MEET NEVADA’S MAMDANI: Teresa Benitez-Thompson’s Record Reads like a DEI Wish List 

The NV-02 Democrat backed pronoun rules, all-gender bathrooms, “microaggression” surveys, LGBTQ business preferences and insurance rules covering gender-transition care.

New York City’s socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani is spending millions of taxpayer dollars expanding gender-transition services. But that ideology is not confined to the five boroughs.

In Northern Nevada, Democrat Teresa Benitez-Thompson spent 12 years compiling a legislative record that reads like a Silver State version of the same socialist playbook: pronoun requirements, all-gender restroom rules, government DEI surveys, LGBTQ business preferences, gender-identity curriculum and insurance protections covering gender-transition procedures.

Benitez-Thompson, a former Nevada Assembly majority leader, is now the Democratic nominee for Nevada’s open 2nd Congressional District. She will face Republican and retired Air Force Lt. Col. David Flippo in November. The winner will replace retiring Republican Rep. Mark Amodei.

Her campaign website says she is running to protect Northern Nevada’s families, communities and “way of life.” Her voting record provides a much different picture.

This was not one symbolic vote that can be explained away. It was a governing philosophy applied across Nevada’s hospitals, schools, bathrooms, businesses and workplaces.

Pronouns Enforced Through State Government

In 2019, Benitez-Thompson voted for Senate Bill 364, legislation requiring covered medical and residential facilities to develop policies ensuring patients were addressed by their preferred names and pronouns in accordance with their gender identity.

The law also required facilities to adapt medical records to reflect patients’ gender identities and imposed cultural-competency training requirements on employees.

Preferred pronouns were no longer simply a matter of individual courtesy. Benitez-Thompson voted to make them a matter of state policy.

All-Gender Bathrooms And Gender-Identity Curriculum

Two years later, Benitez-Thompson supported Assembly Bill 280, which prohibited gendered signage on publicly available single-stall restrooms covered by the law.

The legislation required those restrooms to accommodate people regardless of gender identity and permitted signs reading “All-Gender Bathroom.” Benitez-Thompson was among the 36 Assembly members who voted for the bill.

She also voted for Assembly Bill 261, requiring Nevada’s public schools and charter schools to teach students from kindergarten through 12th grade about the history and contributions of groups including “persons of marginalized sexual orientation or gender identity.”

The law also prohibited the state from selecting instructional materials unless they portrayed the contributions of those designated groups.

In other words, Benitez-Thompson did not merely support left-wing cultural activism outside government. She voted to write it into Nevada’s bathrooms and classrooms.

The Government’s “Microaggression” Survey

Benitez-Thompson also voted for Senate Bill 267, which authorized the University of Nevada, Las Vegas to conduct a government-backed workplace diversity study.

The survey asked businesses and government agencies about the number of women and women of color in management, executive offices and corporate boardrooms. It also examined pay equity, “diverse hiring committees,” birth-control coverage and whether workplace training addressed “implicit bias,” “unconscious bias” and “microaggressions.”

The final version allowed businesses to participate voluntarily, but the legislation still directed UNLV to report its findings to the governor and Legislature and publish them online.

At a time when Nevada families were worried about jobs, schools and the cost of living, Benitez-Thompson voted to have state-backed researchers investigate corporate microaggressions.

Government Programs Based On Sexual Identity

Benitez-Thompson separately supported Senate Bill 237, which added certified LGBTQ-owned companies to specified state business programs.

The legislation expanded access to economic-development loans, contracting initiatives and other government programs based in part on the sexual orientation or gender identity of a company’s owners.

Rather than guaranteeing businesses an equal opportunity to compete, Benitez-Thompson voted to have government sort them into preferred identity groups.

Gender-Transition Insurance Rules

Benitez-Thompson was also a listed co-sponsor of Assembly Bill 408, a sweeping 2017 proposal that would have embedded Obamacare-era requirements into Nevada law.

The bill prohibited insurers and health care providers from discriminating based on gender identity or expression. It incorporated the framework of federal rules that barred insurance plans from categorically excluding services related to gender transition or denying coverage in a discriminatory manner.

The proposal did not expressly require coverage of every possible procedure, but it would have placed Nevada law behind an insurance framework covering gender-transition-related medical services. Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval ultimately vetoed the bill.

The comparison to New York is increasingly difficult to ignore. Mamdani recently announced a $15 million taxpayer-funded initiative to expand access to gender-transition services for adults and minors.

Benitez-Thompson’s record reflects the same governing instinct: use government power, taxpayer-supported institutions and public policy to advance the left’s cultural agenda.

Nevadans have already seen where New York’s socialist experiment leads. Benitez-Thompson’s record shows she would be more than willing to bring it west.

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