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A South Carolina Democrat running for U.S. Senate who previously opposed legislation restricting transgender athletes’ participation in girls’ sports is now emphasizing her opposition to biological males participating in female athletics as President Donald Trump targets her record ahead of the midterm elections.
Trump took aim at Annie Andrews, a pediatrician challenging Republican Sen. Darline Graham, in a series of Truth Social posts this week, dubbing her “Annie Trannie” and accusing her of supporting transgender policies that are out of step with South Carolina voters.
The president also shared an attack ad accusing Andrews of supporting biological males competing against female athletes. “Annie Andrews is for they/them, not for our values, not for South Carolina,” the ad said.
But Andrews pushed back in an interview with Fox News Digital on Thursday, arguing that her positions have been misrepresented.
“I don’t support biological men playing in women’s sports and I don’t support gender surgery on minors,” Andrews said.
Her comments stand in contrast to her public opposition to South Carolina’s 2022 Save Women’s Sports Act, which restricted transgender athletes’ participation in girls’ and women’s school sports. At the time, Andrews called the legislation “shameful” and “actively harmful,” raising questions about how she reconciles her past opposition to the law with her current campaign position.
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As passed, the bill required interscholastic, intercollegiate, intramural and club teams sponsored by public schools and colleges to be designated as male or female-coded. It then closed women’s teams to male students and similarly closed men’s sports to women — unless the school did not have a designated women’s team. Private schools competing against public schools were required to follow the same rules.
It also allowed students harmed by a violation to sue schools.
Andrews’ social media post at the time garnered resurfaced attention as she launched her 2026 Senate bid, attracting pressure from Republicans.
“Annie “Trannie” Andrews is running against our wonderful Darline Graham for the Senate in South Carolina,” Trump wrote in one post.
“Annie Trannie is not, in particular, as it pertains to representing the Values of the Great People of South Carolina — She is in favor of Transgender for Everyone, Open Borders, Defunding the Police, High Taxes, a Weak Military, and will absolutely fight to take your guns away — In other words, she is against our Great Second Amendment! Trannie is not for South Carolina, and South Carolina must show, in the upcoming Election, that it is not for her,” Trump added.
In her interview with Fox New Digital, Andrews dismissed Trump’s barb, calling it a distraction from the issues central to voters in South Carolina.
“And in regards to the name-calling, if calling me names is going to lower gas and diesel prices here for so many hardworking South Carolinian families, if it’s going to lower grocery prices or somehow make healthcare more affordable then he can call me all the names he wants but I don’t think that’s a path to solution so I’m going to stay focused on what I can do to help folks in South Carolina,” Andrews said.
Andrews did not immediately respond to additional requests for comment on whether her statements reflected a change in stance. She also did not expand on what had drawn criticism for the Save Women’s Sports Act.
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At least one Republican onlooker, National Republican Senatorial Regional Press Secretary Nick Puglia, believes her remarks speaks poorly of the message she’s presenting to voters.
“Annie Andrews’ blatant lies show just how desperate she is and how little she thinks of South Carolinians. But nothing Andrews says or does will change her far-left record,” Puglia said in a comment.
This isn’t the first time Andrews has received Republican criticisms for what they view as retreats from trans policies. In 2022, Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., called out Andrews for, in her view, trying to walk back her opposition to H. 4047, a bill that would “prohibit the performance of a medical procedure or the prescription or issuance of medication, upon or to a minor, that is intended to alter the appearance of the minor’s gender or delay puberty, with exceptions; to create criminal penalties; and for other purposes.”
Andrews said she opposed the bill in a post to X, calling it “dangerous,” only to later to say that she opposed trans procedures for minors.
“She called the legislation to ban that kind of surgery dangerous. She called that legislation an attack on our youth. And it wasn’t until we called her out on it that she decided that she’s now not for something that she was very publicly in support of just last year. And so it’s really hard to play hide and seek from your public comments, because once you tweet it, it’s on their public record forever. And that’s how we discovered it,” Mace told Fox News Digital at the time.
Notably, she isn’t the only Democrat who in recent weeks has received attention for seeming shifts in her position over transgender policies. Fellow Democrats like Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, Rep. Don Davis, D-N.C., and Sarah Trone Garriott, a congressional candidate in Iowa, have all been forced to reiterate their positions as Republicans have highlighted their records on the subject.
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In Kaptur’s case, she described how she had “voted with Republicans to keep transgender ideology out of our schools” despite voting against a women’s sports bill. Similarly, Davis voted “present” on that same women’s bill while later claiming that women should have “safe and fair space” in sports. And Garriott, who cast a vote against a ban on biological men in women’s locker rooms, clarified her stance earlier this year, stating that “I oppose letting men in women’s locker rooms.”
Those statements reflect broader trends in public opinion showing consensus on trans athlete policies.
Recently, the Pew Research Center found in a Aug. 11 report that 73% of respondents were “not at all” or “not too” comfortable with “athletes competing on sports teams that do not match their sex at birth,” compared to just 13% that replied that they were “extremely” or “very” comfortable with the idea. Similarly, 66% of participants said they would support laws or policies requiring trans athletes to compete on teams that match their biological sex compared to 15% who said they would oppose such policies.
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With just four weeks left to address criticisms over her views, Andrews now heads to South Carolina’s general election on Nov. 3., having cleared the state’s Democratic primary earlier this year in June.
