Two members of Congress known for their virulently anti-trans statements had pictures taken in drag in the past that are getting attention today.

Reps. Buddy Carter (R-GA) and Mike Collins (R-GA) both have scores of “0” on HRC’s Congressional Scorecard; they have both made anti-trans statements in the past; and they are both running in the primary for U.S. Senate to get their party’s nod to try to unseat Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) in the general election.

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Now, The Advocate has found pictures of both of them in drag from high school in the 70s and 80s. Collins’ 1985 senior yearbook from Piedmont Academy shows him wearing a sleeveless dress with the caption “senior class ‘beauties,’ Mike Collins and Andy Brady.” In another photo, Collins appears in a dress with two other students.

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Nowadays, Collins is better known for his support of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) bill to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth at the federal level, a bill that would criminalize doctors who provide it. He has called transgender health care “radical woke ideology.” He called for the impeachment of then-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in 2023, accusing him of practicing “wokeism” and saying he was only part of Joe Biden’s Cabinet due to “identity politics.”

Rep. Carter is shown in his 1975 senior yearbook from Robert W. Groves High School wearing a dress. That picture has no caption, just his government name, Earl Leroy Carter. Another yearbook picture shows him in a wig and a dress, with a caption calling him “Miss Cantelope Carter” and complimenting his “sexy legs.”

Half a century later, Carter’s opinion on gender expression appears to have changed. He introduced the “Truth in Gender Act” last year, a bill that would codify the president’s executive order that declared that there are only two sexes and that gender identity isn’t real. He also voted in favor of Rep. Greene’s (R-GA) bill to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth at the federal level.

Carter already released an absurdly transphobic ad this election cycle attacking Ossoff. The ad is narrated by a male actor playing a trans woman. Wearing a dress and a wig, the deep-voiced actor complained about how Carter has been “MAGA from the beginning.”

“Buddy Carter even believes there’s only two genders,” she says with a trans Pride flag in the background. He’s “banning people like me from competing in women’s sports!” the trans woman complains.

Republicans have been repeatedly caught wearing drag in old photos while they denounce drag performers today. While they argue that wearing drag when someone is young or as a joke is OK but actually practicing drag as an art form should be banned, many on the right don’t make such distinctions. For example, Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL) cited the fact that some high school students in California in 2023 performed in drag as a reason to pass her “Stop the Sexualization of Children Act” bill just last month.

“Only people whose brains have been rotted by ill-prescribed hormones and the continual over-sexualization of life around them would view a yearbook photo of Rep. Collins and his wife 40 years ago switching clothes for a Homecoming tradition as anything more than lighthearted humor,” Rep. Collins’ office said of the pictures of him in drag.

Rep. Carter’s office refused to confirm whether the images were of Rep. Carter, Advocate reports.

“There’s this big bogeyman of trans people, even though statistically, historically, and factually, trans people pose no harm to the American economy, pose no harm to cisgender people, especially cisgender women,” drag performer Taylor Alxndr told The Advocate. “This idea that trans women are following or trying to attack or harm cisgender women in restrooms, it’s all just a big distraction from the actual evil that plagues a lot of the country, and it’s these politicians and people who support them.”

They added that Collins and Carter may have actually liked dressing in drag for the “very simple, fun, nonsensical experience.” If that’s the case, they may have used the jokey context as an excuse to do drag, something that’s not even available to them nowadays because of how drag has been demonized over the past several years by the right.

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