Texas Senate Candidate Blames GOP Extremism for Controversial Remarks

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico has attributed some of his past controversial remarks, including assertions that "God is nonbinary" and that there are six biological sexes, to what he described as Republican extremism. Talarico, who is challenging incumbent Republican Ken Paxton in Texas, stated in a recent interview that the increasing prominence of culture war issues in the state legislature, driven by Republicans, compelled him to respond.

During a 2021 legislative session, Talarico opposed a bill banning men from women's sports and made the comment about God being nonbinary on the Texas House floor. In the same year, during a hearing on public education, he stated that "modern science obviously recognizes that there are many more than two biological sexes; in fact, there are six." Talarico was speaking on The New York Times' "The Daily" podcast when he explained his reasoning for these statements.

"I was put in a position where I had to fight back against that extremism," Talarico told the podcast. "It's not like I ran for the legislature to talk about these things. Again, if you go back to my first session, I wanted to talk about public education, which is why I ran in the first place."

He argued that Republican lawmakers were the ones focused on issues like trans rights and gender, not him. "It's kind of ironic that they're clipping these things to make it sound like I'm the one who was talking about this when, in reality, it was the Republican extremists at the Capitol who were obsessed with talking about trans issues, obsessed with talking about people's private parts. That wasn't me, that was them that changed," Talarico said.

Talarico acknowledged that national Democratic positions on cultural issues might have moved too far, but at the state level in Texas, he felt certain legislation was directly harming his constituents. He specifically cited Texas' abortion ban and laws affecting the LGBTQ community. He described the bill banning men from women's sports as overly broad, treating tee-ball the same as varsity baseball, and suggested the goal was political point-scoring at the expense of a vulnerable group.

"My values haven't changed, but I was put in a position because of the rise in Republican extremism to defend my constituents," he stated.

When asked about his remarks, Talarico said he regretted not articulating his positions more clearly. "I certainly regret not articulating my position more clearly, in a more straightforward way to say what I actually mean. And that's going to be true, you know, probably for my entire time in public service. I'm not a perfect person. None of us are. And so I'm going to always keep trying to improve how I talk about things so that I'm getting my point across," he said.

Talarico also drew parallels to other figures when discussing theological interpretations. He described his comment about God not being defined by gender as "provocative" and "annoying," but not theologically controversial, citing similar sentiments from the late Charlie Kirk and Pope Benedict. "The idea that we can't define God using human categories, not only did I say that, but the late Charlie Kirk said that, the late Pope Benedict said that," he explained.

Inez Stepman, a senior policy and legal analyst at Independent Women, criticized Talarico's stance, stating that the left uses cultural issues for political gain and then dismisses the consequences. "They advanced policies that placed males on girls’ sports teams, in locker rooms, in women’s prisons, and tried to push anyone who objected to that insanity out of public life. Now, they say none of this ever existed or isn’t important. But they don’t change their policy or votes," Stepman said.

Talarico was also confronted by voters about his past comments during a town hall event. One voter, Sarah Gardner, questioned his statements on God being nonbinary, the number of genders, and his use of the Bible to justify abortion.