It’s not a new revelation to report that Republican Hiedi Heidi Ganahl will literally say anything if she thinks it might earn her some support in her doomed campaign for Governor.
Ganahl long ago made it clear that her core principles are mostly about convincing Colorado voters that she has some. Back in Nov. 2021, Ganahl was explaining to an audience of Republicans in Durango that they shouldn’t worry about any comments she made that sounded too un-Republican. Included in those remarks was this infamous line, in which Ganahl affirms that she’ll stand wherever you want her to stand: “Y’all, I care about everything that you care about.”
Ganahl has since made plenty of statements that are patently absurd, particularly when it comes to education issues. She has claimed, for example, that sex education is being taught in kindergarten classrooms (it is not), and that “60% of our kids here in this state cannot read, write, or do math” (um, no). But with Election Day drawing ever near and her campaign appearing no closer to defeating incumbent Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, Ganahl seems to have advanced to the stage where hopeless candidates invent often disgusting stories of “leadership” out of whole cloth.
As Heidi Beedle reports in a must-read story from the Colorado Times Recorder, Ganahl recently attended a “Red Wave” party in Colorado Springs hosted by failed Senate candidate Eli Bremer that served as the kickoff for a new organization called “Nine PAC” seeking to ensure that college students and athletes don’t have to interact with scary transgender people. Ganahl took this opportunity to tell the audience about a recent interaction at the University of Colorado — where she still serves as an elected Regent — in which she claims to have saved the day for a family worried about a transgender roommate:
“Today I got a call from a parent at CU who said, ‘Oh my gosh, my daughter got a dorm assignment, and it’s with a biological male who considers himself a female, and Heidi, they won’t let her back out,” Ganahl said. “They said she has to live there for two weeks before they’ll give her another option.’ So I made some phone calls and got it reversed, but that’s the policy. This is happening everywhere.”
There are a number of horrible things about this anecdote, including the completely-ridiculous line that forcing students to live with transgender roommates is “happening everywhere.” But as Beedle reports, the biggest issue with Ganahl’s story is that it is almost certainly NOT TRUE.
A spokesperson for CU explained to Beedle that “University Housing assigns students a space based on the student’s self-identified gender that they select on their housing application, rather than birth gender.” If errors are still made in roommate assignments, “Students have the opportunity to request room changes both before and after move-in.”
A statement from the board of oSTEM (“Out in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math”) at CU Boulder echoed the University Housing response:
“Every student must mark which genders they are willing to room with (with transgender woman and transgender man being separate options). The housing department at CU does an incredible amount of work to ensure that these preferences are met, meaning that students should not be forcibly rooming with transgender students unless they indicate their willingness to do so. Especially before move-in, housing is often more accommodating with room change requests in these situations than [Ganahl’s] statement is portraying them to be.”
Perhaps CU Boulder and oSTEM are wrong and Ganahl is correct, but it is telling that a separate spokesperson for the University of Colorado felt compelled to note that “Ms. Ganahl was speaking in her capacity as a candidate for elected office, not as a CU regent.”
Ganahl often talks about “free speech” on the campaign trail, though usually in a way that is related to her belief that journalists and social media outlets are somehow conspiring against her. When it comes to free speech on campus, Ganahl apparently believes this includes lying about your own university and attacking its students in order to curry favor with idiots like Bremer and his new hate group PAC.
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This Republican continues to not see any reason to vote for Heidi.
It is time for you renounce the G卐P and move on.
Says who, Barn Door?
What is with this "Y'all" shit? Is she running for county surveyor in East Bumfuck, Texas?
Is it too much to ask that elected officials, and those aspiring to be elected officials, start speaking English correctly?
It is no wonder these people are opposed to bilingual education. Most of these morons haven't mastered their first language.
I grew up in the South and I say y’all all the time. There’s a lot to hate on Heidi about, but that’s not it. So, knock it the fuck off on making fun of using “y’all” and of those with Southern accents in general.
