Betrayed, disappointed, hurt — and backing Democrats anyway

This story was reported in partnership with Uncloseted Media, an LGBTQ-focused investigative news outlet. Max Sorgenfrey was sipping a coffee at a cafe in Charleston, South Carolina, in early October when her phone began lighting up with messages. People were sending her a new ad from Annie Andrews, the state’s Democratic Senate nominee, that referred to transgender women like Sorgenfrey as “biological men,” a marked shift in language that confounded many of her supporters.

Appearing in the direct-to-camera ad wearing a white lab coat and a stethoscope slung over her shoulders, Andrews, a pediatrician, said she would oppose “gender surgery for minors” and “men in women’s sports” as South Carolina’s first Democratic senator in more than 20 years. The backlash to Andrews’ ad was swift. Twenty local LGBTQ+ rights groups signed an open letter denouncing “transphobic attacks, slurs, and fear-based political messages” in midterm races across South Carolina.

Sorgenfrey, a co-chair of the Charleston chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, helped the organization draft its own statement. She was frustrated and angry that Andrews, who had once called statewide restrictions on trans athletes “shameful” and criticized a South Carolina hospital system for suspending gender-affirming care for youth under pressure from Republicans, had appeared to have been moved by the same forces. She’s still voting for Andrews on November 3.

Lucero is a consultant who met Andrews at a Pride event over the summer, where Andrews had asked her for her support in November and pledged to fight for trans people in Washington. He’s a longtime South Carolina resident whose adult daughter is trans. He found Andrews’ choice of words in the ad “deeply, deeply hurtful.” “Answering the way she did only solidifies that we’re leaving trans people behind, because she’s using the same rhetoric.

It makes it feel like trans people are being thrown away,” he said. In the United States, a years-long offensive on trans rights has been led largely by Republicans. Conservative lawmakers have introduced — and passed — hundreds of bills meant to restrict trans rights and gender expression in state legislatures nationwide.

The Trump administration has also proposed and implemented multiple policies restricting the rights and recognition of trans people.This year, some Republican-aligned groups have questioned whether focusing solely on “culture-war issues” may be enough to win in November, especially as polling shows trans issues are not a top concern for voters. But with public support for the president slipping and the cost of living rising, conservative candidates are leaning into those attacks, hoping they can tip the scales in their favor. Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, has spent hundreds of millions of dollars, including on ads with anti-trans messaging, to help Republicans win this fall.