Dr. Annie Andrews, the Democratic U.S. Senate nominee in South Carolina, told reporters she rejects biological men competing in women’s sports and gender surgeries on minors after President Donald Trump zeroed in on her earlier positions.
In a Thursday interview with Fox News Digital, the pediatrician and candidate facing Republican Sen. Darline Graham drew a hard line that clashes with her public record from just a few years ago.
“I don’t support biological men playing in women’s sports and I don’t support gender surgery on minors,” Andrews said.
Trump spent the week hammering that gap. He posted on Truth Social calling her “Annie Trannie” and shared an attack ad that framed her as out of step with South Carolina values. The pressure arrives with the Nov. 3 general election weeks away and after Andrews cleared the Democratic primary in June.
The timing is no accident. Voters across the country have watched Democrats soften or reverse earlier support for transgender policies in sports and medicine once the political cost became clear. Andrews now finds herself in that same spot.
Trump did not say much. One post introduced the race this way:
“Annie \”Trannie\” Andrews is running against our wonderful Darline Graham for the Senate in South Carolina,”
A longer post laid out the case against her:
“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,”
The shared ad drove the same point home with the line, “Annie Andrews is for they/them, not for our values, not for South Carolina.” Republicans have treated the episode as proof that far-left cultural positions do not travel well outside deep-blue districts, a pattern also visible when a GOP challenger predicted a red wave against another Democrat scrambling over a controversial record.
Andrews answered the name-calling by trying to change the subject to costs.
“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,”
National Republican Senatorial Regional Press Secretary Nick Puglia was unimpressed. He called the new statements desperate.
“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,”
The problem for Andrews is the paper trail. In 2022 she opposed South Carolina’s Save Women’s Sports Act. That law required public school and college teams to be designated male or female. It closed women’s teams to male students, required private schools competing against public ones to follow the same rules, and let students harmed by violations sue. Andrews called the measure “shameful” and “actively harmful.”
She also opposed legislation known as H. 4047. The bill would have barred medical procedures or medications for minors intended to alter gender appearance or delay puberty, with exceptions and criminal penalties attached. Andrews labeled that effort “dangerous.”
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., flagged the shift years ago. She noted that Andrews only adjusted after public criticism and that social media posts leave a permanent record. The same pattern of late clarification has appeared with other Democrats under fire, including cases where Trump has actively backed candidates who refuse to blur sex-based categories.
The Washington Examiner reported that Andrews released a campaign ad repeating her new stance and adding that she has never performed gender surgery on minors. The same coverage noted her earlier posts fighting for “trans kids,” opposing bans on puberty blockers and hormones for those under 18, and declaring “I will always support trans youth.”
She did not immediately answer follow-up questions on whether the latest comments mark a true change of position.
The political math is straightforward. A Pew Research Center report from Aug. 11 found 73 percent of respondents were “not at all” or “not too” comfortable with athletes competing on teams that do not match their sex at birth. Only 13 percent said they were “extremely” or “very” comfortable. Sixty-six percent backed laws or policies requiring transgender athletes to compete on teams matching biological sex; 15 percent opposed them.
Other Democrats have made similar course corrections. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, described voting with Republicans to keep transgender ideology out of schools even after voting against a women’s sports bill. Rep. Don Davis, D-N.C., voted “present” on a women’s sports measure then later said women should have a “safe and fair space.” Iowa congressional candidate Sarah Trone Garriott voted against a ban on biological men in women’s locker rooms, then clarified, “I oppose letting men in women’s locker rooms.”
These adjustments arrive as Trump keeps cultural issues front and center, whether through direct posts or by forcing opponents to defend past votes. That approach has left media outlets and Democratic candidates reacting, much as when the White House limited access for networks that treat every cultural fight as a distraction.
Andrews campaigns as a pediatrician focused on kitchen-table costs for South Carolina families. She has held events such as one in Greenville. Yet the transgender sports and medical questions will not vanish simply because gas prices also matter.
South Carolina already passed the Save Women’s Sports Act. The state has a clear legislative record protecting female categories. Andrews opposed that framework when it was on the table. She now says she rejects the very outcomes the law was written to stop.
Republicans argue the new language is an election-year conversion. Democrats hope voters will accept the latest statements at face value and move on to inflation and health care. Trump’s decision to elevate the issue keeps the contradiction in plain sight, just as he has done in other races where candidates suddenly discover limits they once called harmful. Even episodes where Trump has adjusted advertising tactics after pushback show he treats political pressure as a two-way street.
With four weeks left before Nov. 3 when the Fox report framed the calendar, Andrews must persuade South Carolina voters that her Thursday answers outweigh the 2022 posts and the bill opposition that Mace and others documented. The public polling numbers leave little room for ambiguity on the sports question. Biological reality and fairness for female athletes remain majority positions.
Candidates who once called sex-based sports protections shameful now discover the voters never agreed. South Carolina gets the final word on whether the new tune is enough.
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