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In the final weeks of a heated reelection campaign, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz released a television ad with a simple message — “Boys and girls: They’re different.”
In the ad, Cruz accused his Democratic challenger, Colin Allred, of wanting boys to play on girls’ sports teams. Allred released his own ad vehemently denying the claim. Neither mentioned that the Texas Legislature had already banned student athletes from playing on teams that didn’t match the sex they were assigned at birth.
Even before the votes rolled in, the fact that Texas’ senate candidates were arguing about youth sports, rather than the economy, immigration or the future of democracy itself, was a Republican victory. For years, conservative political strategists had been pushing the party to hammer Democrats on what they see as “extreme” stances on gender.
Many of the ads focused on trans children playing on youth sports teams. But they also tried to pin Democrats for supporting policies that allow young people to medically transition, and narrow instances in which taxpayer dollars were used to pay for gender-affirming care for inmates or members of the military, all of which the Republicans would like to see banned.
The day after a red wave swept Texas and the nation, these strategists, as well as political scientists and advocates on both sides of the aisle, say focusing on these social issues seems to have mobilized the Republican base.
“This election was when the dam broke,” said Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, a right-wing political advocacy group. “Republicans have now figured out how to win parts of the culture war where Democrats are out of step with the American people.”
Schilling’s group spent $18 million on anti-trans ads nationally, of more than $200 million conservative groups spent messaging on this issue. He said Texans were particularly primed to act on this messaging — “warmed up,” as he put it — because the state Legislature has led the way on restricting trans student athletes and access to gender-affirming care.
Democrats have struggled to develop a unified stance on trans issues, leaving them flat footed in the face of this barrage of messaging from Republicans. This intra-party conflict was on full display in Texas, where Allred’s response ad drew support from moderates and condemnation from progressives.
After the routing from Republicans, Gilberto Hinojosa, the chair of Texas’ Democratic Party, told KUT that “there are going to be long term political consequences” to making trans issues more central. Other party leaders vehemently disagreed, with one saying Hinojosa was “dead wrong.” If the party was going “to tack further right and throw trans kids under the bus in the process,” party messaging chair Kolby Duhon said on X they would resign at the next meeting. On Friday, Hinojosa stepped down after 12 years leading the state party.
Hinojosa later apologized, saying he was “committed to fighting against the very rhetoric that has caused trans people across this country to grapple with the fear of simply existing because of the hate spewed by Donald Trump and TX Republicans.”
A long arc
Republicans have been putting Democrats on the defense over gender and sexuality as far back as the 1970s, when anti-gay activist Anita Bryant launched the “Save Our Children” campaign.
“The idea that gay men and lesbians want to recruit people's children to become homosexuals was essentially what they said back then,” said Andrew Proctor, a political science professor at the University of Chicago. “I think that there's a very clear, direct thread to the same rhetoric [today], but reframed within the context of transgender people.”
After the U.S. Supreme Court allowed same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015, conservatives began to coalesce around the anti-trans issue, focusing initially on prohibiting trans people from using bathrooms that aligned with their gender identity. In 2016, blowback to North Carolina’s so-called “bathroom bill” cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars in canceled sporting events, conventions and business deals, and helped unseat the Republican governor.
That was a turning point for messaging, Schilling said.
“We couldn’t get any politicians to talk about bathrooms in the wake of North Carolina,” he said. “So then we pivoted to the sports issue… It’s been wildly successful.”
Less than 1% of Americans identify as trans, and the subset of trans kids trying to play on sports teams is even smaller. While these ads raise the specter of young kids losing out on athletic opportunity at the expense of their trans peers, the few real-life examples that conservatives can point to are almost all at the college or professional level. Even then, no university in Texas has any record of a trans athlete playing on one of their sports teams, the Austin American-Statesman found in 2023.
But the focus on this issue in politics has impacted public opinion. While more than 70% of Texans say they support laws protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination, almost the same amount oppose allowing trans people to play women’s sports.
