Frank Liberati has filed a complaint against his opponent in a Democratic primary, erroneously claiming that she didn’t use her legal name in her campaign filings. The move has been called out as a transphobic attempt to remove Joanna Whaley from the ballot, with her supporters criticizing Liberati for weaponizing transphobia.

“The Michigan Legislative LGBTQ+ Caucus denounces Frank Liberati’s meritless, transphobic attempt to remove Joanna Whaley from the primary election ballot,” the caucus said in a statement. “During a time of increasing and relentless attacks on the trans community, submitting this sort of meritless challenge to the Wayne County Clerk serves no purpose but to stoke the flames of transphobia for personal political gain.”

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Liberati, a Michigan Democrat, is running in a primary contest against Whaley for Michigan’s 2^nd House District. From 2015 to 2021, he represented Michigan’s 13^th House District, and his brother Tullio Liberati is the retiring representative for the 2^nd District.

Whaley was encouraged by her community to run for public office after speaking at protests and serving as an inclusive pastor. She decided to run for the House District seat after Tullio Liberati voted in 2025 in favor of a bill banning trans girls from participating on sports teams that match their gender identity.

Beyond Liberati’s complaint being a transphobic move, his claim is factually incorrect. Liberati based his complaint on a petition for a name change filed by Whaley in 2023, which lapsed without being granted. However, since then, Whaley was able to legally change her name through the courts. Liberati was likely unable to find those filings because the court records were sealed to protect Whaley from deadnaming or this very sort of attack as she became a more public figure.

As Jay Kaplan of the Michigan ACLU’s LGBTQ+ Rights Project told the Michigan Advance, even if Whaley had not gotten the follow-up court order, Michigan would still recognize Joanna as her legal name. The state has provisions for a common-law name change, which means that if someone adopts a new name for more than 5 years and uses it publicly for non-fraudulent purposes, that name becomes their legal name.

“It’s not going to hold because we have all the proof and documents, and I’ve got 100 witnesses who know me by Joanna,” Whaley told the Michigan Advance, noting that the Wayne County Clerk’s office had already asked for proof of her common law usage of her name.

In their statement, the Michigan Legislative LGBTQ+ Caucus pointed out that the name change process in Michigan in 2023 was “so onerous, expensive, and out of step with how other states treat petitions for name changes,” that a Democrat-led resolution updated the process in 2024. The new process is simplified with fewer barriers and was likely why Whaley refiled for her name change after the 2023 petition lapsed.

While her primary contender is trying to make this race about Whaley’s gender identity, that has never been her own plan. Rather, she has run on a platform pushing for single-payer healthcare and making utility bills more affordable, while also raising money for food pantries and delivering water to homes suffering outages.

Whaley told LGBTQ Nation, “My transness, my queerness is never even a topic with most people in my community, because we’re focused on the things that they are focused on. And the number one thing is utility bills.”

Whaley has earned endorsements from the LGBTQ Victory Fund, Run for Something, Her Bold Move, and Families United for Trans Rights. While her primary opponent attempts to push her off the ballot with a transphobic attack, Whaley is more worried about literal physical attacks during this time of heightened anti-trans rhetoric, telling LGBTQ Nation that her biggest campaign expense is currently her security.