Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico of Texas is telling voters he does not support sex-change procedures for minors despite courting radical pro-transgender activists.
Talarico has appeared at fundraisers backed by the Human Rights Campaign, earned an endorsement from its PAC, and received its “communications consulting,” according to announcements and campaign spending records. The Human Rights Campaign strongly advocates the same “gender-affirming care” that Talarico is now trying to distance himself from after he aligned more closely with the group’s agenda as a state legislator.
The association with the Human Rights Campaign could create more confusion about Talarico’s stance on the medical issue, as his position has come into question through his inconsistent comments. Republican opponent Ken Paxton and his supporters are soliciting Texas voters in part by attacking Talarico’s past LGBT-related comments in advertisements, such as his claims that God is “nonbinary” and that there are six genders. Multiple polls since 2023 suggest most voters support banning transgender hormone drugs and surgeries for children, which the historically conservative state banned in 2023.
Talarico’s team and the Human Rights Campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the Washington Examiner. Talarico led Paxton by 2 points in recent polls for the November election, according to a RealClearPolitics average.
The LGBT lobby on his side
The Human Rights Campaign claims to be “mobilizing 74 million Equality Voters across the country” in the November midterm elections, with its PAC promising the help of 2 million voters for Talarico. The group labeled Talarico a “priority” candidate for its supporters to elect. The organization built a political presence in Texas with lobbying and legislative testimony as the state pushed back on transgender ideology in recent years.
“LGBTQ+ Texans deserve someone who rejects the politics of fear and division and stands up for them — for their freedom and for their futures,” Human Rights Campaign PAC President Kelley Robinson said in June about the Talarico endorsement.
Nationally, the Human Rights Campaign is known for running a “Corporate Equality Index” that pressures major companies with a scoring system on their supposed respect for LGBT rights in the workplace. The index penalizes a company if it lacks “transgender-inclusive benefits,” LGBT “outreach and engagement,” respect for preferred pronouns, and many other considerations.
The Human Rights Campaign created a similar index specifically for healthcare facilities to evaluate how “inclusive” they are for trasgender patients. It flagged 42 Catholic hospitals as “discriminatory” in its latest annual scoring report.
“The Human Rights Campaign advocates for harmful, irreversible, and unscientific transgender procedures on minors,” Dr. Kurt Miceli of the medical advocacy group Do No Harm told the Washington Examiner. “It has pushed the ‘affirming’ model of care with full force, despite no high-quality evidence of benefit.”
“Further, it has injected this gender ideology into pediatric hospitals through its Healthcare Equality Index, and continues to advocate publicly for these interventions,” Miceli said. “The Human Rights Campaign should have no influence on those responsible for the care of children.”
Transitioning his rhetoric
As a state House member, Talarico acted in line with LGBT activist groups’ priorities on multiple occasions. He voted against banning child sex changes, against another law that protects parents from child abuse allegations for rejecting a child’s stated transgender identity, and against a third that required school sports teams to be separated based on sex instead of subjective gender identity. The Human Rights Campaign spoke out against the sex-change and sports bills during the legislative process, even protesting the medical bill inside the state Capitol in May 2023.
Talarico changed his tune since launching his congressional campaign.
He told Fox News in September that he is against “trans athletes playing in girls’ sports if it endangers safety or fairness.” At a Human Rights Campaign-backed fundraiser, he later said Fox News took his comments out of context, the Washington Post reported. The Human Rights Campaign told the paper he also appeared to clarify that politicians should not meddle with transgender medical decisions.
“No, I don’t support sex-change surgeries for kids,” Talarico said in an ad this month, further complicating his statements.
Robinson warned in an interview this month with an LGBT magazine that the Human Rights Campaign would not take such compromises lying down.
“You’re doing too much and getting too little,” Robinson said of some Democrats, without naming Talarico. “You don’t have to sacrifice any member of our community to win in these races, to have a message that resonates with voters.”
Robinson clarified that her organization only endorses “folks who are with us on the issues and where we think that there’s a margin that we can make a difference and win.”
Contrasting with Democrats, Paxton has spent his time as Texas attorney general leveraging state power against so-called transgender medicine for youth, which he deemed child abuse in a 2022 legal opinion. Paxton gave a major win to conservatives by investigating Texas Children’s Hospital in 2023 over its transgender program and reaching a settlement in May that requires the facility to open the nation’s first “detransition clinic.”
PLANNED PARENTHOOD ACCUSED OF POSSIBLE FRAUD OVER SEX-CHANGE ‘CARE’
Paxton’s rival has shown he cannot be trusted on the medical debate, said Dr. Eithan Haim, a former Texas Children’s Hospital staffer whose whistleblower allegations sparked the investigation.
“Talarico is a serial liar who is itching to peel off his skin suit,” Haim told the Washington Examiner.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
