On Wednesday night, Texas State Representative James Talarico bested Jasmine Crockett in the Democratic Senate primary. Some hailed his victory as evidence of a wave of moderation washing over the party, which has lost plenty of voters in the last decade in part for championing niche social issues and using normie-alienating language such as Latinx, Bipoc, and genderqueer.

But it turns out that the baby-faced Presbyterian seminarian holds plenty of far-Left beliefs, particularly when it comes to gender identity. X users have shared evidence of his past testimonies on sex and gender, including one where he assured his colleagues that “modern science obviously recognizes that there are many more than two biological sexes; in fact, there are six.” In another, he referred to local women as “neighbors with a uterus”. His office was “the first in the history of the Capitol” to add pronouns on business cards, he announced proudly. Oh, and then there’s the one where he insisted that God was non-binary.

It seems such views aren’t an impediment to Democrats, at least in primaries. Over in North Carolina, four Democrats labeled “anti-trans” — for believing in biological and binary sex — lost their seats. The more progressive Valeria Levy walloped Nasif Majeed, who had been the lone Dem to go rogue and side with Republicans on a bill which allowed civil suits against gender medicine doctors and bars “gender-affirming care” for minors.

If their stances on transgender issues are what drove voters away, then these losing Democrats represent a real challenge for those arguing that Democratic support of gender identity over sex is the party’s weak spot.

But that may not be the reason some of them lost. The trans rights activist and journalist Erin Reed wrote that after Majeed voted with his conscience over the party line, “the North Carolina Democratic Party revoked his access to VoteBuilder, the party’s voter contact software.” It was the Democratic machine itself that interfered with his campaign, which perhaps partly explains the beating he took at the polls. Was it the voters or the party bosses who revoked his approval?

For liberals who abhor Trump but desperately wish Democrats would follow the science — and ethics — when it comes to youth gender medicine, the midterms promise to be painful. Liberal single-issue voters will probably cast their vote for the GOP, but single-issue voters don’t make up a large section of the electorate. Of course, primaries tend to bring out the most zealous voters, and the election may inspire more anti-Trump Republicans and anti-gender ideology Democrats than we saw this week. Still, it’s increasingly likely that there will continue to be two bad choices: Democrats with gender ideology, or Republicans without it.

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Lisa Selin Davis is the author of Tomboy. She writes at Broadview on Substack.

LisaSelinDavis

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