Trump campaign and other Republicans have intensified ads spotlighting Democrats’ stances on transgender-related issues. Including policies allowing biological males to participate in women’s sports and taxpayer-funded gender-affirming care for incarcerated trans-identifying individuals.
These ads, targeted at voter concerns over women’s sports and taxpayer expenses, have stirred controversy, particularly among some of the individuals featured in them.
One such individual, Gabrielle Ludwig, a transgender woman who played college basketball as a 50-year-old biological male on a women’s team, was prominently featured in an ad campaign.
Ludwig, speaking to The Hill, shared the personal toll the ad’s visibility has taken. “I haven’t been able to sleep,” she said, expressing concern over the impact on her family, including her daughters and granddaughters.
“I only did this because I love to play basketball. That’s all it ever was.”
The ad, featuring Ludwig in action during her time on the Mission College women’s team in California, included the tagline “No men in girls’ sports” and was used in at least eight ads targeting Democratic senators in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Montana, and Ohio.
Paid for by the Republican Senate Leadership Fund, the ads showed Ludwig, who was visibly older