Democrats Shift Transgender Message on Sports in Senate Race
Left 50%
Center 0%
Right 50%
1 left · 0 center · 1 right
What happened
South Carolina Democratic Senate candidate Dr. Annie Andrews, a pediatrician challenging Republican Sen. Darline Graham, released a campaign advertisement stating, “I don’t support biological men playing in women’s sports, and I don’t support and haven’t ever performed gender surgery for minors.” The ad answered attacks from Donald Trump and a Super PAC supporting Graham that claimed Andrews “is for they/them” and depicted a transgender person as predatory toward a child. In 2022 Andrews had opposed a South Carolina law barring transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s public-school sports teams, writing that it was “shameful legislation” that “does nothing to protect or support women or children” and was “actively harmful,” and adding, “I will always support trans youth.” The Washington Examiner reported that she had also previously advocated against a state law restricting gender-related medical treatments for children. Other Democrats in competitive races, including Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio and Rep. Don Davis of North Carolina, have aired similar messages on transgender athletes and related policies.
Sourcing check · Fully on the record · 2 articles
2 of 2 articles cite a named source for the story. It was on the record from the first report.
What these terms mean and how they're counted
- On the record · names a source 2 of 2
- On the record means the article cites a source by name for the story's main claim: a person, or an institution speaking officially, such as a company statement or a named agency's spokesperson. The opposite is an unnamed source. The count is how many of the counted articles cite at least one such source; the names are everyone named across them, each once however the articles spell it. Here: Dr Annie Andrews, Donald Trump, Dr. Annie Andrews and Darline Graham
- Primary evidence · cites a document or data 0 of 2
- Primary evidence means the article cites a record you could check yourself: a court filing or ruling, a dataset or report, a recording or transcript, an official statement or press release, market data. A quote is not a document. The count is how many articles cite one. Here: None cited.
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- The main claim is attributed to people who are not identified: “people familiar with the matter”, “officials said”. The count is how many articles do this.
- How it developed
- When the first report landed and whether it named anyone; when the first named source and the first document appeared. Here: First report Oct 9, 13:50 UTC by The Guardian, naming its source.
- Not counted 0
- Opinion, analysis and video pieces, and articles too short to assess. Every count above is out of the counted articles. An article republished under a new headline is one article.
This is about who is cited, not whether the story is true. Each source below says what it names. How we count
Omitted — what each side leaves out
Unpacked
Left-leaning coverage omits Andrews' earlier advocacy against a state restriction on gender treatments for children, so her new ad reads as a rebuttal rather than a change of position. Right-leaning coverage treats that prior stance as the story. Without the earlier fight against the treatments law, which the Washington Examiner reports and the Guardian does not, a reader cannot tell whether she is clarifying an old view or walking it back.
Left-leaning coverage opens on Trump and a Super PAC ad rather than on Andrews' own record. Right-leaning coverage opens on that record, including her 2022 opposition to barring trans athletes from girls' teams. Her earlier statement that she "will always support trans youth" appears in right-leaning coverage and not in the Guardian.
What did Andrews actually say about gender surgeries for minors before she filmed the ad?
Bottom line
You would not know from the Guardian that Andrews once opposed a ban on gender treatments for children. That earlier advocacy is the Washington Examiner's whole story on the ad.
The receipts — 3 facts one side's coverage lacks
- Andrews previously advocated against a state law that restricted gender treatments for children
- A Super PAC ad supporting Graham frames a transgender person as predatory toward a child
- The South Carolina Super PAC ad uses nearly identical language to a 2024 pro-Trump ad that said Kamala's agenda is they/them
The Left View
The Guardian presents Andrews’s video as a “restrained” reply to “persistent efforts by Republicans to make trans athletes in women’s sports a wedge issue,” and to an attack ad that recycles the 2024 pro-Trump line that a Democrat “is for they/them.” It describes Republicans as using anti-trans issues “to try to thwart Democrats in the upcoming midterms,” notes that Andrews had previously been vocal in support of trans people, and places her statement alongside other Democrats in Trump-won districts who have shifted tone, especially on sports. The piece records a split on the left over that shift: Equality PAC called Kaptur’s language “unacceptable” and said it was “absolutely not supporting her campaign at this time,” while the Human Rights Campaign argued that “Turning on a vulnerable community is not a winning political strategy — and it’s exactly what Trump, [Elon] Musk, and MAGA want,” citing Sherrod Brown’s ad—in which voters dismiss the issue and redirect to affordability—as the better model.
The Right View
The Washington Examiner and Fox News frame Andrews’s ad as distancing from her prior record, not merely rebutting a smear: she had opposed the 2022 sports ban, and the Examiner says she previously advocated against a law restricting gender-related treatments for children. Graham charged that Andrews “has spent years supporting biological males competing in girls’ sports” and is “trying to hide from that radical record.” Fox embeds the episode in a post-2024 pattern in which Republicans spent more than $200 million on transgender-issue ads and a Fox poll found 76 percent support for banning biological men from women’s sports, and it quotes Republican strategist Colin Reed that “voters should be very skeptical in the authenticity of any shifting policy positions that occur weeks before an election.” Fox also quotes Democratic strategist Maria Cardona arguing Democrats are “defining where they are on the issue so their opponents can't define them” and then pivoting to kitchen-table concerns.
Our Take (balanced)
The left’s strongest argument is that Andrews is answering a nationally templated attack—the Super PAC’s “is for they/them” line copies 2024 anti-Harris ads—rather than volunteering a culture-war fight, and that LGBTQ+ groups plus Brown’s Ohio ad supply their evidence that “turning on a vulnerable community” neither protects trans people nor, in their view, wins. The right’s strongest argument is the paper trail: her 2022 description of a sports ban as “shameful” and “actively harmful,” together with the Examiner’s account of her opposition to restricting youth treatments, sits uneasily beside a white-coat ad that now rejects both, in a cycle where that Fox poll shows lopsided public support for a sports ban. The central unresolved tension is whether the new language is a clarification of limits she always drew on surgeries and elite sports, or a late conversion driven by electoral math in a red state.
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