U.S. President Donald Trump has circulated a starkly transphobic campaign spot targeting Democratic Senate candidate Annie Andrews of South Carolina. The video, produced by the Republican super-PAC “Security is Strength,” carries the title “We Can’t Trust Annie Andrews” and implies that transgender people pose a danger to children.
The footage shows a bearded man wearing a pink wig, a blouse, and a skirt approaching a girl in a supermarket and saying about Andrews, “She has my vote.” The child looks frightened before his mother scoops her child up. A narrator then claims that Andrews supports puberty blockers, hormones, and surgeries for minors, as well as the participation of “men in women’s sports.” At the end, it asserts that Andrews stands for “they/them” and not for the values of South Carolina. A fake newspaper ad also attributes a quote to Andrews that can be translated as “Let us trans the kids.”
Trump shared the spot on Truth Social on Wednesday. The president had already attacked Andrews personally a few days earlier with a transphobic insult. In a post supporting his Republican rival Darline Graham, he repeatedly labeled the Democrat with the slur “trannie.” Andrews is cisgender. She is a pediatrician, a mother of three, and is running for the Senate on November 3 against Graham.
Andrews initially remained calm
The new spot continues a campaign that had already targeted Andrews over the issue of transgender people. When the new video was released, the Democrat replied with a counterquestion: Why were the prices in supermarket aisles deliberately obscured? Regarding Trump’s use of the slur, she said that if insults could lower the price of gas and groceries, Trump could say whatever he wanted. “But I don’t think that’s going to do the job.”
In the meantime, Andrews is also responding with substantive policy positions to the anti-trans attacks. In a 30-second spot released on Thursday, she says she does not support “biological men in women’s sports” or gender-affirming surgeries for minors. She herself has never performed such surgeries. The spot echoes Republican talking points without offering a single positive word about transgender people.
After South Carolina, like many other Republican states, passed a law prohibiting transgender men from competing in women’s sports, Andrews had written on what was then Twitter four years ago about the legislation as shameful and harmful, and she emphasized: “I will always support transgender youth.”
This is shameful legislation that does nothing to protect or support women or children in SC. In fact, it is actively harmful.
I will always support trans youth. https://t.co/uAdk3S6TK6Dr. Annie Andrews (@AnnieAndrewsMD) May 17, 2022
South Carolina is typically considered safely Republican, yet the Senate race has become unexpectedly tight. Graham had only taken the seat in July; it had belonged to her late brother Lindsey Graham, who for decades fought LGBTQ rights despite speculation about his own sexual orientation (TheColu.mn reported).
The Republicans under Trump have been sharpening their anti-trans messaging for years and are increasingly turning it into policy, exemplified by moves such as banning trans people from the military, denying legal recognition of gender identity, or scrapping anti-discrimination protections. In the race for the November 3 Senate election, the tensions are playing out on all fronts. Even the Defense Secretary used the term “trannys” (TheColu.mn reported) or claimed that Senator Tommy Tuberville, who is running to become governor of Alabama in the concurrent elections, endangered flight safety by transgender people in animal costumes (TheColu.mn reported).
