James Talarico's Comments on Trans Rights, Explainedhttps://www.them.us/story/james-talarico-god-is-nonbinary-comment-trans-rights-support 🔗Mathew Rodriguez (28 May 2026)
Texas Democratic candidate James Talarico has been the name on every Republican's lips lately. In recent weeks, the GOP has been using clips of Talarico's comments, especially on the subject of gender, to lambaste the politician, who is now set to face off against Attorney General Ken Paxton for a U.S. Senate seat.
Talarico's rising popularity, and his staunch support of trans rights, may have made him a punching bag for the political right, but he's also increasingly seen as a candidate who may be able to turn Texas blue. The fear of losing Texas — both electorally and psychologically — certainly seems to be stoking these Republican attacks. And, just as they were able to accomplish with Kamala Harris, Republicans are again attempting to use trans people as a wedge issue.
While speaking in the Texas House of Representatives in 2021, Talarico delivered a speech in which he delivered the now-infamous line "God is nonbinary." The occasion was that Texas Republicans were passing a bill banning trans kids from playing on sports teams that matched their gender, per Chron. Before launching into a discussion of God's gender, he said that he hated that people were using scripture to hurt children.
"The first two lines in Genesis use two different Hebrew words to describe God," Talarico, who graduated from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, said in the clip. "One of them is the masculine Hebrew noun for divinity. The second is the feminine Hebrew noun for spirit. God is both masculine and feminine and everything in between." He continued, saying, "God is nonbinary."