Why?
Those southern states tried to secede from the Union.
Losers.
I just returned from a delightful (said with great sarcasm) week in Georgia, S. Carolina and N. Carolina. It was unpleasantly hot and humid. And I saw enough confederate flags, Trump banners and monuments to "the lost cause" to last a lifetime.
The south lost. It's been almost 160 years. Get over it.
There are a lot of folks in the South very unhappy with the state of politics. Condemning them all is just being an asshole. Also, I’m a happily transplanted Coloradoan now. But I can’t leave my accent behind, I’ve tried. It doesn’t mean I’m uneducated or believe or support any R nonsense. I in fact actively opposed Reagan era policies and the outright treasonous GOP of today.
Being rude just because I say “y’all’ is just shitty on your part and you’re the asshole here.
Trae Crowder uses y'all all the time, and he's quite an intelligent man, and entertaining as hell. Cheers SD Dem.
Speaking of Trae Crowder:
South Postpones Rising Again For Yet Another Year
Conventional English lacks a second person plural form, which most other languages have.
Hence, “ youse” ( too Eaast coast) , “ you guys” ( sexist), you people (condescending), folks( folksy!), and “ you all” or “y’all” . ( gets the job done, friendly).
It also works to address a crowd by their purpose or title: “ Class”, “ Colleagues”, “ Fellow_____s”.
English is one of the fastest-adapting languages around, with remnants from every culture it has ever interacted with. If it turns out that we truly need a 2nd person plural, and “y’all” is the top contender, then “y’all” will be correct conventional English in a generation or two.
Very interesting info, kwtree! But what astonishes me is the apparent inclusion of "gonna" in the AP style guide. I cannot count the number of times I see it in news articles recently.
Yinzer
A provincial, typically residing in the western half of Pennsylvania (USA), who strongly identifies with the nearby city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, often due to a fervent, pseudo-religious loyalty toward one or more professional sports teams headquartered there. “Yinzers” are so called because they speak a regional dialect of American English featuring the use of “yinz” or “yunz” as the second-person plural pronoun. Yinzers are the subject of a number of stereotypes, some of which they are actively proud and consciously reinforce to strengthen their sense of identity, an example being their use of French fries as a condiment.
For bonus points, tell me what Yinzer is running for Senate. OZ=not a Yinzer.
My favorite southern slang is ‘gazinta” as in “six gazinta twelve twice,” or “six gazinta eighteen three times.” (h/t to Jethro Bodine for making the phrase famous in the ’60’s.)
Maybe if we are lucky, Ganahl will use “gazinta” in a sentence some time.
Annnnnd – nothing screams "kitchen table issue" like an isolated dorm room assignment.
I wonder if it occurred to
HiediHeidi that a trans student might ask for a different roommate if they were matched with someone as hostile toward them as she is.Sounds like a wonderful case of a student who is (or wanted to be seen as) broadly tolerant filling out a housing form, and a less tolerant parent being SHOCKED at how the roommate identified herself (or themselves) and thus got matched.
She was born and spent her childhood in Orange County, CA before moving to the suburban Front Range. At what point did she get some Southern exposure to start using, "y'all"?
She's just using it because she thinks it connects her with her base.
Isn't she from southern Douglas County?
I didn't really follow this thread until Notaskinnycook pointed out this discussion about dialect. So I apologize for being late to the party.
I am originally from the Yankee state of Ohio but was sentenced to…..er, lived in… Alabama for the 7 years that covered the end of high school and all my undergrad years (and two marriages, the kids.. but I digress). I picked up some accent and it took me a good year to shake it when I moved to Colorado after college.
I have always liked the phrase y'all because proper English does not have a distinction between 'you the singular' and 'you the plural' and it is not always clear from context. Thus, I still tend to use y'all when I mean to include everyone in the group, and you when I am talking to an individual.
Indeed. “Ya’ll” is never singular.
…and much better than its Tenn. cousin…”you’uns.”