Transgender people – those who have a gender identity that differs from the sex assigned to them at birth – are not considered by medical authorities to have mental illness simply because they are transgender.
In 2013, the American Psychiatric Association revised its mental disorders manual and no longer listed being transgender as a mental disorder.
“Gender identity disorder” was eliminated and replaced with “gender dysphoria.”
Gender dysphoria is a diagnosis for the distress experienced by some whose gender identity conflicts with their sex assigned at birth.
Numerous medical groups, including the World Health Organization, have stated that being trans is not a mental disorder.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., suggested May 17 at the Wisconsin Republican Party convention that being trans is a mental illness. She said “women shouldn’t be forced to share” facilities such as bathrooms “with mentally ill men.”
Her campaign spokesperson did not provide information to support Mace’s reference to mental illness.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
ROTHSCHILD — Far from the liberal capital, Republicans gathered over the weekend to assess the state of a party in full control of the federal government, but showing signs of continued collapse in Wisconsin.
There were plenty of middle-aged white guys, one towing “Trump” the service dog and one in a Carhartt polo talking about conspiracist Alex Jones. Among the handful of African American attendees was a man sporting a “Black Guns Matter” T-shirt. An Appleton 25-year-old in a suit and tie talked up the need for more young people in leadership. A Dane County woman shared her thoughts on clamping down on illegal immigration and onshoring manufacturing jobs, as another attendee walked past in an American flag dress.
What many of these rank-and-file Republicans shared, as they gathered for the Wisconsin Republican Party’s annual convention, was applause for the sheer speed of President Donald Trump’s actions in office — and a desire for more moves to the right in the 2026 elections.
In purple Wisconsin, that film has played out before, and it didn’t go so well for Republicans. After Trump’s first election in 2016, the party lost control of the governor’s office and the state Supreme Court. April’s Supreme Court victory for Dane County Judge Susan Crawford means liberals will control the court through at least 2028 and could reshape the state’s congressional maps to help Democrats retake Congress in the midterms.
While there was some talk of blaming GOP state chair Brian Schimming for the poor April showing, none of that materialized in Rothschild. Instead, the party talked up the November victory and how to double down on the same Trumpian rhetoric heading into 2026.
Here’s how several of the 500 convention attendees at the Central Wisconsin Convention & Expo Center near Wausau assessed the first four months of Trump’s second term and what they want to see from GOP leaders going forward.
How state Republicans view Trump 2.0
Delegates were animated in their praise of Trump for keeping his campaign promises.
“It gets better every day,” said Rock County delegate Michael Mattus, accompanied by his Belgian service dog. “I’m happy every day. Wake up and thinking, what’s he gonna do today?”
Adams County GOP chair Pete Church, who was elected chair of the state party’s county chairs at the convention, said he only wishes the U.S. House and Senate picked up the pace.
“It would be great if we could get Congress to actually put some of these things into law,” he said. “None of us really wants to see a government run by executive order, but that’s where we’re at.”
Delegates lauded Trump’s visit last week to the Middle East and his crackdown on illegal immigration.
“I have uncles, I have aunts that came over here illegally. I don’t associate with them,” said Martin Ruiz Gomez, 39, a one-time Milwaukee-based MMA fighter attending his first state GOP convention. “It’s not nothing against them, but they’re not doing things right.”
The delegates even backed Trump initiatives that have less public support, such as tariffs. The on-again, off-again measures are viewed by some as making international trade fair and encouraging companies to create manufacturing jobs in the U.S., but recent polling has found more than 60% of Americans oppose them and worry they will raise prices. Rising prices was an issue that fueled Trump’s victory in November.
“Well, I was a little nervous about the tariffs when my (retirement savings account) went (down), but he’s doing what he set out to do,” said Calumet County delegate Linda Hoerth.
Portage County delegate Michael Zaremba agreed, saying the tariffs will eventually return more manufacturing jobs to the U.S.
“Just like with a pregnancy, you have to grow it, and then you have to experience the pain,” said Milwaukee County delegate Cindy Werner, who ran for the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor in 2022. “But then there’s joy that comes after that.”
Delegates happy with Trump’s performance were mild with any criticism.
“Trump hasn’t always been a big supporter of the Second Amendment. I mean, he is, but he also isn’t super firm on that,” said 25-year-old Reive Pullen, a gun-rights supporter from Outagamie County.
