Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Michigan Senate, stood at a press conference about Epstein victims and called it an "unfortunate choice" to house biological men who identify as women in men's prisons.
He was behind a podium that literally said "The Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room." Someone asked about trans women in men's facilities. El-Sayed went full therapist. It is an unfortunate choice. We fail to invest resources to keep people safe. These are positions of danger we force people into.
That is the pitch. Not "women's prisons are for women." Not "male-pattern strength and male-pattern crime rates create a problem." It is unfortunate that we have to make the choice to put the men with the men.
This is the same guy who has spent the campaign telling voters he supports trans rights because he supports all rights. Who told Jesse Watters the government should stay out of who plays women's sports and what medical procedures minors get. Who has a record of progressive positions on the issue that his opponents have been running ads about for months.
Now, two weeks out, at an event that was supposed to be about something else, he lands on "unfortunate choice." The women in those prisons who have already been assaulted by men claiming to be women might use different words. The data on that is not a secret. It is public. It is ugly. And it is not an unfortunate budget choice. It is a policy choice.
El-Sayed wants to be the progressive alternative in a state that is not exactly San Francisco. Michigan voters have seen the ads about his past comments on policing and prisons. This does not help. It confirms the thing the ads were saying: when the rubber meets the road, the priority is the feelings of the man in the dress, not the safety of the actual women.
He can call it investment. He can call it resources. The practical result is the same. Biological males in female spaces, or biological males protected from the consequences of being in male spaces. Either way, the women pay the price, and the candidate calls it unfortunate.
Michigan has a real Senate race. Rogers is the Republican. The debate just happened. Loyalty, Trump, healthcare, Iran. And this is the moment El-Sayed chooses to reaffirm that the party line on sex and prisons has not changed, even when the setting is supposed to be about victims.
The closer is not complicated. If your answer to male violence in women's prisons is that the real problem is we did not spend enough money on the men's feelings, you are not running for the Senate. You are running for the faculty lounge. Michigan voters get to decide which one they want.
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