It’s not hard to focus on real issues that are hurting people, there was no reason to ever talk about this culture wars subject or change stance.

I’m a trans Texan and I will still be voting for him enthusiastically in November. It’s sort of a problem of the Republican’s own making because if they hadn’t banned hrt for minors in Texas there would be no issue. But it’s very hard to repeal a law and it will be a decade at least until Texas’ state government is blue enough to even have a chance at it, if they make it a priority. In the mean time, trans girl athletes do have a demonsterable advantage in sports over cis girls because without HRT they have a functionally male body, assuming both girls are in peak athletic form.

In a perfect world there would be no gendered sports. Instead there would be 2-3 weight and height based categories students were clumped into. Failing that, each student athlete is already given a physical before joining a school’s team so adding a little bloodwork to check hormone levels and maybe trans kids need a doctor’s note saying they’ve been on hrt for 12-18 months.

That would screw over the kids that decided to wait until they’re 18 to medically transition or those that decided not to medically transition at all. There would also be cis kids who fail thier hormone test too, but that’s an indication of a medical problem in cis individuals so they could get treatment and try again the next year. But like there are maybe a few hundred trans athletes nationwide across all age ranges and probably tens of those are waiting or not medically transitioning. It just might be the case that those kids don’t get to participate in the way they want to, but there are plenty of other kids in the same boat like those with coordination issues, kids with asthma, or other differences that keep cis kids off teams. It sucks but it’s the hand they were dealt.

Talrico walking back his already tepid acceptance of trans people on a hyper-polarized wedge issue isn’t really that big of a deal. In Texas, where he’s running, a lot of Democrats don’t support trans girls in sports. I’m not sure that particular group would ever consider switching to Paxton over the issue, but there are a shocking amount of Republicans who would vote Talrico if he were more centrist about culture war issues. If this gets him in office, I’m all for it. I’d bet if the issue came to him in the Senate he would either vote with the other Democrats or abstain on the issue. I can’t see him voting for it though.

When you throw the weakest under the bus you show us who you are. If this is what it takes to win Texas fuck this state.