{"id":168,"date":"2026-05-30T10:13:05","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T10:13:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationacrossamerica.com\/?p=168"},"modified":"2026-05-30T10:13:05","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T10:13:05","slug":"republicans-want-to-make-the-texas-senate-race-about-manliness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationacrossamerica.com\/?p=168","title":{"rendered":"Republicans want to make the Texas Senate race about manliness"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

This story was originally reported by Shefali Luthra of The 19th. Meet Shefali and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more \u201cHacks\u201d finale is a moving tribute to comedy\u2019s power to keep going<\/a><\/p>\n

Republicans are focusing on one question in one of November\u2019s top races: Is the Democrat a real man?<\/p>\n

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who clinched the GOP\u2019s nomination for U.S. Senate on Tuesday night, released a new ad Wednesday \u2014his first of the general election \u2014\u00a0accusing his opponent, state Sen. James Talarico, of being too \u201clow-T for Texas.\u201d \u201cLow-T\u201d is a reference to testosterone levels and often used as an insult by influencers in the so-called manosphere, who say low testosterone makes someone weaker.<\/p>\n

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, the architect of President Donald Trump\u2019s immigration policy and one of his top advisers, picked up on a similar line of attack, posting on the social media platform X on Wednesday that Democrats had nominated the \u201ctheir first transgender senate candidate.\u201d Talarico is cisgender and identifies as an LGBTQ+ ally; he is in a relationship with a woman.<\/p>\n

For Trump\u2019s Republican Party, the focus on testosterone isn\u2019t new. In 2016, as a presidential candidate, Trump appeared on Dr. Mehmet Oz\u2019s talk show to highlight his testosterone levels as proof of his health and manliness. Oz is now the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt isn\u2019t new to the ethos of America \u2014 the masculine as everything \u2014 but it is much more politically forward now thanks to Trump than it used to be,\u201d said Monika McDermott, a political scientist at Fordham University who studies masculinity in politics. \u201cNow it\u2019s the game plan of most Republicans to try to play on having the more masculine party and being able to claim that liberals and progressives are weak and feminine and not masculine enough for America.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even before Paxton\u2019s Tuesday night victory, Republicans were developing a line of attack essentially calling Talarico effeminate or gay \u2014\u00a0with Wesley Hunt, a Republican congressman who also lost in the Senate primary, posting \u201cwhat\u2019s his name\u201d when Talarico confirmed in an interview last week that he had a partner who is a woman.<\/p>\n

Texas has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1988. But Talarico, a former middle school teacher and seminarian, has energized Democrats, who hope that record-setting campaign fundraising could help flip the seat.<\/p>\n

Polling suggests a close general election contest between Talarico and Paxton, who was endorsed by Trump and won the runoff with incumbent Sen. John Cornyn handily but who has been embroiled in controversy for much of his time in the public eye. In 2023 he was impeached by the Republican-led state House of Representatives on charges of bribery, abuse of office and obstruction of justice. He was then acquitted. After Paxton\u2019s Tuesday night victory, the Cook Political Report updated its assessment of the race from \u201cLikely Republican\u201d to only \u201cLean Republican.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more How seeing Bruce Springsteen in DC gave me hope<\/a><\/p>\n

In his first ad of the general election, Talarico has focused on Paxton\u2019s impeachment trial, highlighting news clips to argue that the scandal-ridden attorney general is corrupt. In a television interview, he called his opponent the \u201cmost corrupt politician in America.\u201d Many Republicans have expressed concern that Paxton\u2019s baggage \u2014\u00a0his wife filed for divorce last July on what she called \u201cbiblical grounds\u201d \u2014 could make him a weaker candidate.<\/p>\n

Paxton, meanwhile, is focusing on gender, asserting that a more conservative vision of masculinity will sway Texas voters.<\/p>\n

In his same ad on Wednesday, Paxton highlighted a clip from 2021 in which Talarico said there are \u201csix biological sexes\u201d \u2014 a reference to the fact that humans can have six chromosomal karyotypes, including XX, XY, XXY, XYY, XXXY and X. The ad also points to an interview where Talarico expressed compassion for trans children.<\/p>\n

Paxton\u2019s ad also highlighted a clip from 2022 in which Talarico said his state Senate campaign had become a \u201cnon-meat campaign.\u201d Trump and other Republicans have falsely accused Talarico of being vegan. (The Democratic nominee recently ordered breakfast tacos with egg, cheese and potatoes at a campaign event; neither eggs nor cheese are vegan.)<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is clearly the way Republicans are going to talk as long as it\u2019s successful for them \u2013 which it has been for Trump, certainly,\u201d McDermott said.<\/p>\n

Commentators in the manosphere have often suggested that avoiding or eating less meat makes one a \u201csoy boy,\u201d or less of a man \u2014\u00a0a slur based in part on a false notion that eating soybeans lowers testosterone levels and raises estrogen.<\/p>\n

For his part, Talarico told CBS News on Wednesday that he has \u201cbeen eating barbecue since before Ken Paxton\u2019s first indictment.\u201d<\/p>\n

In office, Paxton has specifically gone after medical providers who offer gender-affirming care. His office issued a in March meant to discourage mental health professionals from counseling trans kids about their gender, and his office labeled gender-affirming care for minors as \u201cchild abuse.\u201d In 2023, his office investigated Texas Children\u2019s Hospital in Houston, accusing the hospital of providing such care for minors; this month, the state reached a settlement that involved making the hospital open a clinic focused on \u201cdetransitioning\u201d young people.<\/p>\n

Read more From Cornyn to Paxton: How Trump helped accelerate the Texas GOP\u2019s transformation<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the race between Ken Paxton and James Talarico, the Republicans touch on testosterone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":167,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[244,246,258,247,248,305],"class_list":["post-168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting","tag-james-talarico","tag-ken-paxton","tag-masculinity","tag-senate","tag-texas","tag-the-19th"],"yoast_head":"\nRepublicans want to make the Texas Senate race about manliness - Relocation Across America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/relocationacrossamerica.com\/?p=168\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Republicans want to make the Texas Senate race about manliness - 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