Scott Stadthagen // University of Alabama
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Transgender candidates are running in races across the United States. This is certainly true in Alabama, where two transgender women are running for seats in the state Legislature, including in one relatively competitive district. Meanwhile, the Republican Party in Alabama, perhaps incensed by transgender people daring to run in their state and serve alongside them, has been the source of increasingly hostile remarks toward them. For example, Sen. Tommy Tuberville called being transgender “a mental disease” in a floor speech last month. Now, the head of the entire Republican Party in Alabama has remarked on the two Democratic transgender candidates, calling them “men who have mental disorders” in the lead-up to the election at an event for Eastern Shore Republican Women.
“We’ve got two men who have mental disorders who like to dress like women, who think they are females on the ballot this general election. One’s in Madison County, one’s in Baldwin County. That is a mental disorder, ladies and gentlemen,” said Scott Stadthagen, Republican Party Chairman of Alabama, according to reporting from AL.com, a major news publisher out of the state.
He later continued to talk about banning drag in public, stating, “If a man wants to dress like a woman in the privacy of his home, Roll Tide. War Eagle. Whatever you want to do, go knock yourself out, alright. But when you want to do it in front of a kid and minors in a sexual, explicit manner, I’ve got a problem with that.”
The candidates in question are Terri Osborne, a geologist who is running for House District 96, and Allison Montgomery, a software engineer running for House District 25, both transgender women. Allison Montgomery’s race is particularly competitive: Trump only carried her district by about 5.3% in 2024, meaning there is a decent shot this year that Alabama elects the first transgender woman representative in the state’s history. Meanwhile, Osborne’s got a much steeper hill to climb with a district that leans extremely Republican. Her opponent, Danielle Duggar, works for an anti-vaccine group and has similarly issued anti-trans statements during her campaign.
Duggar was likewise present at the Eastern Shore Republican Women event, and she hurled her own degrading remarks toward her transgender opponent. “I have a Democratic opponent. My Democratic opponent, I think it’s safe to say since |she| says it, is transgender and |her| views are quite radical. So, |she| identifies as a woman, and |she| wants that type of ideology taught in schools. |She| wants to make sure that kids know they have a choice, I guess, in their gender, and this is not what we want representing us in Montgomery,” said Duggar, misgendering her opponent repeatedly.
Montgomery responded to Stadthagen’s comments on Facebook, calling them “just plain prejudice.” She turned the remarks into an indictment of rising gas prices and the healthcare system, noting that Republicans would rather talk about her gender identity than more pressing issues in the state: “They brought up my womanhood because they have failed at governing. Ask yourselves: if I hadn’t transitioned, would gas be cheaper? Would your utilities be cheaper? Would groceries be more affordable? Would your medical debt go away? Would your rent stop getting higher? No; so it’s just plain weird that Stadthagen and other State House Republicans are so obsessed with me,” she posted.
See her full post here:
Stadthagen’s remarks are a sign of increasingly radical views of transgender people in the Republican Party. When the anti-trans panic started several years ago, most of the Republican hostility was focused on sports and transgender youth. In states like Alabama, it has since escalated to calling an entire class of LGBTQ+ people mentally ill and to advocating for policies that would severely harm all transgender people. Just last month, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, the Republican nominee for governor of Alabama, gave a 20-minute floor speech in front of a sign reading “Transgenderism is a mental disease” and called for bringing back “mental institutions as a normal part of our society.” Should the transgender candidates in the state win their races, it is in this environment that they will have to work to make change.
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