Many Texans have been fighting for decades, and others have been waiting their entire lives to see it. On Tuesday, it finally happened.
As millions of votes were tallied, the hulking red mass that had become a permanent fixture of cable news networks’ election maps—the great state of Texas—bled out, turning from red to purple, and then it turned blue.
Across the state, Texans poured into the streets. Cheers erupted, and celebratory car horns blared. And for transgender Texans, it isn’t just a political victory. It means finally, maybe, coming home.
“I have people [telling] me they can visit family again, that they would consider moving back,” wrote Gwen Howerton, a Texas culture reporter, on Bluesky. “It’s early but I cannot really overstate how much the bleeding on LGBTQ+ rights in Texas has stopped essentially overnight.”
The win didn’t come easy for the newly minted “Blexas,” a loving portmanteau of blue and Texas. Republicans rigged the playing field time and time again. They gerrymandered five blue districts to favor the GOP, all but one of which they lost to Democrats nonetheless. Meanwhile, Elon Musk and other megadonors poured millions into anti-trans ads based on what proved to be a fatal miscalculation: the idea that anti-trans animus would be a sufficient stopgap against the rising blue tide.
Instead, Texas Republicans were wiped out by a blue tsunami.
Statewide, James Talarico took the U.S. Senate race against Ken Paxton. Talarico has a liberal voting record on trans issues despite some back-and-forth comments on anti-trans sports bans and his expressed support for restricting trans youth’s gender-affirming surgical care.
The GOP didn’t just target his support for the trans community; they knocked him by calling Talarico trans himself.
“In what became the most expensive Senate race in state history, Paxton attacked Talarico on questions of manliness, characterizing the Democrat as ‘low-T’—a reference to testosterone levels that influencers in the manosphere often use,” Shefali Luthra of the 19th reports. “White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, a top adviser to Trump, called Talarico the ‘first transgender Senate candidate.’”
Down the ballot, Gina Hinojosa took down Greg Abbott and won the governor’s office. Abbott was the chief architect of the anti-trans directive to investigate affirming parents of trans kids for child abuse. Hinojosa, by contrast, had previously been photographed waving the trans flag on the Texas House floor.
“For so many years it was basically impossible to hope that things would change, so seeing the repudiation of their extremism gives me hope that the damage they did to us can finally be undone,” Aleksandra Vaca, an independent journalist who transitioned as a minor under Abbott’s anti-trans directive, told Erin in the Morning. “These men, for all that they act like they are, are not invincible.”
State Rep. Vikki Goodwin declared victory over Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick; state Sen. Nathan Johnson beat state Sen. Mayes Middleton in the Texas attorney general race, and state Rep. Jon Rosenthal was elected to the Texas Railroad Commission. None of these offices had elected a Democrat in three decades.
Democrats also swept judicial races, flipping all four seats up on the Texas Supreme Court—which is now weighing whether the groups behind the fake transgender election mailers can be unmasked. Texas is one of a handful of states that elects its high-court justices in partisan races, and the court had been entirely Republican.
This new court could pave the way to strike down some of Texas’ most notorious anti-trans health care laws. While Republicans still hold a majority on the bench, at least one of the conservative justices—Debra Lehrmann—had previously rejected a youth care ban, writing in her lone dissent that it was “cruel” and “unconstitutional.”
In Congress, Democrats picked up at least two seats, which would be notable in any year. Bobby Pulido triumphed over incumbent U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz, and Katy Padilla Stout flipped the district vacated by former Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales.
Democrats won four out of the five districts that had been redrawn to favor Republicans.
Leticia Gutierrez defeated Alex Mealer in the 9th District race; Johnny Garcia won in the 35th District. Incumbents Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez won in the 28th District and 34th District, respectively, names Erin in the Morning readers might recognize from this outlet’s ongoing list of anti-trans Democrats.
Still, civil rights leaders struck a hopeful tone when it comes to the future of queer people across the country. “Voters have resoundingly delivered a historic victory for freedom, accountability, and democracy,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said after this week’s victory.
But the pressure is still on to make sure promises made are promises kept. “Leaders must show that everyone is welcome on the bus, and that no one should ever be thrown under it,” Ellis said.
While that is encouraging, it did not transfer to people actually stopping anti-trans voter initiatives. We obviously have to do a lot more to educate the public and demand that Democrats do a lot more to stand up for trans rights.
I live in Austin and have a pretty good life: a job, band, friends, and a place to live. It took a long time to get here. Over the last 2 years, coinciding with changing my name and starting HRT, I have lived with such an undercurrent of dread about living in Texas.
It used to be common understanding that Austin was a blue dot in a red state, but going back to at least the 2024 election, MAGA politics have overshadowed that. I want to change my name legally but don't want to do it in this state. One day I may want to use a women's restroom. I simply didn't think it was possible to feel whole living here, where basic existence is considered a radical act.
Our biannual legislative session of 2027 was approaching, and I could feel it in the pit of my stomach. Living under Trump 2.0 has truly been a living hell. Many of my friends say they didn't know how taxed our nervous systems were until, all of a sudden, on a Tuesday night, it all lifted. We have hope again. And we still have a lot of work to do.