Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Twitter attack on congresswoman’s transgender daughter draws outrage

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Twitter attack on a fellow congresswoman’s transgender daughter has drawn outrage from other members of Congress. Greene, a pro-Trump freshman from Georgia who has espoused baseless conspiracy theories, posted an anti-transgender sign in a shared office hallway and referred to the colleague’s daughter as “your biological son.”

Democratic Rep. Marie Newman choked up on the House floor on Tuesday as she talked about how the Equality Act would offer protections for her transgender daughter and others in the LGBTQ community. “I’m voting yes on the Equality Act for Evie Newman, my daughter and “the strongest, bravest person I know,” said Newman, a freshman from Illinois.

On Wednesday, Greene gave a floor speech against the bill, then unsuccessfully tried to adjourn the House to block its movement through the chamber. That prompted Newman, whose new office in Washington’s Longworth House Office Building is across the hall from Greene’s, to display a transgender flag in the hallway. Newman tweeted a video of herself putting up the flag so that Greene “can look at it every time she opens her door.”

Greene responded by posting a video of herself putting up a sign on the wall across the hall from Newman that reads, “There are TWO genders MALE & FEMALE. ‘Trust the science!’”

And she tweeted about Newman’s daughter. “As mothers, we all love and support our children. But your biological son does NOT belong in my daughters’ bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports teams,” Greene tweeted over a video of Newman’s floor speech.

“There’s no lower low than going after someone’s kids,” Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.) tweeted in support of Newman. “What a horrible performance by Congress’ worst transphobic conspiracy theorist. Stay (Q)lassy, Marjorie.”

Greene has drawn the ire of Democrats and some Republicans for spreading baseless QAnon conspiracy theories and bigoted misinformation, supporting the killing of Democrats and posting a video in which she suggested 9/11 was a hoax. She also suggested California wildfires had been caused by laser beams from space controlled by a wealthy Jewish family.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, one of 11 Republicans who voted with Democrats this month to strip Greene of her committee assignments, tweeted in support of Newman.

“This is sad and I’m sorry this happened. Rep. Newman’s daughter is transgender, and this video and tweet represents the hate and fame driven politics of self-promotion at all evil costs,” Kinzinger tweeted. “This garbage must end, in order to #RestoreOurGOP.”

“Thank you for speaking out against this, Adam,” Newman replied.

Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) said on Twitter that Greene’s actions were “sickening, pathetic, unimaginably cruel. This hate is exactly why the #EqualityAct is necessary and what we must protect @RepMarieNewman’s daughter and all our LGBTQ+ loved ones against.”

The Equality Act, which would amend the Civil Rights Acts of 1964, would prohibit the discrimination of gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual people in the public and private sector. The bill states businesses, hospitals and other institutions could not deny individuals access to a locker room or restroom based on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

In her floor speech Wednesday, Greene echoed arguments other Republicans made in 2019 when the bill passed the House but stalled in the then-Republican-controlled Senate. She contended the legislation would weaken the rights of women.

She went on to give the example of her daughter, whom she said played Division I college softball and would not have achieved the same success if the Equality Act passed.

“If she has to compete against boys in her sport, not only will they be on her playing field and she has to compete against them, they will be in her locker room, they will be in her showers, they will be in her bathroom, they will be in her hotel room when she travels with her team,” Greene said. “This is about right and wrong. This is about girls’ and women’s rights.”

Greene also suggested that women in prison and in shelters would no longer have the same protections they currently had from “trans men, biological men who identify as women.”

“It is one thing to stop discrimination of a class of people, but it is another thing to completely violate and destroy the rights of girls and women in order to achieve this,” Greene said. “This bill must be struck down.”

Newman, who started the national nonprofit program “Team Up to Stop Bullying” after her son Quinn was bullied in school, emotionally recalled her daughter Evie’s experience as a transgender woman in her House speech.

Newman noted that “millions of Americans continue to be denied housing, education, public services and much, much more because they identify as members of the LGBTQ community, Americans like my own daughter who bravely came out to her parents as transgender.”

“I knew from that day on my daughter would be living in a nation where, in most of its states, she could be discriminated against, merely because of who she is, and yet it was still the happiest day of my life,” Newman said. “My daughter has found her authentic self.”