Dane County delegate Tya Lichte could have done without Trump’s talk of taking control of Greenland or making Canada the 51st state.
“I understand he always likes to lead big and then heel back,” she said.
What more they want from GOP leaders
Soon, attention will turn to 2026 and the election for governor. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers hasn’t said whether he’ll seek a third term. His 2018 win over Republican Gov. Scott Walker marked the end of eight years of GOP rule in Wisconsin and came as Democrats flipped 41 seats to take back control of the U.S. House.
Hoerth, a board member of the Calumet County GOP, wants the next governor to “get rid of all this DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion)” and push for a state referendum on at what stage of pregnancy abortion should be legal in Wisconsin.
Hoerth likes the background of military veteran and Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann, the only announced Republican candidate for governor, based on Schoemann’s recent visit with her and other Calumet County Republicans.
“He got the entire group wound up looking at their phones, checking some different websites that he was telling us about,” she said. “It was great.”
Another Republican mentioned as a potential gubernatorial candidate, northern Wisconsin U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, sounded like one. He used much of his convention speech to criticize Evers, but not to make any big announcements.
Wisconsin Congressman Tom Tiffany addresses the audience in his speech during the Republican Party of Wisconsin state convention on Saturday, May 17, 2025, at the Central Wisconsin Convention & Expo Center in Rothschild, Wis. “Isn’t it great inflation is going down here in the United States of America and jobs are going up?” Tiffany said as he held up an egg carton and the audience applauded. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Lichte, of Dane County, said she wants the next governor to follow Trump’s lead on reshoring jobs and to try to make Milwaukee a technology hub.
Milwaukee County GOP chair Hilario Deleon said reducing crime, taxes and the size of state government are top priorities.
Rock County’s Mattus, who called abortion “pro-murder,” said he became more active because “this world (is) becoming more communist and I’m not for that.”
In the name of election integrity, Portage County’s Zaremba wants Republicans to get rid of the state Elections Commission and return to hand-counting paper ballots.
Some delegates expressed hope that their party can mend fences with nonprofits such as Turning Point USA in their efforts to elect Republicans. During the recent Supreme Court race there were disputes about how to campaign that went public and exposed rifts among conservatives.
“It’s all right that we don’t always agree, but when we’re taking those arguments to social media for the whole world to see, that’s where I don’t like it,” said Church, the new head of the county chairs. “The only way it can be fixed is through cooperation.”
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Just six months ago, the Wisconsin Republican Party was flying pretty high.
Despite an unsuccessful attempt to jettison U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, the GOP held its Wisconsin seats in the U.S. House and its majorities (albeit smaller) in the state Legislature. Donald Trump’s win in the Badger State put him over the top for a second term in the White House.
Soon after, Brian Schimming was re-elected to a second two-year term as the party’s state chairman.
But, like a sudden drop in cabin pressure, things in politics can change quickly.
There is unrest among some Republicans as they prepare to gather for the state party’s annual convention on Saturday.
The meeting comes some six weeks after a stinging loss in the state Supreme Court election, in which Dane County Judge Susan Crawford defeated GOP-backed Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel by 10 points, cementing a liberal court majority until at least 2028.
A few vocal critics blamed Schimming, who has promised an ”investigation” into what went wrong. Schimming declined an interview request.
The party will meet in Rothschild, a village south of Wausau in Marathon County. One of the county’s leading Republicans, state Rep. Brent Jacobson of Mosinee, doesn’t blame Schimming for Schimel’s loss.
“That Supreme Court race was a reaction to Trump’s victory in November,” said Jacobson, who was elected to his first term last fall. “Democrats were super energized, and they simply turned out in far greater numbers than Republicans did.”
Jacobson said he is satisfied with Schimming’s performance and wants his fellow Republicans to turn the page. He credited Schimming with encouraging Republicans to embrace early voting during the November election, which Jacobson called “a difference maker,” and getting Trump to visit Dane County during the campaign.
“In politics, you have to have a short memory about losses,” he said.
Rep. Brent Jacobson, R-Mosinee, leaves the 2025 state budget address Feb. 18, 2025, at the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Julia Azari, a political science professor at Marquette University, said Schimming has a difficult job because Wisconsin “has a very unclear relationship with Trump and Trumpism.”
