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From left: Gabrielle Ludwig, Joshua Kelley, and Lil Miss Hot Mess
His anti-trans ads have used their images without their consent, and some are considering legal action.
Several transgender people and drag performers are outraged that Republican anti-trans ads have used their images without their consent.
“I fear for my life, for my family,” Gabrielle Ludwig, a trans woman and biomedical equipment technician whose image has been used in campaign ads for Donald Trump and in U.S. Senate races, told The Hill. “There are trans people killed for no other reason than because they’re trans. By Trump coming out and using my image, I feel that he’s feeding the fire.”
“Photographs and footage of Ludwig taken in the early 2010s, when she was a student at Mission College in Santa Clara, Calif., appear in at least nine Senate Leadership Fund ads targeting Democratic incumbent Sens. Bob Casey (Pa.), Jon Tester (Mont.) and Sherrod Brown (Ohio),” The Hill reports. Photos of her from this era also appear in Trump ads.
Ludwig was then on the college’s women’s basketball team. Now 63, at the time she was twice the age of most players on the team, so her participation attracted extensive coverage. All of the Republican ads attack trans women’s inclusion on women’s sports teams, and they refer to trans women as “biological men.”
“I haven’t been able to sleep,” she told The Hill. “I don’t want my family affected. I have granddaughters, daughters who are in college. I only did this because I love to play basketball. That’s all it ever was.” She and her wife are considering legal action over the ads, but they fear that will lead to additional negative attention.
Joshua Kelley, who is serving in the Navy and is a drag performer under the name Harpy Daniels, has been pictured in Trump ads criticizing President Joe Biden’s handling of the military. “To those who want to use me for their campaigns. Remember to keep that same energy when we keep winning, and I’m still serving,” he wrote in a post on X this month.
A school district in Oregon has called on U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas to cease using images of a cisgender female athlete from the district in an anti-trans ad.
“The family nor the school or school district ever gave permission for this photo to be used,” a representative from the Beaverton School District said in an email. “It is alarming that your campaign would have produced/distributed/promoted this ad with false information, especially with minor children involved.” There’s no news yet of a response from Cruz, an ultraconservative Republican, or his campaign staff. He is being challenged this year by Democrat Colin Allred, currently a member of the U.S. House. A cis girl from another district is also shown in the ad.
Drag queen Pattie Gonia, who was pictured without her consent in a Trump anti-trans ad, recently confirmed to The Advocatethat she is considering a lawsuit or other action. But such suits aren’t often successful.
The image of Lil Miss Hot Mess, another drag performer, was featured in a campaign ad this year for West Virginia Republican gubernatorial hopeful Chris Miller, who lost his primary, and in 2022 for GOP U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. She considered legal action but was told she had little chance of success because she performs in public. “It’s just so disappointing and discouraging because these politicians are using my image, other people’s images, in just such disingenuous and misleading ways,” she told The Hill.
“There is pretty strong protection for making political commentary,” Andrew Gilden, an associate professor at Willamette University College of Law, told the outlet. “So, as long as there is a reasonable relationship between that message and the use of this image, it’s much harder to defeat that claim.”
Surveys have indicated that voters are disgusted by the anti-trans commercials and that they’re not influencing votes, although they appear to be eroding support for trans rights.
