Texas Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico is facing renewed scrutiny over comments he made in 2022 as a state lawmaker, when he questioned a bill requiring parents to opt their children into sex education classes rather than opt them out.
During a July 2022 Texas House hearing on HB 1525, Talarico called sex education “maybe the most important topic” that Texas students would learn in school. He made the remark while raising objections to a provision in the bill that switched sex-ed participation from an opt-out system to an opt-in system, meaning parents would have to actively enroll their children rather than remove them.
HB 1525 was a broad education reform package that also required school districts to fully disclose their sex-education curricula to parents. Despite his objection to the sex-ed changes, Talarico ultimately voted for the overall bill.
Talarico’s record on education funding has drawn additional attention. According to Breitbart News, he rarely opposed large education spending bills, some of which directed money to a diversity, equity, and inclusion consulting firm where he worked and was paid nearly six figures.
RNC Spokesman Weighs In
Republican National Committee spokesman Zach Kraft criticized Talarico in a statement to Breitbart News, saying, “Serious questions need to be asked about why an unmarried 37-year-old man is so eager to talk to other people’s children about sex after admitting his favorite thing in the world is kids who underwent sex changes. Texas cannot allow a pervert who refers to himself as a ‘freako’ to be their next senator.”
Past Comments on Transgender Issues
The sex-ed remarks are the latest in a series of past statements drawing attention as Talarico runs for the U.S. Senate. During a 2023 podcast interview, asked to name something he loved besides friends or family, Talarico said: “I love — and I’m just going to say this because it’s on my mind — the trans children who showed up yesterday at the State Capitol to advocate for their humanity. They shouldn’t have to, but it was an inspiration to watch.”
An archived version of Talarico’s state representative website said he had “led the fight against their efforts to bully trans kids, ban books, whitewash our history curriculum, gut public education with a private school voucher scam, and force their Christian Nationalist agenda onto the people of Texas.” That language has since been removed from his current campaign website.
Talarico has said he opposes gender-reassignment surgeries for minors, but he previously voted against Texas legislation banning certain gender-transition procedures and treatments for children. He has also said doctors have a “moral obligation” under the “Hippocratic oath” to treat children’s gender dysphoria, and he has previously described denying children sex-change treatments as “child abuse.”
In other remarks, Talarico said white men have a “greater responsibility” to “love” transgender children, telling an interviewer: “You know, we use the word ‘privilege’ a lot. I think maybe a better word, at least in this conversation, is ‘responsibility’ because you and I have greater responsibilities to love our enemies so that those trans kids who show up at the Texas Capitol just to advocate for their basic humanity, so they don’t have to.”
Talarico has named drag performer Alyssa Edwards, whose legal name is Justin Dwayne Lee Johnson, as his favorite drag queen. Edwards runs the Beyond Belief Dance Company and has spoken publicly about mentoring young students, once calling 10-year-old student J.J. Garza his “mini-me.”
Other Statements
Talarico has also pointed to his prior work as a teacher in San Antonio when discussing immigration, saying undocumented students he taught “tended to be my most patriotic students” and that they viewed the United States as “the land of opportunity” and “the place where dreams come true.” He has said immigration enforcement should target cartels, gang members, and human traffickers rather than small-business owners, mothers, and children.
During debate over a Texas law requiring Ten Commandments displays in classrooms, Talarico said the measure “does violence to both Christianity and Judaism” and later called the displays “a deeply unChristian decision.”
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