 2021, six people had later reverted to their previously held gender identity.