A Republican candidate for the role of Illinois governor has been slammed for refusing to take down an advert that spurts anti-trans rhetoric, despite calls from the party to remove it and apologise.

Lawmaker and state representative Jeanne Ives released the advert, which is a take on a former advert run by current governor Bruce Rauner, and has since faced a barrage of criticism.

Rauner’s original ad shows GOP governors from states neighbouring Illinois thanking the Democratic House speaker for policies which helped their states.

Ives’ take on the ad portrays a transgender woman, a woman wearing the pussy hat which is now synonymous with the Women’s March and a Chicago Teachers Unions member who is black.

The trans woman is depicted with a deep-voice, chest hair and thanks Rauner “for signing legislation that lets me use the girl’s bathroom”.

The teacher makes a dig about pension bailouts for Chicago teachers, a cost that fell onto taxpayers across the whole state.

The advert has been slammed for it’s “poison” narrative by a spokesperson for the Democratic governor candidate, J.B. Pritzker.

Illinois Republican Party Chairman Tim Schneider said Ives should pull the ad and “immediately apologize to the Illinoisans who were negatively portrayed in a cowardly attempt to stoke political division.”

“There is no place in the Illinois Republican Party for rhetoric that attacks our fellow Illinoisans based on their race, gender or humanity,” he added.

A spokesperson for Ives’ campaign dismissed the criticism by Schneider and claimed that he was an arm of Rauner’s campaign.

Spokesperson Kathleen Murphy said: “Rauner betrayed Illinois conservatives. He and his paid-for mouthpieces don’t like his betrayals being illustrated and his radical left-wing social agenda being exposed.

“Rauner is the one who owes Illinois families in general and conservatives, in particular, an apology.”

Rauner has since called Ives “unelectable” but refused to comment on the outrageous advert.

In 2013, Ives took what she called a “courageous” stance against equal marriage, and defended “natural” marriage, by saying gay people have “disordered relationships”.

Speaking on the Catholic Conference of Illinois Radio she said that she would rather not talk about equal marriage, but that the issue kept coming up.
She said: “It’s unfortunate that actually that’s the issue that we have to talk about in Springfield… You deal with the issues that are given to you. This issue is going to be brought up – they are trying to redefine marriage – it is a completely disordered relationship.

“When you have a disordered relationship, you don’t ever get order out of that, so I am more than happy to take the no vote on the issue of homosexual marriage.”