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.”
Yes. We've been learning the brutal truth that moderate Democrats want the votes of progressives and SDA but not their opinions or positions. I end up holding my nose voting for them, as I did my state-governor-elect, but they're still way better than even the most centrist Republican, who is still going to pass budgets for ICE and concentration camps, and will still seek to dismantle democracy.
But yeah, we need change and no longer have the luxury of fucking around any longer, which means putting a lot of public pressure on them to push reform through.
Like Obama regarding gay marriage, their opinions can evolve if they see the way the wind is blowing.