When heading wrapped in , and generated above. How to disable?

Hi folks

In the word press text editor, I’ll wrap a heading in an anchor tag, like this

<a href=""><h2>Example</h2></a>

But when viewed in a browser, there’s suddenly a lot of space above the h2. When I inspect it with Chrome developer tools, I discover the following above the h2:

<p>
  <a>
   <br>
  </a>
</p>

Those tags aren’t in the text editor. I have no idea why they appear when rendered in the browser. I don’t want them there. Does anyone know what’s going on?

I’m using Minimum Pro, a Genesis child theme.

Thanks!