A TERF (transgender exclusionary radical feminist) activist in Portland is speaking out after her primary care physician dropped her from her practice due to “ongoing” anti-LGBTQ+ remarks, including an email she sent the practice demanding they remove their transgender flag and comparing it to a swastika.
Marlene Barbera, who goes by Lady Laughingloudly on Twitter and has tweeted more than 93,000 times over seven years, complained on Tuesday that the Richmond Family Medicine Clinic in Portland denied her further care at the health facility after she complained about a trans flag hanging in the reception area.
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Barbera, who says she’s a liver-transplant recipient and was scheduled for a double mastectomy later this month, posted a plea for help with her medical expenses, along with a message from the clinic’s manager that read in part, “Effective immediately, you are discharged from receiving medical care at the Richmond Family Medicine Clinic. This action is being taken because of ongoing disrespectful and hurtful remarks about our LGBTQ community and staff.”
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According to Barbera, she’s the one who was insulted by the presence of the trans flag in the health facility.
“As a gender critical woman, who believes gender to be a nonsense and sexed bodies to be a reality,” Barbera wrote to her doctor in the months leading up to her expulsion, “I do not feel comfortable coming into Richmond with that enormous transgenderism banner hanging like a Nazi flag behind the reception desk.”
“I have been threatened on Twitter by trans activists with rape and death — so it is daunting to go for medical treatment with that banner proclaiming that what I am, an adult human female, is a mere opt-in category for any gender non-conforming male and not a reality,” Barbera argued in a paragraphs-long screed posted to the clinic’s messaging system.
In an interview with anti-trans site Reduxx, published shortly after Barbera shared her story on Twitter, Barbera claimed her doctor of 12 years told her, “‘Well, I am not gonna go out there and take it down.’”
Barbera believes staff read her private correspondence with the doctor criticizing the trans banner and they subsequently conspired against her.
According to Reduxx‘s sympathetic account, “The issue escalated in June while she was simply trying to leave a private message for her doctor regarding blood test results and a receptionist refused to allow her to do so.”
“They got frustrated with my ‘non-compliance’ and hung up on me,” Barbera recounted.
“I asked, guessing ‘did I hurt the trans person’s feelings?’ And the receptionist took offense to the question, asking ‘what did you say’ slowly and with great emphasis.”
Then it was Barbera’s turn to hang up.
Two weeks later, clinic manager Stein Berger sent a message to Barbera advising her, “Richmond is an all-inclusive clinic and we value and advocate for diversity.”
Stein told Barbera her “transphobic remarks” were “harmful to our staff.”
According to Barbera, a formal dismissal from the doctor’s practice soon followed, stipulating the clinic would end services on July 29 in accordance with their 30-day notice policy.
Two days later, she went public with her tweet, the Reduxx profile, a LibsofTikTok interview, and a fundraising campaign on Christian GoFundMe alternative GiveSendGo, sponsored by a fellow TERF.
Why Barbera delayed asking for help with her medical and legal problems a full month after her doctor dropped her is unclear.
“Would any lawyer out there help me?” Barbera asked. “Very scared. 💜💚🤍” The hearts are the colors associated with U.K. suffragettes who fought for the right to vote in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many TERFs believe their desire to oppress trans women is similar to the movement to get the right to vote.
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