“Voters have busy lives, and they have lots of stuff going on, and you don't want to start getting into the weeds and the nitty gritty of everything,” Schilling said. “You want to keep messages very basic and to the point, and this women's sports issue, it's a self-evident truth.”
Donald Haider-Markel, a political science professor at the University of Kansas who has studied the salience of gender issues among voters, said this fear campaign likely didn’t recruit new voters to the Republican cause, but instead mobilized a base that might otherwise have been more apathetic.
“Crime is terrible. The world is falling apart. Immigrants are flooding over the border. Oh, and you have this horrible threat of these trans people trying to play girls sports,” he said, characterizing the Republicans’ general message. “We know that's an effective tool for turnout.”
Haider-Markel’s research has shown that when people are educated about the trans community and the reality of gender-affirming care, they show higher levels of support and less negativity toward trans people.
“But if the only information people are receiving is this threat messaging, then they are going to certainly be less supportive on these issues,” he said. “And Democrats have not had a real answer.”
In addition to the youth sports angle, Republicans have also hammered Democrats for using taxpayer dollars to pay for inmates to medically transition. The federal government is required to provide medical care to prisoners, and in some cases, after long legal battles, inmates in state and federal custody have been able to have gender-affirming surgeries.
National Republicans targeted Vice President Kamala Harris on this front, running an ad saying “Kamala’s for they/them. President Trump is for you.” But they also ran similar ads against U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez in South Texas. While Gonzalez ended up narrowly defeating his Republican challenger, former U.S. Rep. Mayra Flores, the region as a whole swung sharply for President-elect Donald Trump this cycle.
Delanie Bomar, a spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said focusing on taxpayer dollars seemed to really resonate.
“South Texans feel left behind by skyrocketing inflation and a porous open border, so when they learn that taxpayer funds are going towards anything other than directly delivering for South Texas families that are struggling, you have a potent issue that rightfully motivates voters,” Bomar said in a text.
A mandate to Republicans
Up to this point, efforts to restrict the lives and health care of trans people have largely been contained to conservative statehouses. But now, with Republicans dominating the federal government and a voter base fired up after a season of anti-trans ads, conservatives are hoping the issue will gain national traction.
“Donald Trump was elected in small part, at least, to help fix the gender issue with our kids [and] get this stuff out of our schools, like what he's pledged to do,” Schilling said. “He was very clear and open with the American people about what he wanted to do when he got in office, and so I would be shocked if he doesn't do anything on this.”
But Proctor said these social issues tend to have less staying power once the race is over, and it may go the way of abortion — an issue that Republicans ran on for years before they actually did much.
“I don't know where it falls on their agenda,” he said. “And then there may still be the perception that it's distracting from the main goal of making people's lives more affordable.”
In Texas, however, this sweep is expected to be seen as a mandate to the Legislature to keep pushing anti-trans legislation. Last session, Texas banned gender-affirming care for minors, which advocates like Johnathan Gooch, with Equality Texas, worry could be expanded to adults. They’re also preparing for efforts to further restrict what schools can teach kids about gender and sexuality.
“As intense as it's been over the past few years, and as much ground as the queer community in Texas has lost, there's still a lot to lose,” he said.
Already, Equality Texas has heard from trans Texans worrying about increased restrictions under the Trump administration, as well as day-to-day danger they may face after an election season spent demonizing them. And with Trump in the White House, the LGBTQ+ community has lost a powerful check on Texas legislators’ policies.
“There was always hope that no matter how bad it got here, there'd be the Justice Department to swoop in,” he said. “Those hopes have been dashed.”
Disclosure: Equality Texas has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
For mental health support for LGBTQ youth, call the Trevor Project’s 24/7 toll-free support line at 866-488-7386. For trans peer support, call the Trans Lifeline at 877-565-8860. You can also reach a trained crisis counselor through the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988.