Kathy Winter, chair of the Osceola County Democratic Party, released a statement slamming state Rep. Josh Turek’s ad declaring that he was against trans inclusion in sports and against “taxpayers paying for sex changes.”

“At a time of unprecedented hate and bigotry being directed at transgender Iowans, I cannot in good [conscience] vote for a man who is promising to make their lives worse,” said Winter, as reported by The Washington Post.

Winter also said she had already voted by the time the ad came out, but did not vote in the Senate race due to prior anti-trans statements from Turek. During a debate last month, he said he does “not believe that biological males should compete in female sports and this is something that has already been decided in Iowa,” referring to the state’s trans sports ban, passed in 2022.

“Dude could be talking about affordability, or data centers, or curbing executive power, or literally anything else,” one trans person on X responded. “But nah, go ahead, give legitimacy to the far-rights bullst boogeyman nonsense. Fking moron, stooping to their level.”