the ad\u2019s narrator says<\/a>, calling out \u201cBiden and his radical allies.\u201d The ad continues: \u201cWoke left-wing politicians are destroying girls\u2019 sports.\u201d<\/p>\nThe blitz underscores the increasing focus on the right on gender issues, with some conservatives looking to make it a centerpiece of political campaigns. Transgender women have been allowed to compete in women\u2019s categories in the Olympics since 2003 and the NCAA since 2010. In 2020, Idaho became the first state to enact transgender athlete restrictions. Since then, more than half a dozen states, including Mississippi, Montana, Florida, West Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas and Alabama, have barred transgender girls and women from playing on sports teams that match their gender identity.<\/p>\n
Citizens for Sanity has over the last several weeks begun running billboard advertisements with messages like \u201cProtect Pregnant Men from Climate Discrimination\u201d and \u201cOpen the jails. Open the borders. Close the schools. Vote progressive this November.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another billboard says: \u201cViolent criminals deserve our compassion and respect. This fall, stand strong for progressive values.\u201d<\/p>\n
Republican operative Ian Prior is serving as a strategic consultant to the group. He is also executive director of Fight for Schools, another nonprofit that helped to make critical race theory a central issue in the 2021 Virginia governor\u2019s race, as shorthand for a broader critique of how race and social issues are being taught in the K-12 education system. Most public school officials across the country say they do not teach the theory, even in districts where lawmakers are seeking to ban it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe woke ideology of sheltered white liberals is a mortal threat to American liberty, security and prosperity,\u201d Prior said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cCitizens for Sanity is not an ideological organization: we stand for reason, common sense, objectivity, equality, the neutral rule of law, and open scientific inquiry \u2014 everything the radical left now stands implacably against,\u201d he added. \u201cAnd we are using these messaging campaigns to alert Americans to the urgent need to defeat and repudiate woke insanity before it destroys America.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under campaign finance laws, the organization is not required to disclose its donors. But people familiar with the group say they expect it to invest millions of dollars in its ad campaign. It has so far focused its efforts on Hispanic-heavy congressional districts in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona.<\/p>\n