Why transgender voters who feel betrayed, disappointed, and hurt are backing Democrats anyway

This story from The 19th News was reported in partnership with Uncloseted Media, an LGBTQ-focused investigative news outlet.Max Sorgenfrey was sipping a coffee at a cafe in Charleston, South Carolina, in early October when her phone began lighting up with messages. People were sending her a new ad from Annie Andrews, the state’s Democratic Senate nominee, that referred to transgender women like Sorgenfrey as “biological men,” a marked shift in language that confounded many of her supporters.Appearing in the direct-to-camera ad wearing a white lab coat and a stethoscope slung over her shoulders, Andrews, a pediatrician, said she would oppose “gender surgery for minors” and “men in women’s sports” as South Carolina’s first Democratic senator in more than 20 years. “I want you to hear me loud and clear,” Andrews said in the ad, released October 8, days after President Donald Trump had called her an anti-trans slur on social media.The backlash to Andrews’ ad was swift. Twenty local LGBTQ+ rights groups signed an open letter denouncing “transphobic attacks, slurs, and fear-based political messages” in midterm races across South Carolina. “We deserve leaders who support transgender people as whole people worthy of safety, dignity, and care,” the groups wrote.Sorgenfrey, a co-chair of the Charleston chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, helped the organization draft its own statement. “What message does it send by showing Trump’s bullying works?” the Charleston DSA wrote on its Instagram page. “Why are so many of Democratic politicians willing to sacrifice everything but their personal comfort when fights come to their doorstep?”Sorgenfrey struggled with what to do with her vote. She was frustrated and angry that Andrews, who had once called statewide restrictions on trans athletes “shameful” and criticized a South Carolina hospital system for suspending gender-affirming care for youth under pressure from Republicans