trump called her a trans slur. three days later, the democrat ran an ad saying "biological men." her 2022 tweet is still up. ok.

Photo: Stimpus1, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

via the ad itself, the Post and Courier, the SC Daily Gazette and Erin in the Morning

White coat. Stethoscope. Direct to camera. Thirty seconds.

"Politics can get pretty ugly, and when it does, you deserve to hear the truth," says Dr. Annie Andrews, the pediatrician running as the Democrat for U.S. Senate in South Carolina. "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." The ad closes on her opponent: "Darline Graham lying about me won't do a thing to help you."

It went out Thursday, Oct. 8, per the Post and Courier. On Monday night, Donald Trump had endorsed Graham on Truth Social by calling Andrews an anti-trans slur three times and saying she was "in favor of Transgender for Everyone," as CNN reported. We wrote about that post on Tuesday. So this is the answer. Not to the slur. To the premise.

what andrews said before the ad

Her first response was a joke, and honestly a decent one. "If name calling would help lower gas prices and grocery prices, he can call me all the names he wants," she told reporters in Columbia on Oct. 6, per the SC Daily Gazette and ABC News 4. Her campaign also told the Gazette that South Carolina's ban on hormones and puberty blockers for minors is "not something she's working to change."

The sports line is not new either. Them reports she was saying a version of it in September. What is new is putting it on TV, on the week the president made her gender politics the entire race.

the tweet that is still up

In May 2022, when she was running for Congress against Nancy Mace, Andrews called South Carolina's trans sports ban "shameful legislation that does nothing to protect or support women or children in SC," and added, in a post that is still live on her account: "I will always support trans youth."

Erin Reed, who has covered the race closely, called the ad "a stunning reversal for a politician who has a long track record of supportive statements for trans youth care and against sports bans," in Erin in the Morning. Graham's side, meanwhile, thinks the reversal is fake. "She got her butt kicked then because of this stuff, and now she's trying to moderate herself," Graham spokesperson T.W. Arrighi told the Post and Courier. "Only problem is, it's a lie."

So she has managed to get called a liar by both ends of the argument in one week, which is a kind of bipartisanship.

she is not the only one

This is a pattern, and we have been keeping score: Marcy Kaptur ran her own in Ohio, and Sherrod Brown answered an attack ad in the same state. The bet in every case is that trans people will vote for you anyway and swing voters will not, if they think you are on the other side of a sports question. Whether it works in South Carolina is a question South Carolina gets to answer in November. Whether it was worth asking is a question trans people in South Carolina did not get a vote on.