James Talarico told an undercover supporter his transgender positions “haven’t changed” and he will keep fighting for trans kids in the Senate, days after softer Fox News answers.
Four days after sounding measured on national television, Texas Democratic U.S. Senate nominee James Talarico sat down with a woman posing as a supporter and delivered a different message.
In an undercover recording captured Sept. 13 at Houston’s Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church, Talarico was asked whether he would defend her “niece who is trans” and that girl’s ability to compete in women’s sports. He did not hedge.
Breitbart reported the exchange, which shows the candidate tying his future Senate work directly to the same fights he waged in the Texas Legislature.
"Always. The way I fought for trans kids in the legislature is how I will fight for them in the U.S. Senate. And my position hasn’t changed."
Talarico went further on sports eligibility. He rejected a clear statewide or national line and cast his approach as the most open in the race.
"I still think these should be local decisions, sport by sport, athlete by athlete, and I think I have the most inclusive policy of any candidate who’s running. So I know things are getting clipped and stuff, but my views, my position hasn’t changed."
The timing matters. On Sept. 9, Talarico appeared on Fox News and struck a different note aimed at a broader audience.
In that interview he said every sport “has to be safe and fair” and added he would “oppose trans athletes playing in girls’ sports if it risks safety or fairness.”
He also walked back an earlier claim that there are six biological sexes. And he pledged to “absolutely” support a national ban on gender-transition surgeries for minors.
Those answers landed four days before the church recording. In the undercover clip he insisted nothing fundamental had moved and that his legislative record would travel with him to Washington.
That record is concrete. As a state representative, Talarico voted against Senate Bill 14, the 2023 Texas law that restricted gender-transition procedures for minors. He also voted against Senate Bill 29 in 2021, a measure that would have required school athletes to compete according to the sex listed on their birth certificates.
He has previously argued that such restrictions grow out of what he called a “Christofascism movement.”
Separate footage released alongside the Talarico recording features Jennifer Miranda, a manager with Texas Together and the Texas Democratic Party. She described the candidate’s recent public tone in blunt political terms.
"Right now he’s trying to target a wider net, which unfortunately means being more palatable to Republicans here in Texas. He does believe the things that he’s said before."
Rev. Babs Miller, a minister at Talarico’s longtime Austin church, offered her own prediction in a recorded exchange: that he would revert after the election.
The Paxton campaign did not treat the video as ambiguous. Spokeswoman Madison Cercy framed it as confirmation of the candidate’s long-standing positions rather than a conversion.
"James Talarico can’t outrun his own radical record, and this bombshell video proves it. Now, even he admits his position ‘hasn’t changed.'"
Talarico faces Republican Ken Paxton in November. The undercover exchange at Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church now sits between his Fox News appearance and that general-election deadline.
Talarico’s preferred framing in the church video is “local decisions, sport by sport, athlete by athlete.” He called that the most inclusive policy on the field.
Texas already tested the opposite approach. Senate Bill 29 in 2021 sought a uniform standard tied to birth certificates for school sports. Talarico voted no. Senate Bill 14 in 2023 limited irreversible medical steps for minors. He voted no again.
On Fox he said he would back a national ban on those surgeries for minors and would block transgender athletes from girls’ sports when safety or fairness is at risk. In the undercover setting he returned to the language of fighting for “trans kids” the same way he had in Austin and insisted his core stance was steady.
Voters now have both sets of statements within the same week, plus a Democratic operative on tape explaining the public adjustment as an effort to sound acceptable to Republicans while keeping earlier beliefs intact.
The recording does not capture new legislation. It captures a candidate describing how he intends to use a Senate seat and what he says has not moved.
Texas parents watching girls’ sports and parents weighing medical decisions for minors can measure the Fox answers against the church answers and against the roll-call votes that already happened.
Campaigns often sand edges for November. The undercover tape and the party manager’s explanation give Texans the candidate’s own words on whether those edges were ever gone.
