Wisconsin Republican Bill Berrien Quits Governor Race After Report Exposes His Trans Porn History

Wisconsin GOP hopeful quits after trans porn scandal, exposing Republicans’ hypocrisy of attacking trans lives in public, yet consuming them in private.

Bill Berrien’s political aspirations crumbled almost as quickly as they began. The Republican businessman and former Navy SEAL, who had entered Wisconsin’s 2026 gubernatorial race promising Trump-style leadership, abruptly suspended his campaign last week after the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporting his online history included following queer and transgender adult content creators on Medium.

Berrien, CEO of Pindel Global Precision Inc. and Liberty Precision New Berlin, initially attempted to frame the coverage as part of in sabotage.

“Is this the best they can do?” Berrien posted on X. “Just days after I promised to stand with President Trump to protect our state, stop the woke indoctrination, and keep boys out of girls sports, they came after me with the same failed attacks they tried with President Trump. Garbage political hits didn’t slow President Trump down, and the Democrats and the media’s latest attempts to keep me out of this fight won’t work either.”

But by week’s end, he admitted there was no path to the nomination.

“As a result of our politics today, I cannot focus on the issues I know will turn Wisconsin around.” Berrien said. “I have come to the conclusion I do not have a path to the nomination.”

His withdraw leaves U.S. Rep Tom Tiffany and Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann as the two remaining Republicans vying for the nomination.

The reputations echoed the implosion of North Carolina’s former lieutenant governor Mark Robinson, who was exposed last year for frequenting transgender porn sites while simultaneously advancing legislation restricting trans rights. Robinson also drew outrage for describing himself online as a “Black Nazi” in endorsing slavery as something that should be “brought back.”

For Berrien, the controversy cut deeper because he had run on a platform of so-called “family values,” including vowels to “keep boys out of my daughters’ sports and locker rooms,” a direct job at transgender girls’ participation in athletics. The discrepancy between public posturing and private consumption of trans-related content is impossible to ignore.

Even Jiz Lee, the non-binary adult performer whom Berrien followed on Medium, Address the controversy on Bluesky. “It is okay to follow trans porn stars and to read articles about sex and relationships,” Lee wrote. “what’s that okay is the hypocrisy of backing forceful legislation that restricts what people, trans and otherwise, can do with their bodies. That is shameful.”

As I wrote recently for Gaye magazine, Republicans’ obsession with transgender porn is no small footnote. Data shows that conservative states, often the same ones pushing the most aggressive anti-LGBTQ legislation, have some of the highest search rates for transgender adult content. The pattern is not accidental, it is structural.

Behind closed doors, GOP leaders consume the very lives, bodies, and pleasures they legislate against. In public, they weaponize trans existence as a wedge issue to galvanize their base. This two-faced dynamic reveals not only hypocrisy but also a politics of projection—the attempt to criminalized desire in others to distract from one’s own contradictions.

The hypocrisy is galling. These same lawmakers what introduced bills were restricting gender-affirming care, banning drag performances, and surveilling trans kids in locker rooms, while their private browsers and subscription feeds tell another story entirely. It is the oldest of tricks, which is to demonize what you secretly desire, and legislate against the communities you secretly consume.

Berrien’s scandal is also a lesson in Trump’s continued grip on the GOP. Democratic Party spokesman Philip Shulman underscored the point, “if you don’t show complete and total loyalty to Trump—past or present—then you better pack your bags and head for the door.”

Berrien’s prior support of Nikki Haley in a 2024 republican presidential primary had already drawn skepticism from Trump-aligned conservatives. His ouster, then, was as much about party loyalty as it was about his online activity. In today’s Republican Party, deviation from Trumpism is disqualifying, unless, perhaps, you’re willing to double down on anti-trans politics.

What Berrien’s downfall illustrates most clearly is the widening chasm between the GOP’s rhetoric and reality. Conservatives invoke “protecting children” and “defending morality” as cudgels, but their actions betray an addiction the very communities they target.

Now, there is nothing wrong with following or appreciating the work of queer and trans adult performers. The shame lies not in desire but in duplicity. The shame lies in building political careers by stripping trans youth of healthcare, banning books with queer characters, in criminalizing the existence of trans woman, while in the same breath consuming their art, their bodies, and their labor in secret.

This is bigger than one gubernatorial hopeful’s downfall. It is about how right-wing politics continues to exploit trans people as convenient scapegoats, even as trans lives and artistry remain central to the cultural and erotic imagination of their oppressors.

The call, then, is not just to laugh at hypocrisy—though it deserves ridicule. The call is to recognize the stakes, while these men spiral out of campaigns, trans youth are being denied affirming healthcare, educators are being silenced, and trans women of color continue to face disproportionate violence.

Berrien’s exit is not the end of the story. It is a reminder that the cruelty of the GOP’s platform is not born of conviction, but of repression. And repression, as we know, always leaks through the cracks, sometimes in Medium follows, sometimes in Pornhub searches, sometimes in the scandals that unravel campaigns.

For the rest of us, the lesson remains simple, which is that hypocrisy may destroy candidates, but it is trans liberation that will save lives.

Wisconsin voters will decide on their next governor in the August 20 26 primary, with the general election following that November. The contest comes as Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, first elected in 2018, prepares to step down after two terms in office. Evers who clashed frequently with Republican legislators over education, healthcare, and LGBTQ rights, is barred by law from seeking a third consecutive term, leaving the field wide open for a race already marked by scandal, contradiction, and the familiar specter of GOP hypocrisy.