Texas Sen.Ted Cruz (R) is one of several right-wing figures who invaded the privacy of a pregnant preschool teacher by exposing his name on social media.
Earlier this week, Cruz quote-tweeted a tweet from conservative activist Phil Kerpen that included screenshots of an email from a Washington, D.C., preschool outlining how parents should discuss a trans teacher’s pregnancy with students. Kerpen, who has over 100,000 followers on the platform, included screenshots that mentioned both the name of the school and the teacher.
The email reportedly framed the teacher’s pregnancy in positive terms and advised parents of “kids who may have associations with pregnancy and a certain gender, (‘only girls/moms can have babies’)” to echo the teacher’s own language around his pregnancy: “‘some boys have bodies that can have babies, and I have the kind of body that can have a baby, isn’t that cool?!’” The school also reportedly offered other resources to help facilitate discussions of transgender people, gender identity, and pregnancy with preschool-age children.
Cruz retweeted Kerpen’s post exposing the teacher’s name to his 5.3 million followers with the caption “Not satire.”
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Not satire. https://t.co/mJu6w9XxMt
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) October 18, 2022
Kerpen’s tweet has been deleted, but right-wing media outlets like the Washington Examiner, the Citizen Free Press, and Sinclair Broadcast Group’s The National Desk seized on the story, further exposing the teacher’s name.
Cruz’s tweet, which does not include the name of the teacher or the school, remains up. The senator has been roundly criticized for exposing a private citizen to potential anti-LGBTQ harassment and violence.
I’m so glad an American politician took time out of their day to single out an American citizen who’s done nothing wrong. Great job Ted. You are a horrible person.
— Weaponized Funk (@mamrycalamity) October 18, 2022
Sir, you are a sitting US Senator. You need to behave with the decorum that title demands rather than putting individual citizens in danger for some base points in an imaginary culture war. This is beneath the office you hold. Shame on you. These are real people with families.
— PMC (@CunninghamMPLS) October 19, 2022
Why shouldn't a trans man be a teacher? Why shouldn't a teacher be allowed to get pregnant and bear a child? Why shouldn't students be told what's going on with their teacher so they don't worry?
All y'all "pro-life" folks are really mad about this happy, healthy, pregnancy.
— Russell Zimmerman (abortion is a human right) (@RussellZee) October 19, 2022
this is a private citizen. you're a sitting US senator. what is your problem here
— viggy விக்னேஷ் 🛺 (@vigneshr4m) October 18, 2022
