Sarah McBride, who works for the Human Rights Campaign, was specfically targeted
A shocking video posted on Facebook shows two women barging into a meeting in Washington, DC, and harassing a transgender woman.
Posie Parker began streaming the live video on Wednesday (30 January) morning. The video depicts her and Julia Long spewing transphobic harassment toward Sarah McBride.
McBride is the National Press Secretary of the Human Rights Campaign.
In the video, both Parker and Long continuously misgender McBride.
At one point, Parker states: ‘This is Sarah McBride, he gets paid probably quite a lot of money to lobby the government to try and make sure that women and girls have no right to any space anymore.’
The pair also refers to transgender women as men over the course of their time harassing McBride.
Througout the video, McBride does not respond to any of the transphobic comments.
Parker and Long specifically press McBride on championing the Equality Act.
First introduced in 1974, this bill seeks to amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The amendment would add the prohibition of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. The Civil Rights Act extends to areas of employment, housing, public accommodations, public education, federal funding, credit, and the jury system.
Members of congress have revived the bill in past years, most recently in 2017, though it has yet to pass.
Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the House, stated the Equality Act is a ‘top priority’ for Democrats in the House of Representatives.
At the end of the video, Long states they hear McBride’s ‘hatred of lesbians very clearly’. She also mentions McBride’s work as encouraging ‘male violence against women’.
HRC responds
‘It is disturbing but not at all surprising that anti-transgender extremists brought to the United States at the behest of the Heritage Foundation would stoop to harassing a transgender woman and parents of transgender youth,’ Olivia Dalton, HRC’s Senior Vice President for Communications and Marketing told GSN.
‘That the targeted harassment occurred following a moving meeting between parents of trans kids and members of Congress reinforces the massive gap between our message of love and their agenda of bigotry. No one advocating for their basic human rights should face such hate and hostility, and shame on the Heritage Foundation for fostering this kind of atmosphere.’
Members of Congress held a meeting with the HRC Foundation’s Parents for Transgender Equality National Council. They discussed the Equality Act with parents of trans children.
The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think-tank. Earlier this week, they held a discussion on the Equality Act and ‘the left’s embrace of the transgender agenda’.
It is not known if Parker and Long were specifically in DC for this event alone, but Jean Hatchet penned a blog post about Parker and other women being invited by the Heritage Foundation.
Transphobia remains rampant within the community
Parker and Long’s harmful comments represent a group of women known as trans-exclusionary radical feminists, or TERFs. This way of thinking does not acknowledge trans women as women. It is also hostile towards transgender people overall within the LGBTI community.
Last year, Parker revealed she and others were ‘encouraged to heckle’ trans women Munroe Bergdorf and Caitlyn Jenner during a segment on Channel 4.
Earlier in 2018, police interviewed Parker for alleged abusive postings about the CEO of a trans support group.
Long is a lesbian author who was present at the transphobic demonstrations during last year’s Pride in London. During the event, a transphobic lesbian group invaded the front of the parade, reportedly handing out anti-trans materials to attendees.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly identified Parker as a lesbian.
See also:
Mark Ruffalo Apologizes To Trans Community For Casting Matt Bomer As Trans Woman
