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Illinois Democratic candidate Reed Showalter fills survey from anti-LGBTQ+ Christian group Illinois Family Institute with glitter.
Reed Showalter, who is straight, had a hilarious response to an anti-trans candidate survey from the Illinois Family Institute.
A Democrat running in Illinois had the perfect response to a Christian group's anti-transgender candidate questionnaire.
In his campaign for the state's 7th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives, Reed Showalter, 32, recently received a survey from Christian nonprofit the Illinois Family Institute. The form asked for his stance on various issues, including LGBTQ+ and abortion rights — with an obsessive focus on trans participation in sports.
Instead of simply filling out his responses, Showalter — who is heterosexual — decided to take his allyship a step further by filling the form with glitter.
“One of the funny things about running for office is you get inundated with a bunch of questionnaires from organizations asking what your positions are, considering whether they’ll endorse you or whether they will campaign actively against you, including some of the strangest, most goblin-y people on Earth,” Showalter said in a video posted to Instagram.
“For example, the Illinois Family Institute, which is ‘boldly bringing a biblical perspective to public policy in the Land of Lincoln,’ which I guess to them, means opposing abortion and LGBT interests," he continued. "It means withholding federal funds from schools that allow trans people to participate in sports. Actually, very specifically, that 'allow biological males to participate in female sports.' So they oppose trans people, but only if it’s male to female, and not the other way around."
Showalter noted that the group included the question about trans women in women's sports twice, adding as he laughed, "They fucking do it twice. They’re obsessed with it." He then proceeded to dump several vials of glitter into the envelope before sealing it.
The practice, known as "glitter bombing," gained prominence as a form of protest in the 2010s, notably happening to 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on the campaign trail. The idea is for the glitter to "explode" everywhere upon opening, creating a mess both fabulous and near-impossible to clean — annoying but ultimately harmless.
Showalter is a graduate of New York University and Columbia Law School who has worked as an attorney at the Federal Trade Commission, a counsel in the U.S. Justice Department, and a senior policy advisor in the White House National Economic Council. His platform largely centers on worker's rights and affordability in food, housing, and health care.
Showalter is also an advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, and opposes the "genocides and war crimes in Gaza, Sudan, Congo, Myanmar and everywhere else that people are facing the senseless specter of violence and death," according to his website.
A comprehensive review of several studies on trans participation in sports under their gender identity found that trans athletes, post transition, are "more similar to their gender identity." It noted that both transgender and cisgender athletes show great variations in ability.
"If it weren’t already clear, this organization is gleefully transphobic and homophobic, so I think it’s only fair that they get a little sparkle in their life," Showalter concluded in the video.
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