Ever notice how the people with the strongest, most unyielding opinions about what's best for other people's children so rarely have any children of their own?

James Talarico, the Texas state representative now running for U.S. Senate, spent years building one of the most aggressive records in his state legislature on gender-related policy for minors. In 2021, he stood on the House floor and called a bill restricting so-called "gender-affirming care" for children a "manufactured problem," accusing his Republican colleagues of wasting time on discrimination dressed up as concern. In 2023, he voted against SB 14, the law that ultimately banned puberty blockers, hormone treatments, and surgical procedures for gender transition in minors statewide. As recently as this July, at a Pride event, he called that same law one of the "most dangerous" pieces of legislation to pass in Texas, framing it as a denial of "life-saving healthcare."

Now, running statewide against Ken Paxton, Talarico has abruptly discovered nuance. He'll tell you now that he opposes "gender-reassignment surgeries for minors" — a procedure that was already vanishingly rare to begin with — while his campaign insists his 2023 "no" vote was really about........

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