Relentlessly anti-trans congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene denies ‘hating transgenders’
Marjorie Taylor Greene. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
US Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has denied that she “hates transgenders” but does think of them as “predators”.
Appearing on Alex Jones‘ Infowars, the devout QAnon follower and Georgia congresswoman sought to “set the record straight” on comments she made during an appearance on the show last month.
At the time, she told Jones that the threat of violence is “exactly how we need to stand up” against trans and non-binary people, according to Media Matters, an organisation monitoring right-wing programming and figures.
She said her husband would “beat” a trans summer camp counsellor “into the ground” if their daughter went.
But in comments dubbed “reprehensible” by fellow elected officials, Greene said that “biolgical men” should be “beaten up”.
“As usual, the corporate media puts the lies in the headline and maybe the truth in the last paragraph,” Greene said of news reports that simply quoted her verbatim.
“The truth is that biological men are assaulting and attacking anyone under the age of 18, especially children,” Greene said, not citing anything to back the inflammatory claim up.
A reminder that Greene has been suspended on both Facebook and Twitter for posting misinformation around the COVID-19 vaccine.
“Yes, they deserve to be beaten up.” There you go, the record is straight.
“There is nothing wrong with saying that,” adding that trans people, who she calls “biological males” throughout her InfoWars interview, “deserve to be arrested, deserve to be charged and deserve to be arrested”.
Claiming that she “doesn’t care” about what consenting adults do or what “choices” people make in their sexual orientation, Greene said: “I am taking a strong stand that there are only two genders, male and female.”
“I don’t hate transgenders,” she continued, “not at all. I know some and it’s fine. I don’t care. It’s not a judgement on them.”
Marjorie Taylor Greene: ‘It’s OK for me to say that trans people might need a lesson’
Marjorie Taylor Greene then showed how much she “doesn’t hate” trans people by saying that gender identity clinics are “wrong” and supporting trans youth in schools amounts to “brainwashing” them.
“Parents are sick and tired of this being shoved down their throats,” she added, stressing that she’s standing up for women’s and children’s rights.
“It’s OK for me to say that they might need, you know, a lesson. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’ll double down and I’ll say it again, it’s not about hating trans people.”
Already struggling with higher levels of homelessness, poverty and unemployment, trans people also face higher risk of violence; three-fourths of confirmed homicides against trans folk have involved a gun, according to the Transgender Homicide Tracker.
Marjorie Taylor-Greene reacts as Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address. (Saul Loeb – Pool/Getty Images)
In America, trans people are more than four times more likely than cis people to experience crime, including rape, sexual assault and aggravated assault, researchers at the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law, found.
While last year, at least 57 trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming people, many of them Black trans women, were fatally killed, the Human Rights Campaign tallied.
The record continues to climb even months after the year’s end, as more victims’ deaths surface. This year, less than three months into 2022, six trans homicide victims have been recorded.
The annual murder rate for Americans aged between 15 and 34 is about one in 12,000, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
For Black trans women in the exact same age group, the rate rockets to one in 2,600, an investigation by Mic found.
“It is reprehensible that Members of Congress are actively contributing to the climate of fear and hatred being perpetuated by legislators around the country,” congressman David Cicilline, chair of the Congressional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus, told PinkNews.
“We know that LGBTQ young people, particularly trans young people, are among the most vulnerable members of our community and we should be doing all we can to protect them, not cause them further harm.”
