This year has featured a large number of Democrats ceding ground to right-wing narratives about transgender people. Multiple Democratic candidates have released anti-trans ads, taken anti-trans votes, or otherwise staked out positions that would harm the transgender community in their quest for political power. Meanwhile, Republicans continue to push their own anti-trans ad campaign, with Elon Musk's PAC pouring $100 million into ads, many of them targeting transgender people. Now, Annie Andrews, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in South Carolina, becomes the latest Democrat to target transgender people, despite her previous claims of support. In her latest ad, she appears to flip-flop on positions she has previously taken, calling transgender women "biological men" and announcing her opposition to transgender participation in women's sports. She also says she does not support "gender surgery for minors” and would not overturn the felony youth HRT and puberty blocker ban in South Carolina.
“Politics can get pretty ugly, and when it does, you deserve to hear the truth. My career as a pediatrician has always been about taking care of kids, and I’ve got three of my own. So I want you to hear me loud and clear: I don’t support biological men playing women’s sports, and I don’t support and haven’t ever performed gender surgery for minors. I’m Dr. Annie Andrews, and I approve this message because Darline Graham lying about me won’t do a thing to help you,” the ad says.
You can watch it here, via AdImpact:
The ad is not the only position Dr. Annie Andrews has staked out in recent days targeting transgender people. Separately, the Democratic nominee’s campaign was asked by the SC Daily Gazette about the state’s ban on hormone therapy and puberty blockers for transgender youth. Stunningly, the campaign’s answer was that the state’s ban is not something she’s working to change. The South Carolina law resulted in many transgender youth being pulled off of their medication, and those who could not obtain it elsewhere would be forced to develop characteristics of their assigned sex at birth, a process sometimes known as medical detransition.
The ad and anti-trans positions are a stunning reversal for a politician who has a long track record of supportive statements for trans youth care and against sports bans. On Twitter in 2022, Andrews called the state’s trans sports legislation “shameful,” stating that it “does nothing to protect or support women or children in SC. In fact, it is actively harmful. I will always support trans youth,” closing her post with a small trans flag. In a separate post in 2024, she said, “The SC Republican supermajority is going to continue to bulldoze the rights of trans kids & their families because the largest institution in the state, that exists to serve SC children, should have told them to fuck off last session, but instead did their bidding for them,” and in a podcast in 2025, she stated that Rep. Nancy Mace “was willing to just throw this population under the bus to score political points,” seemingly pointing out the same kind of cowardice she herself is now engaging in.
Annie Andrews’ reversal on transgender youth care and on sports, as well as her use of incendiary language toward transgender women, comes in the wake of anti-trans attacks against her. On Monday, Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that “Annie ‘Trannie’ Andrews is running against our wonderful Darline Graham for the Senate in South Carolina,” using an anti-trans slur against her. Meanwhile, a pro-Graham super PAC is running anti-trans ads stating that Annie Andrews is for “they/them, not for our values.” Both are part of an increased effort to attack Democrats by targeting transgender people with ads that even Republican strategists have admitted “may not be sufficient” for them to win the 2026 midterm cycle, given their questionable relevance to topics such as rising grocery prices and foreign wars that have a much larger impact on voters.
Andrews is not alone in throwing transgender people under the bus for political gain. Several Democrats in the 2026 cycle have decided that transgender people are expendable for their own election chances. Marcy Kaptur, a Democrat running for reelection to Congress in Ohio, called transgender people an “ideology” that needed to be kept out of schools. Meanwhile, several Iowa Democrats such as Rob Sand, Josh Turek, and Sarah Trone Garriott have embraced a mixture of sports bans and federal funding bans on trans care, and have used incendiary language toward transgender people. EITM maintains a list of anti-trans Democrats for this election cycle, which can be found here.
I’ll never understand this. “The president called me a slur for trans folk, let me show how I am exactly like him and that’ll help me win!” Like the fuck lmao
When people show you who they are believe them.