Last week, Bill Berrien (Republican from New Berlin), a GOP candidate running in Wisconsin governor’s race unexpectedly suspended his campaign after reports came out regarding his social media habits.

Berrien, a former Navy SEAL and supporter of President Trump, had actively campaigned on a platform of “conservative family values,” has been openly critical of transgender people, and supports positions that harm the transgender community such as excluding trans girls from school locker rooms.

It therefore came as a surprise to most of his followers when it was revealed that he used the social media platform Medium to follow a non-binary adult film performer named Jiz Lee. He also reportedly used the platform to follow the authors of sexually explicit essays, including from publications like “Sexography,” and “Polyamory Today.”

In his campaign suspension statement, Berrien wrote that he considers himself, “very intellectually curious and, as a leader in business and hoped-for leader in politics, I thought it was a strength to read very widely and show a broad intellectual interest…And I have hit the ‘like’ button on perhaps 20,000 different articles or postings.  Yet the media cherry-picked a handful of individuals and written articles that came across my feed that I then followed (without the faintest clue as to an author’s lifestyle choices!) 6 or 7 years ago and painted a salacious and sensational picture that was clearly targeted to force me out of this governor race.

“And for what? For reading! Nothing illegal, nothing unethical and nothing immoral. Just reading. Wouldn’t you want your political and business leaders (and all of society, frankly) to be widely read and thoughtful and aware of different perspectives and ideas?”

Ironically, after the story broke, Jiz Lee responded with a post on Bluesky that began with a strikingly similar sentiment, but then pivoted to address a much larger conversation underpinning the whole situation: “It’s okay to follow trans porn stars. It’s okay to read articles about sex and relationships. What’s not okay is the hypocrisy of backing forceful legislation that restricts what people, trans and otherwise, can do with their own bodies. That is shameful.”

Berrien also implied that there had been opposition research aimed at ending his campaign going on, and that the deep dive into his social media use was related to that effort. He has come under criticism in the past for his support of ranked choice voting, and for his $30,000 donation to Nikki Haley’s campaign in the last presidential election.

Editor’s Commentary: The fact that the situation was made to appear as if Bill Berrien was “forced” out of the race due to what he was reading and who he was following really highlights this country’s current obsession with “purity culture.” Would Bill Berrien being better informed about the nuances of gender expressions, sexual orientations, queer culture, and non-monogamy make him less able to legislate in the eyes of the conservative party? And if so, isn’t that a blunt admission to preferring candidates who literally don’t know what they’re talking about?

But more importantly, we want to point out that, as Jiz Lee noted, there isn’t anything inherently wrong with following trans porn stars or reading articles about sex and relationships. But while it can look easy to make that look like the center of this debate, the real issue here comes from the fact that Berrien has actively campaigned on doing harm to the trans community, while simultaneously consuming media and art coming out of the trans and queer community for his own personal gain, whether intellectual or otherwise.