Rep. Vicente Gonzalez now tells voters he never supported sex changes for kids, even after voting against measures that would have restricted those procedures for minors.

Democrat U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez is airing a new campaign ad that draws a hard line on sex-change procedures for children and takes aim at Republican challenger Eric Flores.

In the spot, Gonzalez states his position in plain terms, Texas Scorecard reported.

"I've never supported sex changes for kids."

He also turns the attack on Flores with another blunt line.

"Eric Flores stands with abusers. I stand with the survivors."

The same reporting sets that first claim against Gonzalez’s own cosponsorships and floor votes, and it places the second line next to a 2000 assault case from his legal career. His campaign did not respond to a request for comment before publication.

Equality Act cosponsorships stacked up for years

Gonzalez repeatedly cosponsored the Equality Act and backed it across four consecutive Congresses. The bill would expand federal nondiscrimination rules based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Critics contend that framework could be used to challenge limits on gender-transition procedures.

House Democrats have spent months managing internal fights over messaging and forced votes, including leadership pressure after members broke ranks on high-profile measures. Gonzalez’s record on this issue sits in that same climate of party discipline and public positioning.

In 2023 he voted against amendments to defense legislation that sought to stop military health programs from covering or providing certain gender-transition procedures. One amendment would have barred TRICARE, the military’s health plan, from covering sex-change surgeries and hormone treatments.

Another targeted gender-transition procedures through the military’s Exceptional Family Member Program, which serves service members’ families with special medical needs, and it reached treatments for dependent children. Gonzalez opposed that limit too.

Medicaid restriction went down with his “no” vote

Last year Gonzalez voted against the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. That package included a provision restricting Medicaid funding for gender-transition procedures. His vote helped kill the broader bill and the funding limit inside it.

Major House roll calls keep exposing splits inside both parties, as when stock-trading limits for lawmakers advanced and put members’ own financial habits under a brighter light. Gonzalez’s pattern on the gender-transition votes is now part of that same public ledger.

NRCC spokesman Christian Martinez answered the ad with a direct charge about the gap between the slogan and the roll call.

"Out of touch Vicente Gonzalez is a gutless hypocrite who lectures parents about protecting children while he voted to greenlight puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and irreversible surgeries on minors."

Martinez added a second line on the same theme.

"He can’t explain his own radical record because he knows it’s sick."

Ad attack on “abusers” meets a 2000 court file

Gonzalez’s ad frames Flores as standing with abusers and Gonzalez as standing with survivors. Republicans have pointed to a 2000 case in which Gonzalez represented Luis Ramirez Martinez. Martinez was accused of repeatedly punching his girlfriend after learning she was pregnant, causing her to fall to the ground.

Martinez pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily injury. Under the plea agreement he received 180 days of community supervision. The contrast is the point the reporting drives: the candidate now selling a survivors line once stood as counsel for a defendant in that assault case.

Democratic ranks have shown other public fractures this cycle, from fights over primary strategy to open second-guessing of party choices. Gonzalez’s ad-and-record clash lands in that environment of strained messaging.

Some Democrats have even crossed party lines when they judged the stakes high enough, including large groups backing a Republican in a competitive Senate race. Voters watching Gonzalez now have a simpler test: match the ad to the votes.

Texas Scorecard contacted the campaign before publication. No response came back in time. The Equality Act cosponsorships, the 2023 defense amendments on TRICARE and the Exceptional Family Member Program, and the vote against the Medicaid funding limit remain on the public record either way.

Parents who want clear limits on these procedures for minors do not need a slogan. They need the roll call.