On the one hand, she said, Wisconsin helped Trump to victory in 2016 as well as 2024, but policies such as tariffs in his second term have met with pushback.
Azari also pointed to factors other than Schimming’s leadership for the Supreme Court outcome. She cited the involvement of billionaire Elon Musk in pushing Schimel’s candidacy as more important.
“A lot of it is related to resentment about Musk coming in from on high,” Azari said of Schimel’s loss. “I think Wisconsin voters are resistant to nationalization, and that the nationalization of party politics has had a limited impact here.”
For his part, Jacobson is looking ahead to the governor’s race in 2026, hoping for party unity.
Democrat Tony Evers has not said whether he will seek a third term; so far one Republican, Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann, is in the race.
Jacobson said he expects more Republican candidates, but hopes not to see a repeat of 2022. He said that year’s GOP primary battle between businessman Tim Michels, who defeated former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch for the nomination, left the party hobbled against Evers.
“We can always learn from history and I would hope that we did that from 2022, so that we can not only be united but come out of the primary process with a lot more resources” in 2026, Jacobson said.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Update, Dec. 12, 2024: A federal judge dismissed the Republican Party of Wisconsin lawsuit on Thursday, saying there’s no controversy over the main issue in the case. Both the GOP and the defendants agree they should cast electoral votes for President-elect Donald Trump on Dec. 17, in compliance with a federal law, not the Dec. 16 date dictated under a state law.
Original story: The Republican Party of Wisconsin filed a lawsuit Friday to resolve a discrepancy between state and federal law directing when appointed presidential electors must meet to cast Electoral College votes.
State law requires presidential electors to meet on Dec. 16 this year, but a federal law passed two years ago calls for them to meet on Dec. 17. The state GOP is calling on a U.S. District Court of Western Wisconsin judge to enforce the federal requirement and strike the state one.
“The presidential electors cannot comply with both requirements,” the lawsuit states.
Resolving the current conflict is key to avoiding the state’s electoral votes getting challenged or contested in Congress, the state GOP states.
The lawsuit highlights the Legislature’s failure to pass a bill that would have brought Wisconsin in line with the new federal law. That inaction, the state GOP says, “led to the current conflict between the federal and state statutes.”
The lawsuit is filed against Gov. Tony Evers, Attorney General Josh Kaul and Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe.
The GOP is asking for the federal court to declare the current state law requirement — for the electors to meet on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, as opposed to the federal law’s requirement to meet on the first Tuesday following the second Wednesday — unconstitutional and unenforceable. Given the tight timeline, it’s seeking a hearing “as soon as the Court’s calendar allows.”
Spokespeople for the Wisconsin Elections Commission and Evers declined to comment for this story.
Generally, federal law supersedes state law if there’s a conflict between the two, said Bryna Godar, a staff attorney at the University of Wisconsin Law School’s State Democracy Research Initiative. Under the current, conflicting laws, electors this year definitely have to meet on Dec. 17, but it’s less clear what they should do on Dec. 16, she told Votebeat in May.
The new designated day arose as a result of the new federal law, commonly called the Electoral Count Reform Act. Congress designed the law in 2022 to prevent the post-election chaos that then-President Donald Trump and his allies created after the 2020 election, which culminated in efforts to send fake electoral votes to Congress, block certification of legitimate electoral votes and then storm the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The new federal law sets specific schedules for certifying election results and casting electoral votes. It cleared up ambiguities contained in the previous version of the law, which was enacted in 1887 but never updated until two years ago.
As of mid-October, 15 states had updated their laws to comply with the Electoral Count Reform Act, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. A Wisconsin proposal to bring the state in line with the new federal law passed the Senate nearly unanimously in February. But it never received a vote in the Assembly.
“It would have been beneficial if Wisconsin had also done that,” Godar said.
Scott Thompson, a staff attorney at the liberal-leaning legal group Law Forward, said the Legislature knew about this problem for over a year but chose not to resolve it with a simple fix.
“This eleventh hour lawsuit merely confirms that our state Legislature needs to stop peddling election conspiracy theories and start taking the business of election administration seriously,” he said.
Wisconsin Republicans were among those who sent documents to Congress in December 2020 falsely claiming Trump won the state. Trump won the state in 2024. The Wisconsin fake electors were subject to a civil lawsuit, and there’s an ongoing criminal case against their attorneys.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
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