NEW HANOVER — Sen. Michael Lee’s Democratic challenger David Hill filed a cease-and-desist order demanding a retraction and apology for campaign ads claiming he strongly supports sex-change surgery for children. It comes a year after the incumbent settled a defamation suit he filed against his competitor in the 2022 election.
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On behalf of Hill, Womble Bond Dickinson attorney Press Millen sent a cease-and-desist letter Tuesday to Lee’s campaign and the North Carolina Senate Majority Fund on behalf of Hill’s campaign. A pediatrician with UNC Children’s Health, Hill argues recent mailers and television advertisements sponsored by the groups are false and defamatory.
“I’ve been a pediatrician in this community for 22 years and have been honored to have had thousands of families trust me to take care of their kids,” Hill said in a Tuesday press release. “Michael Lee’s lies and character assassination are more than an attack on me, they are a slap in the face to my patients.”
Hill works as a consultant and speaker who noted he has been cited in national outlets, including The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. He was previously involved in the Stop Titan Action Network advocacy group.
Lee’s campaign cited a blog post the pediatrician penned in 2021 in a new round of campaign ads. The mailer said: “State Senate candidate David Hill strongly supports sex-change surgery for kids.”
Hill’s post has the word “surgery” included twice and only in regard to genital and intestinal malformations, such as hypospadias, which could require emergency surgery.
Otherwise, he addresses ambiguities in chromosomal makeup, stating roughly 1 in 5000 people don’t have just one X or one Y chromosome.
“People may have XXY or Klinefelter’s syndrome, XYY or Jacob’s syndrome, or just one X, Turner syndrome,” he wrote.
Some people may also have ambiguous genitalia, he continued, noting doctors have to complete genetic and hormonal testing to diagnose. More so, he questions “gender policing” and how those who pass laws often don’t recognize the ins and outs of “endocrinology, genetics, or physical and psychological development.”
“It’s very easy to just go and attack a person if they’ve ever said anything minutely nuanced about a subject,” Millen told Port City Daily. “But I don’t know why they would go and say that he supported sex-change surgery for minors because there’s no evidence for that.”
Lee responded to Port City Daily that the ads are “accurate . . . without question.”
“David has often expressed his opinion that gender affirming care should be delivered to children,” Lee wrote in an email Wednesday. “We will provide various citations to where he states as such in our full response.”
The senator said it will be shared with the public in the near future.
“If David would like to change his position on whether children should be provided this type of gender affirming care, I would be happy to acknowledge his change of position,” Lee added.
A TV ad is also cited in the cease and desist, referring to Hill’s statements in podcast interviews and the same blog, which raised questions about how to best handle gender-related social issues such as pronouns, bathrooms, and sports for children born without XX or XY chromosomes. The ad described Hill as a “quack liberal,” which Millen argued implies professional ignorance and dishonesty.
More so, the cease and desist alludes that the ad has contributed to social media outrage, with people claiming Hill should “lose his practice” while also accusing him of “murdering children.”
“Political advertising is not immune from defamation claims,” Millen said.
He has experience in campaign ad defamation cases and represented Attorney General and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Stein in a case that culminated in a federal appeals court ruling in Stein’s favor last year.
“It’s one thing to say: ‘OK, here’s some politician and maybe lie about some position they’ve taken,’” Millen said. “It’s not a good thing to do, but when you go at a lawyer in their capacity to be a lawyer or a doctor in their capacity to be a doctor — like they’ve done here — I think that’s a very dangerous thing to do.”
A mailer also went out, sent by the Senate Majority, using the same “quack” phrasing. Lee responded it was meant to categorize Hill’s “extreme liberal ideology.”
“The ad was never intended to, nor does it state, anything about his competence to practice medicine, but explicitly calls into question his stance on these important issues,” he said.
Lee is a lawyer with Wilmington-based Lee Kaess and has sued an opponent before as well. In 2022, he filed a suit against Democratic challenger Marcia Morgan for an ad placed by the Democratic Caucus, claiming he used his position as a public official to improperly influence local land-use and zoning decisions for the benefit of his clients. Morgan apologized and settled with Lee last September.
He stated he lost a potential client due to an “almost identical” ethics complaint — despite its dismissal — submitted by former New Hanover County Republican Party Chair William Shell and former StarNews reporter Terry Rielly during Lee’s 2018 campaign. Lee’s suit against Morgan cited G.S. 163-274, which makes it a crime to publish or circulate reports with reference to a political candidate knowing they are false.
“Regrettably, the consultants and the Senate Democratic Caucus misled and encouraged Marcia Morgan to disseminate this untruthful ad due to personal vendettas to impugn my character and my law firm’s reputation,” Lee wrote in a press release after the settlement. “Actions have consequences, and I hope this will serve as a lesson to the Senate Democratic Caucus on how they run their future campaigns.”
The letter sent to Lee Tuesday demanded an immediate stop of disseminating the claims and a written retraction of the allegation that Hill supports sex-change surgery for children by Aug. 19. He argued the claims related to Hill’s professional capacity qualify as libel per se and could subject involved parties to punitive damages.
The letter stated failure to cease and desist will result in further action, including to media and service providers running the ads.
Tips or comments? Email journalist Peter Castagno at peter@localdailymedia.com.
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