Doctor booted from hearing after repeatedly calling trans people slurs

A Houston doctor was kicked out of a Texas State Senate session after repeatedly calling trans people perverts and pedophiles.

Dr. Steven Hotze was testifying before the Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs in support of anti-trans legislation and found himself in a heated exchange with Democratic state Sen. José Menéndez.

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She said the quiet part out loud.

“I would just ask you to refrain from calling people pedophiles because I don’t think the doctors who have come before us today are pedophiles,” Menéndez tells Hotze in a clip posted to social media.

“By definition, sir, they are pedophiles,” Hotze responds. “Anybody that sexualizes children is a pedophile.”

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But Menéndez was not going to let it go.

“You’re for the legislation, I get it… but I don’t think it’s appropriate for you to call people you don’t know whether they’re pedophiles or not… I have trans friends, I have trans staff members, I have trans members of my community… It’s very hurtful to them.”

“That’s what they are,” Hotze replied.

“No sir,” Menéndez emphasized. “They are not pedophiles. They are not perverts and pedophiles.”

But Hotze wouldn’t let up, continuing to rant about how trans identities are nothing but perversions.

When Menéndez insisted, “They’re living their true selves,” Hotze responded, “That’s bullsh*t.”

At that, committee chair and state Sen. Bryan Hughes (R) interrupted to tell Hughes that “we don’t use that kind of language. You’re excused.”

A Twitter user describing herself as a queer attorney posted the clip and decried the fact that Hotze was kicked out for saying bullsh*t and not for calling trans people pedophiles.

“Want to know what kind of language gets you dismissed from the TX Senate’s public testimony?” she wrote. “Because it isn’t calling all trans people pedophiles over and over again.”

She then thanked Menéndez for being an ally, and proceeded to clap back at anti-trans replies, declaring in one instance, “Your hate for trans people won’t make them not exist.”