Marjorie Taylor Greene: Pete And Chasten Buttigieg Should “Stay Out Of Girls’ Bathrooms”
Georgia congresswoman offers "red meat" to Republican voters with homophobic rhetoric attacking the Buttigieg family and NCAA champion Lia Thomas.
Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene attacked Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and his husband during a homophobic and transphobic screed at a Donald Trump rally in Commerce, Ga., last Saturday.
“You know what? Pete Buttigieg can take his electric vehicles and his bicycles, and he and his husband can stay out of our girl’s bathrooms,” Greene said.
Greene appeared to be referencing ongoing debates over which public restrooms transgender people should use. Buttigieg and his husband, Chasten, are gay, not transgender.
But whether Greene has conflated gay and transgender people into the same category of people she despises, or whether she knows the difference and was just pandering with anti-LGBTQ buzzwords to the crowd of rally-goers, the Trump devotees in attendance were all too happy to feast on the “red meat” she tossed out, greeting her comments with cheers, according to Business Insider.
The Buttigiegs have recently become fodder for socially conservative right-wingers, who have been incensed at the couple’s decision to adopt twins and by the Secretary’s decision to use parental leave to take care of the newborns shortly after they were born.
Greene also attacked Lia Thomas, the UPenn swimmer who is the NCAA women’s 500-yard freestyle champion, deadnaming Thomas and echoing comments made by other conservatives that she should not have been allowed to compete.
“And old Lia Thomas? Lia is going to have to remember his name is William, and he needs to go back to men’s swimming because we’re going to kick the biological men out of women’s sports,” Greene said.
Greene has been a vocal critic of transgender rights, often misgendering transgender individuals and attacking their family members, as she did with the daughter of fellow Congresswoman Marie Newman’s (D-Ill.).
After Greene railed against the Equality Act — a measure to prohibit discrimination against LGBTQ people in various facets of life — as “an attack on God’s creation,” Newman hung up a transgender flag outside her office, prompting Greene to hang up a sign reading: “There are two genders: Male & Female. ‘Trust the Science!'” across from Newman’s office.
Greene subsequently made transphobic remarks about Newman’s daughter at a GOP fundraiser for Congresswoman Mary Miller, a downstate Illinois Republican, according to WBEZ Chicago.
“[Newman’s] so-called daughter is a trans, biological adult son, approximately close to the same age as my two, very much biological real girls — daughters,” Greene said. She added that she’s taken to calling Newman “Newperson,” because “she doesn’t believe in gender.
“I don’t want to offend her, so I changed her name from Newman to Newperson,” Greene said, mockingly. “She is very confused. As a matter of fact, so is her son.”
Greene has also suggested that LGBTQ people should stop talking about their sexuality and complained about a transgender “invasion” in a multi-part Twitter thread that also attacked Vice President Kamala Harris and claimed that Americans are “over” COVID-19.
“Your identity is not your sexual preference or what you like to do in the bedroom,” she said, before launching into a tirade about transgender participation on female-designated sports teams.
Greene, who has been criticized for promoting QAnon conspiracy theories and for her alleged links to accused white supremacists, urged the crowd at the Trump rally to support Republican candidates in the 2022 midterms.
Despite courting controversy, and even being stripped of her committee assignments for her inflammatory rhetoric and embrace of various conspiracy theories — and despite taking on new Democratic-leaning territory in the Atlanta suburbs as part of a redistricting plot organized by Georgia Republican lawmakers — she is overwhelmingly favored for re-election in a heavily Republican district this fall.
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