Press Release: Basic Rights Oregon Speaks Out Against Chris Dudley’s Anti-Trans Messaging

Oregon LGBTQ2SIA+ advocacy organization calls out discriminatory language in TV ad campaign.

Portland, Ore. — Basic Rights Oregon (BRO) is issuing this response to a recently televised advertising campaign launched by Republican gubernatorial candidate, Chris Dudley. The digital ad uses discriminatory, misleading, and erroneous language that wrongly targets transgender people to win over conservative Oregon voters.  

The anti-trans ad, which features Dudley and his daughter playing basketball, claims that allowing trans women to compete in women’s sports creates safety concerns and an unfair advantage for trans athletes, taking away competitive opportunities from cisgender young women. 

BRO is issuing this statement to directly address and reject the harmful and inaccurate language used by Dudley in the ad, which is only meant to perpetuate stigma and discrimination in hopes of increasing his appeal among ultra right-wing voters.  

Discriminatory bans against transgender women and athletes are not solving inequities in youth sports as Dudley claims, but instead they are taking away kids’ ability to play sports and have fun with their friends. Transgender people make up less than 2% of the population, and very few young athletes are playing at elite, competitive levels. Trans kids are already marginalized, and experience bullying and assault in schools at much higher rates than their cis peers. Instead of working to help this vulnerable group, Dudley is making the problem worse, by demonizing and scapegoating trans girls to launch a culture war.  

“BRO has been fighting to protect queer and trans rights in Oregon for 30 years. This ad campaign is simply not factual, and it doesn’t uphold Oregon values that protect our community members from discrimination and harm. Hatred toward trans people is an intentional distraction from the very real threats to our democracy,” says Kyndall Mason, Executive Director of Basic Rights Oregon.  

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Basic Rights Oregon is the state’s largest and longest running nonprofit LGBTQ2SIA+ advocacy group. Our mission is to ensure that all lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Oregonians experience equality by building a broad and inclusive politically powerful movement, shifting public opinion and achieving policy victories. For more information, visit www.basicrights.org.

All the best,

The BRO team 🌈