Hey
there,
James Talacreepo cannot quit his bizarre obsession with what is in little kids'
pants.
A new report
reveals him discussing who his role model is.
Unlike most people, it is not an athlete, a president, teacher, or even his
mom.
No, it is an award-winning transgender activist who James Talarico described
as an outspoken advocate for child sex changes.
Read the full story here and
highlights below.
Free
Beacon
September
3, 2026
Texas
Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico gushed in 2022 about a far-left,
nonbinary transgender operative who he said inspires him to "keep
going" when he's "feeling kind of hopeless" in his far-left
crusades. Talarico praised his transgender role model, Ash Hall, for rallying
opposition to state bans on men in women's sports and sex changes for children.
"The
Capitol is not a safe place for a lot of marginalized people," Talarico
told the Go Behind the Ballot Podcast. "So, that's part of the thing that
keeps me going when I'm getting discouraged or I'm getting upset or I'm feeling
kind of hopeless. I look at people like Ash Hall and I'm like, if Ash can do
this much harder thing than I'm doing, then I have to keep going."
Hall, who
looks remarkably similar to Talarico, graduated just two years after Talarico
did from the University of Texas at Austin and uses they/them pronouns. Hall
works for the ACLU, according to LinkedIn, and last year won the Monica Roberts
Trans Activist of the Year Award.
"One
of the best organizers at the Capitol is an activist named Ash Hall,"
Talarico said on the podcast. "Ash does a lot of the work for the trans
community in Texas and is an outspoken advocate for trans kids in
particular."
***
Hall led
opposition to state legislation that prohibits boys from competing in girls'
sports and men from using women's bathrooms. Hall also vehemently fought bills
that ban sex change treatments for minors and define biological sex as strictly
male or female based on reproductive anatomy. Those policies that Hall opposed
are increasingly popular among Americans, according to the latest polling, and
bans on sex changes for minors are now law in a majority of states. The Supreme
Court last year struck down a challenge to the state bans on sex changes for
minors.
On the
podcast, Talarico, who has served in the Texas state House since 2018, then
lauded Hall for doing great work during the "horrible debate" around
a bill that "discriminated against trans kids in sports." One of the
interviewers then commended Talarico for those comments, noting that she has a
nonbinary 11-year-old child and that certain legislation has caused her family
to fear for its safety.
***
Talarico
has attempted to walk those comments back by admitting that he has "missed
the mark" with past statements and that Republicans are intentionally
clipping his most "cringey" comments. He also flatly claimed in
June that he opposes gender transition surgeries for minors (he voted against
legislation that would ban such surgeries three years prior).
Hall,
Talarico's inspiration whose X handle is @LGBTActivist, is anything but
moderate. In 2017, Hall testified before the Texas state Senate, arguing
against legislation barring men from using women's bathrooms and saying that
"locking us out of the bathroom" will not end "rape
culture." While that bill failed, an updated version only impacting
government-owned facilities, including public schools and universities,
ultimately passed last year. Hall said the new bill was
"unconscionable" and would encourage "gender policing."
"This bill is bad for trans and intersex people, bad for cisgender people,
bad for business, bad for public health and safety, and bad for Texas,"
Hall said.
In 2021,
Hall emerged as a leading voice opposing a bill requiring youth athletes to
play on school sports teams that match the sex listed on their original birth
certificate. In a social media post at the time, Hall described participating
in 10 hours of testimony about the bill at a legislative hearing and posted a
selfie with a transgender child who Hall said "cried over
transphobia" during the hearing.
Hall
claimed after the bill passed that just debating it caused an increase in
suicide hotline calls and that it would ultimately "put the lives of our
kids in danger."
In 2023,
Hall was outspoken in advocating against legislation that prohibits doctors
from providing gender transition-related treatments to anyone under the age of
18, a bill that the state supreme court upheld one year later.
***
Talarico's
alignment with Hall, meanwhile, puts him at odds with the majority of
Americans, who increasingly support more protections for minors, women's
sports, and women's bathrooms. According to a Pew Research poll conducted last
year, 66 percent of Americans support policies that require athletes to compete
on teams corresponding with their sex; 56 percent support policies banning
doctors from providing gender transition surgeries on minors; and 49 percent
support policies requiring people to use bathrooms that correspond with their
sex, compared with just 26 percent who oppose such policies.
***
