TV’s Judge Joe Brown descends into unhinged anti-trans rant at mayoral campaign event

Memphis, Tennessee, mayoral candidate Judge Joe Brown went on a transphobic rant earlier this week, ending an online discussion that had descended into a chaotic “debate” about his history of anti-trans and misogynist rhetoric.

On Tuesday, the former reality TV star participated in a Twitter Spaces event during which one participant noted that Brown frequently “comes off very misogynistic, very transphobic as well.”

Related:

Candace Owens falsely links Memphis killings to trans people

The far-right commentator equated acceptance of trans people to “celebrating mental illness.”

Brown, a former Shelby County Criminal Court judge who is running as an independent and rose to fame via his courtroom reality series Judge Joe Brown, has faced criticism for misogynistic and anti-trans comments he has made since launching his campaign. During a forum hosted by the Shelby County Young Democrats last October, Brown caused outrage by suggesting that women in leadership positions “would get drug into an abandoned apartment and raped” in “some places you need to go exercise leadership.”

Insights for the LGBTQ+ community

Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more.

Daily

Weekly

Good News

In February 2022, during an interview with comedian K. Kinte, Brown insisted that it is a “grave insult to real women” for trans women to “call themselves women.”

Most recently, Brown described a Michigan law making it a felony hate crime to harass trans and nonbinary people by deliberately misgender them as an “abomination.”

This type of abomination must be stopped

This is so obscenely contrary to American 1st A Law that the only fit ‘Adjectives’ to describe it are profane

Michigan House passes bill where using wrong pronouns ≈ a felony, fineable up to $10,000 https://t.co/AM0KbcDf22

— JudgeJoeBrown (@JudgeJoeBrownTV) July 2, 2023

During Tuesday’s Twitter Spaces conversation, Brown responded to his critic, who tweets as @bruna­_giovanni, by accusing her of using a “pretend voice.”

“Stop giving us your pretend voice and give us what you really sound like,” he said. “You’re faking your identity. You hate yourself.”

He went on to accuse the speaker of “shirking your responsibility” and questioned what she called herself. “Obviously if you’re so supportive of trans it’s not what you got presented with the first time you became self-aware and you saw what kind of equipment you had between your thighs,” Brown rambled. “What does your DNA show?”

“You see the transphobia? The attacks?” the speaker countered. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about.”

Brown continued to badger the speaker about her gender identity. “DNA tells no lies about what’s between the thighs,” he insisted. “Now, what is yours?”

He then questioned whether the speaker supported “this thing with your folk going and reading to these children, and why should they be reading to your children.” He went on to falsely suggest that children were being “recruited” by trans people.

Brown continued to spiral into absurd hypotheticals. “Let me ask you this,” he said. “Would you get up off of the lifeboat seat and give it to a woman and a child and drown with the ship, or are you gonna put a dress on and sneak you way up in there?”

Brown asserted that the trans community is “not even an eighth of a percent” of the Memphis community and does not “even amount to half of a percent” of the U.S. population. “Why do you get to interject yourself in here because you make a choice?”

“You hate yourself so badly that you reject what you were born to be and you want to be something else. So, we don’t need any more self-hate interjected in our community,” he continued.

He went on to accuse the speaker, and presumably the trans community at large, of trying to “convert” children “to your screwed up way of thinking,” and of “beat[ing] up on women in the women’s sports,” before descending into a truly unhinged rant about birds and lions and running around naked in bedrooms and at resorts. He continued to insult the critic, mocking her accent, before the event’s host abruptly ended the conversation.

After The Messenger reported on the Twitter Spaces event on Wednesday, @bruna_giovanni—who describes herself as a trans and bisexual female, BLM, women’s, LGBTQIA+, and immigrants rights activist—tweeted her response to the conversation.

“@JudgeJoeBrownTV is running for mayor of Memphis and based on many things he said even attacking me he comes off very misogynistic and transphobic,” she wrote. “Memphis is this someone you want as your next mayor? Especially with the high levels of violence against trans women of color?”

@JudgeJoeBrownTV is running for mayor of Memphis and based on many things he said even attacking me he comes off very misogynistic and transphobic. Memphis is this someone you want as your next mayor? Especially with the high levels of violence against trans women of color? https://t.co/hy04oT1HlW

— TransIsBeautiful🏳️‍⚧️ (She/Her) (@bruna_giovanni) July 12, 2023