Politics

Marjorie Taylor Greene says trans people don’t face discrimination in bizarre rant

She said that trans people don't face job discrimination, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.
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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene Photo: Screenshot

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is the most outspoken member of Congress when it comes to LGBTQ+ equality, especially when it comes to transgender people. She tried to shut down Congress twice when it was considering the Equality Act, she has posters outside her office attacking trans identities, and she consistently brings up her antipathy for trans people in unrelated conversations and speeches.

And now she’s insisting that trans people just don’t experience discrimination.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene is known for her belief in some of America’s strangest conspiracy theories. But she can’t figure this out.

“Trans don’t need trans rights because they are already equal and have the same rights as everyone else,” Greene tweeted.

She then followed that with a list of examples of ways trans people have the same rights as cis people, except she did such a bad job of picking examples that she accidentally created a list highlighting areas where transgender people often experience discrimination.

“Trans people can get driver’s licenses just like everyone else” was Greene’s first example. Many states make it difficult for trans people to get a driver’s license that shows their actual gender, with a few states having no process at all for trans people to correct the gender marker on their driver’s licenses.

Driver’s licenses are the most common form of identification in the United States. The ACLU notes that trans people are often afraid of calling the police if their ID could out them as transgender. In the National Center for Transgender Equality’s 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, 25% of respondents said that they experienced verbal harassment when using an ID with a name or gender marker that didn’t match their presentation, and 2% said that they were assaulted in such a situation.

“Trans people go to schools and receive education just like everyone else,” Greene wrote next.

In reality, Republican lawmakers have turned schools into one of the biggest battlegrounds for transgender rights, trying to take away trans students’ rights to do the same things that cisgender students take for granted. States have banned transgender students from using the appropriate restrooms (making it harder to make it through a long school day); banned transgender students from participating in school sports, which are an important part of education in the U.S.; and have been hostile to LGBTQ+ and transgender-specific anti-bullying efforts.

As a result, GLSEN has found that transgender and gender non-conforming students were more likely to miss school and less likely to plan on continuing their education.

“Trans people can get a job if they meet job qualifications just like everyone else,” Greene asserted blithely, ignoring job discrimination against transgender people. The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey found that, in the previous year alone, 27% of trans people in the workforce reported being fired, denied a promotion, or not being hired because of their gender. The survey also found that 30% of respondents said they had experienced homelessness in their lives.

Greene listed other rights that trans people have, including getting married and joining the military. She opposes marriage equality, and, in the past, state bans on same-sex marriage were often applied to couples where one person is transgender, even if the couple was heterosexual. Trans people were also barred from serving in the military by one of Greene’s favorite former elected officials, Donald Trump (R), and that ban was lifted just two years ago by President Joe Biden (D).

“Are they trying to force Christians to accept their lifestyle and how they want to indoctrinate and transition children?” she wrote. Being transgender isn’t a lifestyle, and trans people aren’t hiding in bushes, ready to jump on unsuspecting children and ply them with puberty blockers.

“Trans people have nothing to fight for. This is just another political movement,” she concluded, as if political movements are defined by a lack of anything to fight for.

Because she posted it on her personal account, she got mostly support in response.

Over on her work account, she again called Democrats “the party of pedophiles” for supporting trans youth having access to health care.

“Sexualizing children and mutilating their genitals is child abuse,” she wrote, even though genital surgery is not performed on transgender minors and letting a kid dress as they want and use the name that they want isn’t “sexualizing children.”

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