Just dropped · Trial Balloon · Ep. 189
Navigating the Nonsense
“A fresh wave of Republican anti-transgender messaging is driving Democratic operatives to coach candidates on how to avoid falling into the political traps of prior elections,” Politico reports.
“Their advice: don’t ignore the conversation, state your position clearly and move on to issues voters care about.”
“Calling it a matter of ‘exceptional importance,’ the Trump administration has filed an urgent appeal with the Supreme Court seeking the immediate removal of 29 active-duty service members who are transgender even before their case challenging the Pentagon ban goes to trial in January,” ABC News reports.
“Reid Rasner, an openly gay Republican running for Wyoming’s sole House seat, is spending the final stretch of the campaign on a project he didn’t expect: suing members of his own party for defamation,” Semafor reports.
“On Friday morning, Rasner will settle one case against an Iowa man who called him a ‘pedophile’ under several of his campaign’s Facebook posts. Rasner is pursuing another case against a former GOP Wyoming state senator who he alleges led a whisper campaign accusing him of sexual misconduct.”
Washington Post: “The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that states may ban trans athletes from girls and women’s teams, affirming policies in 27 states. But it said nothing about the Democratic states that allow transgender students to compete.”
“Now the Trump administration and conservative advocacy groups are pressing forward in pursuit of a coast-to-coast ban as the fight shifts to another set of court cases. The Alliance Defending Freedom, which won Tuesday’s case, is backing three pending cases, while three cases filed by the Justice Department are also making their way through lower courts.”
“The Supreme Court’s decision on Tuesday to uphold restrictions on transgender female athletes drew a largely muted reaction, with Democrats mostly staying silent on an issue about which the vast majority of Americans agree,” the New York Times reports.
“Republicans celebrated the ruling, which upheld state bans on transgender athletes competing in women’s sports. But few Democrats seemed eager to wade back into an issue that proved divisive in the last campaign cycle.”
“None of the Democrats most often mentioned as potential presidential contenders in 2028 reacted publicly to the Supreme Court ruling. Most Democrats competing for key congressional seats stayed similarly quiet.”
New York Times: “Support for gay marriage is now declining, reversing a yearslong trend. Earlier this month, Gallup released a poll showing that Republican support for gay marriage now stood at 37 percent, a decline of 18 percentage points from a high in 2022. Support among independents declined, too.”
“And a few Republican lawmakers are also pushing resolutions against gay marriage. Since 2025, bills and resolutions had been introduced in about a dozen states, either urging the Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell or proposing marriage categories limited to heterosexual couples, according to Lambda Legal, a gay rights group. Nearly all died in committee.”
“The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled against a law banning ‘conversion therapy’ for LGBTQ+ kids in Colorado, one of about two dozen states that ban the discredited practice,” the AP reports.
“An 8-1 high court majority sided with a Christian counselor who argues the law banning talk therapy violates the First Amendment. The justices agreed that the law raises free speech concerns and sent it back to a lower court to decide if it meets a legal standard that few laws pass.”
Washington Post: “Ahead of the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, the International Olympic Committee on Thursday banned transgender women from competing in women’s events — a move that was immediately applauded by the White House.”
“A large Pride flag was quietly removed from the Stonewall National Monument in Manhattan after a directive from the federal government, the latest step in the Trump administration’s nationwide assault on diversity initiatives and the second time in less than a year it has targeted the Greenwich Village site, which commemorates the birth of the LGBTQ rights movement,” the New York Times reports.
“The Supreme Court on Monday declined an opportunity to overturn its landmark precedent recognizing a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, tossing aside an appeal that had roiled LGBTQ advocates who feared the conservative court might be ready to revisit the decade-old decision,” CNN reports.
“Instead, the court denied an appeal from Kim Davis, the former Kentucky county clerk who now faces hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages and legal fees for refusing to issue marriage licenses after the court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges allowed same-sex couples to marry.”
“Republican gubernatorial nominee Winsome Earle-Sears and her conservative allies have gone all in on anti-trans messaging in the Virginia governor’s race, launching more frequent attacks — and taking those attacks further — than Donald Trump’s campaign did in 2024,” NOTUS reports.
“It won’t be a one-off escalation.”
“Earle-Sears’ increased focus on transgender issues is a preview of the Republican Party’s message in the 2026 midterm election, according to political strategists in both parties. They describe the Virginia contest as a model for Republicans in key congressional and statewide races, with candidates prioritizing transgender issues more than they did in 2024, even at the expense of longtime conservative causes like crime, immigration and even the economy.”
“The Supreme Court on Tuesday appeared poised to back a free speech challenge to a Colorado law that bans conversion therapy aimed at young people questioning their sexual orientations or gender identities in a case likely to have national implications,” NBC News reports.
“If the court rules against the state, it could affect more than 20 states that have similar bans and raise new questions about other long-standing state health care regulations.”
“The Supreme Court on Tuesday will hear a challenge to a Colorado law that prohibits licensed mental health professionals from trying to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of clients who are under 18,” the New York Times reports.
“The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday to let it limit passport sex markers for transgender and nonbinary individuals, its latest effort to get the justices to intervene in a fight over restrictive policies targeting LGBTQ+ Americans,” CNN reports.
“I’m not entirely sure this is legal to be teaching, because according to our president there’s only two genders… and I don’t want to promote something that is against our president’s laws as well as against my religious beliefs.”
— A Texas A&M student, quoted by KBTX, objecting to LGBTQ content in a university course in a viral video that led to the removals of a dean and department head and the firing of a professor.
“After backing away from a controversial logo rebrand loudly opposed by many right-wing influencers, Cracker Barrel also quietly made changes to its website this week,” CNN reports.
“The Tennessee-based roadside restaurant chain deleted a dedicated ‘Pride page’ and scrubbed references to employee resource groups, including its LGBTQ+ and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging groups, from another part of its website.”
Virginia gubernatorial nominee Winsome Earle-Sears (R) expressed strong opposition to a series of LGBTQ+ rights in a candidate questionnaire completed when she unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2004, the Virginia Mercury reports.
She responded “yes” to questions about whether she would vote to block same-sex couples from adopting children and oppose workplace protections for gay people, and she indicated that she believed homosexuality is an “immoral lifestyle choice.”
Hillary Clinton predicted that the Supreme Court will “do to gay marriage what they did to abortion” and send it back to states to decide, Axios reports.
Said Clinton: “I don’t think they’ll undo existing marriages, but I fear that they will undo the national right.”
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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