Republicans cannot stop generating images of James Talarico as a woman

This story originally appeared on Them.

Call James Talarico “Chaka Khan” because to Republicans, he seems to be every woman.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott shared an image on his Facebook page Wednesday depicting Talarico as New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to criticize the Democratic senate candidate’s bill for a Green New Deal for Texas. Abbott’s post comes in the same week that a MAGA-aligned PAC ran an ad featuring a deepfake of Talarico singing a parody version of “My Favorite Things” with lyrics about trans kids.

“Jimmy Talarico authored the Texas Climate Action Act - Texas’ Green New Deal. Thankfully, for Texans, this bill died in committee,” Abbott wrote. “No matter what Talarico says on the campaign trail, the truth is his record is much more aligned with AOC than the ideals of Texans.”

Two images accompanied Abbott’s post: a visual of the legislation that Talarico introduced as well as a face mashup of Talaricio and Ocasio-Cortez, who has long been a ragebait target for the right.

Talarico proposed the Texas Climate Action Act in 2021, per the Dallas Express. The bill sought to push Texas’s net greenhouse gas emissions to near zero by 2050; Republicans painted it as a death blow to the state’s oil and gas industries.

During his current bid for the U.S. Senate in Texas, criticisms for the 2021 climate change bill have resurfaced. Talarico is facing Texas attorney general Ken Paxton for the Senate seat currently occupied by John Cornyn, who lost the Republican primary to Paxton, while Abbott is currently in a race for governor against Democratic state representative Gina Hinojosa.

While wanting to paint Talarico as a negative for the oil and gas industry is one thing, the GOP’s continued emphasis on his masculinity is another. Aside from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller calling Talarico the “first transgender Senate candidate,” several other GOPers have tried to paint the Texas Democrat as unmasculine and, therefore, somehow unfit for office.

Republicans have also described him as “Low-T Talarico,” “James Talafreako” and “Six-Gender Jimmy,” referencing his comments that there are more than two biological genders, per The Atlantic. Current polls show Paxton and Talarico, who are both vying for the same seat, in a dead heat, though many prognosticators have held out hope that Talarico could flip Texas blue.