Democrat Gina Hinojosa beat Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday, Nov. 3, and she’ll be Texas’ first Latina governor, the Associated Press reported. “It never bothered me that they doubted me. It bothered me that they doubted us,” Hinojosa told supporters at her victory party in Austin, according to the AP.
Abbott, who ordered child abuse investigations of parents of transgender kids in 2022, conceded Tuesday night. “There are still votes to be counted, but mathematically, we are not going to be able to win this election,” he said in his concession speech, Texas Public Radio reported.
Hinojosa, an Austin state representative, had backed trans rights and once served as a vice chair of the Texas Legislative Progressive Caucus, and the AP noted that Abbott built his attacks around that record. In ads and on the trail, he called her a “radical” who “supports boys in girls’ sports,” the Texas Tribune reported.
Abbott’s 2022 Order to Investigate Trans Kids’ Families
On Feb. 22, 2022, Abbott sent a letter telling Jaime Masters, commissioner of the Department of Family and Protective Services, to “conduct a prompt and thorough investigation of any reported instances of these abusive procedures in the State of Texas.” He meant gender-affirming care for minors, which a nonbinding opinion from Attorney General Ken Paxton had said could be child abuse.
“For more than four years, we successfully blocked DFPS from investigating Texas families based on allegations that they were providing gender affirming medical care to their transgender adolescents,” Lambda Legal, the ACLU, the ACLU of Texas and PFLAG, which had won injunctions shielding several families and PFLAG members, said in an April 24 statement.
That day, the Texas Supreme Court threw out the injunctions, finding “no credible, nonspeculative threat that DFPS will investigate these plaintiffs in the future,” the Texas Tribune reported. The justices didn’t decide whether the care counts as abuse, and the groups said DFPS had told the court there’s no reason for new investigations now that minors can’t legally get that care in Texas. “We will hold them to that,” they said.
SB 14, a Bathroom Law and ‘Gender Bender Gina’
Minors lost that care under Senate Bill 14, which Abbott signed in June 2023 and which took effect that Sept. 1, Houston Landing reported. When the Texas Supreme Court upheld it in June 2024, the court wrote that “the Legislature made a permissible, rational policy choice.”
On Sept. 8, Abbott’s campaign branded Hinojosa “Gender Bender Gina” in a release that said she voted against SB 14 in 2023. “Radical Gina would rather trans your kids than protect them, educate them, or prepare them for a successful future,” campaign press secretary Eduardo Leal said in the statement, KXAN reported.
In September 2025, Abbott signed Senate Bill 8, a bathroom law that took effect Dec. 4 and requires state agencies and local governments, including public schools, to separate multi-user restrooms and locker rooms by the law’s definition of sex, the Texas Standard reported. The statute defines male and female by reproductive systems, rather than gender identity. Abbott said in a video on X that the bill “is just common sense.”
“It’s designed to push transgender intersex and non-binary people out of public life,” Ash Hall of the ACLU of Texas told the Standard.
The ‘Pronouns’ Ad That Drew Pushback From Trans Texans
The day after the “Gender Bender” release, Hinojosa’s campaign put out an ad called “Pronouns.” “They want to run an entire campaign saying that I’m too woke,” she says in it. It ends with her line, “I’m Gina Hinojosa. My pronouns are Mom, Texan, and soon to be: Governor.”
KXAN called that closer a riff on an old anti-trans joke, and a transgender Austin resident who asked to be called Athena said Hinojosa and Senate candidate James Talarico had both dampened her enthusiasm to vote. “I’m tired of the moralizing of my vote, as if my civil rights and safety are ‘purity politics,'” she told KXAN.
When KXAN asked for Hinojosa’s message to transgender voters, her communications director sent a statement on Sept. 11. “Culture wars are over in 2026,” it began. (Gayety’s October story on trans voters’ frustration with Democrats included Texas families.)
What Governor-Elect Gina Hinojosa Has Said About Culture Wars
“People are tired of fighting the culture wars,” Hinojosa said at The Texas Tribune Festival in September, the Tribune reported. She ran on household costs, the AP reported, and pitched a $1,500 payment for every resident that she called a “Corruption Tax Refund.”
Democrats also won the races for lieutenant governor, where Vikki Goodwin unseated Dan Patrick, and attorney general, according to AP race calls, and Gayety’s election results hub has the latest LGBTQ+ election results.
“Here’s what Texas said today, loud and clear: Your government belongs to you,” said Hinojosa in her victory speech, according to TPR. “As your governor, I will never forget it.”
