Republican Wins Competitive New York House Primary—and Likely a Seat in Congress—After Running on ‘Detransitioning America’

With Trump’s backing, Anthony Constantino won the primary to succeed outgoing Rep. Elise Stefanik. His repeated calls to ‘detransition America’ must be a warning to us all.

Sticker Mule CEO Anthony Constantino | Image: Constantino’s Campaign Website

Last Tuesday, as the nation’s eyes were fixed on the ongoing feud between New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the Democratic establishment, a different battle was raging in upstate New York: the race that likely decided the next representative of New York’s 21st congressional district. That race, which was sparked by current congresswoman and prominent Trump ally Elise Stefanik’s unexpected retirement following her failed gubernatorial run, pitted Sticker Mule CEO Anthony Constantino against state assemblyman and Marine Corps veteran Robert Smullen.

As the only fiercely contested GOP House primary in the state, it was bound to get ugly—and almost immediately, it did. Constantino called Smullen a “f*cking coward” and an “evil person.” Smullen called Constantino “unhinged” and “dangerously unfit to serve in public office.” Both candidates even threatened to sue each other.

But in the end, it wasn’t close. In April, Trump endorsed Constantino, and come election day, Constantino ended up winning the nomination by almost 20 points. Given that the district went for Trump by ~21 points, Constantino also appears poised to claim victory—and a seat in Congress—in this November’s midterms.

And for trans Americans, that’s a problem.

Because somehow, Constantino’s anti-trans rhetoric manages to go far beyond that of virtually every other prominent anti-trans Republican politician—including outgoing South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace.

In a video he posted to Facebook in January, Constantino dubbed trans people the “transgender scam” and said that he “strongly advises everyone against ‘transgenderism’” because he “just [doesn’t] think it’s good for humanity.” In the accompanying caption, he wrote that he “advised all humans to stay far away from the transgender bullshit.”

But that isn’t even the worst of it. In late December, Constantino appeared on right-wing media outlet One America News Network, where, in an interview with disgraced former Rep. Matt Gaetz, he said this:

“I think another big bipartisan issue I’d like to see addressed is the detransitioning of America. I’d like to see some legislation passed; we’ve already done a little bit on it, but we need to be aggressive [in] detransitioning America. Maybe it should just be LGB without the T. We need to detransition America because it’s an irreversible procedure.

They’re targeting kids with it. I don’t think Democrats or Republicans like it when we go after kids with transgender ideology and all this craziness. It’s a big winner that I think appeals to everybody.”

Then, in May, he expanded this rhetoric, publishing a lengthy article in right-wing online magazine American Thinker that he simply titled “We Need to Detransition America.” Concerningly, at various points in the article, he ambiguously swaps between targeting his statements towards trans kids and more general attacks, and despite framing his central argument as addressing a ‘fiscal issue,’ that mask often slips.

Towards the beginning, he asks: “How did we ever arrive at a point where the government not only tolerates but also financially supports puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and irreversible surgeries?”—a statement that implies that the government should do neither. In the next paragraph, he compares gender-affirming care to smoking and alcoholism. And although he does state that “adults are free to make their own decisions” and that “this should not be about hate, cruelty, or denying anyone dignity,” he immediately contradicts these claims too.

He asserts that “the government’s role is to protect its citizens, especially children, not to accelerate confusion or fund irreversible harm.” He then appears to endorse conversion therapy, writing that “children deserve time, guidance, and real psychological support.” Towards the end, he even states that his “dismay over this national madness is precisely why [he has] chosen to step into the political arena” and that “watching this destructive ideology threaten children, families, and taxpayers alike has convinced [him] that silence is no longer acceptable.”

“This is not about personal ambition,” he concludes, “it is about civic duty.”

Aside from repeating these calls on his campaign website and saying he “hopes to propose legislation that fully stops efforts to promote transgenderism to kids,” he additionally writes that “we must also appropriately inform adults who want to transition about the potential harm of doing so.” He does not elaborate on what ‘appropriately informing’ trans adults would look like, but it can be assumed that this would involve significant legal and/or medical gatekeeping of gender-affirming care.

Furthermore, the success of his extreme remarks within the party base prompted attempts from Smullen to cast him as a supporter of trans people, who wrote on an anti-Constantino campaign website called therealanthonyconstantino.com that because Constantino’s company “actively sells pro-transgender merchandise, including items explicitly targeted toward children,” Constantino “provides a valuable platform to the radical transgender community that is trying to indoctrinate our children.” It goes without saying that these attacks did little in the way of the final result.

Although Constantino is seemingly using the phrase ‘Detransition America’ as a euphemism for purging what conservatives call ‘gender ideology,’ in reality, his rhetoric does not end with trans kids—nor does he even claim it does. Because, at its core, to detransition America means to detransition Americans. It means cutting off trans people’s access to gender-affirming care, especially for those who rely on Medicaid or Medicare or are incarcerated. It means forcing trans people to present according to their sex assigned at birth through drag bans. And it means erasing all traces of trans people from governance and public life.

These are not off-handed remarks. This is what Anthony Constantino is running on. And because of his victory on Tuesday, his extreme anti-trans agenda has gotten one step closer to the halls of Congress. We can only hope that House Democrats—who appear poised to retake the majority this November—will block him from implementing it.