If you’ve been closely following the current news about the presidential race, you have probably heard candidate Donald Trump say that public schools are conducting transgender transition-related surgeries on students. If you’ve got more than a dozen brain cells rattling around in your skull, and aren’t part of the MAGA cult, you have probably figured out that this is pure, unadulterated BS.

Are there students in U.S. schools suffering from gender identity disorder, the condition that causes someone to identify as transgender? Unequivocally, the answer is “yes.” Were I in elementary school now, I’d be one of them, no doubt “out of the closet” in this current climate of general openness and wider acceptance.

I have to admit, however, that even in the 1970s, I was a transgender student. I just didn’t understand it all back then, nor did I know what to call what I was experiencing. I knew I had a male body, and a male name, so I just dealt with that fact and sucked it up. I would not have dared be “out” in any way, shape, or form. Had I decided to “go public” and wear a dress to school, even for a Halloween party, there was a good chance I might have been beaten up by some male student or students behind the building after class was over for the day.

Instead, I tried my best to bury, actually perhaps “hide” is a better word, my cross-gender feelings. It took me until age 41 to finally come out, after years of soul-searching, and until age 50 to finally begin the process of transitioning to female.

The transgender community is a favorite target of the Trump campaign and many, many, members of the GOP. Personally, I really don’t like being hated by people who’ve never met me; frankly, I think I’m a pretty nice and likable person, once you get over my tendency to tell dumb dad jokes. Old habits die hard.

I do, however, feel quite confident that I could dig up a good number of character witnesses if necessary. Also, I just want to share that, for the record and to the best of my knowledge, being friends with me has not caused any cis-gendered person to “turn into” a transgender person.

Now, back to the original comments about by Trump about gender transition surgeries ...

I find it utterly reprehensible that Trump has uttered this blatant lie, a lie that would no doubt be parroted by J.D. Vance. Although, knowing Vance’s far-right views and utter ruthlessness in trying to win this election, it is certainly possible, dare I say likely, that he may be the source of the lie. Were he alive today, Sen. Joseph McCarthy would be proud, or perhaps jealous of Vance’s viciousness and cold demeanor.

In their attempt to win the election at all costs, the Trump campaign, by telling this outright lie, has likely put teachers, school administrators, and students alike in grave danger. When one looks at the ongoing fallout of Trump’s debate comment about Haitian immigrants eating dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio, it is not hard to imagine some unhinged individual causing unthinkable mayhem in a public school in order to put an end to these fabricated stories of transgender surgeries.

I am not an attorney, but, I would think, should such an incident occur and afterward the instigator claim that he or she acted based on Trump’s comments, that Trump could be either criminally or civilly liable.

Given all this and far more, I’d like to ask the following question to both Trump and Vance: “Have you no sense of decency?” Sadly, I already know the answer.

Mariel Addis is a native of Florence. She left the area for 16 years but returned in 2013.