Texas Senate candidate James Talarico is walking back his 2021 claim that “God is non-binary,” calling the remark deliberately provocative as Ken Paxton’s campaign hammers him on it.
Democratic state Rep. James Talarico, now the party’s nominee in the Texas Senate race, addressed the old line in an ABC News Live interview after Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton’s campaign put it back in front of voters.
In 2021, during a floor debate in the Texas Legislature, Talarico declared that “God is non-binary.” Paxton’s campaign has since highlighted that statement and other comments Talarico has made on transgender rights, turning a years-old floor speech into a live campaign issue.
Just the News reported that Talarico cast the remark as intentional theater rather than settled theology.
He said the line was “meant to be deliberately provocative.”
"meant to be deliberately provocative"
He also offered a softer formulation of the same idea: that human labels do not define God.
"you can't use human categories to define God."
Talarico did not pretend the remark never happened. He tried to reframe why voters are hearing it now.
He accused Paxton of “clipping my past cringey comments” to pull attention away from what Talarico called Paxton’s “career of corruption.”
"clipping my past cringey comments"
That is a standard move in a hard race: call the opponent’s record the real story, and call your own old words a distraction. The problem for Talarico is simple. He said it on the House floor. The clip exists. And Texas voters can decide for themselves whether “God is non-binary” was clever provocation or a window into how he thinks about sex, gender, and faith.
The original comment came in a 2021 legislative debate. The ABC News Live interview came years later, after Talarico locked in the Democratic Senate nomination and after Paxton’s campaign put the remark back in circulation.
Talarico’s new language does two things at once. It admits the old line was “cringey.” It also keeps the underlying claim alive in different clothes: God, he says, cannot be boxed into “human categories.”
That may satisfy activists who want progressive gender language in public life. It is a tougher sell with voters who hear a politician rewriting basic religious language to fit a modern political script.
Paxton’s campaign has not needed a long speech. It has needed the quote, the context of Talarico’s other transgender-rights comments, and a Texas electorate that still takes God, sex, and plain speech seriously.
Talarico now wants the fight to be about Paxton’s ethics. Paxton’s side wants it to be about what Talarico said when the cameras were already rolling in the Legislature. Both men know which clip is easier to play in a 30-second ad.
In a Texas Senate race, words about God are not a side show. They tell voters who a candidate thinks he is talking to, and who he is willing to offend to sound current.
