Marjorie Taylor Greene Calls for End to Pride Month
Georgia congresswoman claims straight people will “go extinct," and claims Uvalde gunman was a "cross-dressing loner."
Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is facing backlash for calling an end to recognizing June as LGBTQ Pride Month, while also making unsubstantiated claims about the gunman in the recent mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
In a tweet posted on June 1, Rep. Greene advocated for the “end of pride,” while also arguing that members of the U.S. military don’t get enough recognition.
“Only one day each year, we honor military members who died serving our country for ALL of us to be free. An entire #PrideMonth and millions in spending through corporations & our government on LGBTQ sexual identity needs to end. The movements (sic) goals were achieved, were they not?” she tweeted, referring to recent pro-LGBTQ victories like the legalization of same-sex marriage.
Her tweet was met with immediate responses, most of which explained why her comment was wrong.
One commenter left a simple screenshot as a response – showing that National Military appreciation month does in fact exist, and that she made no mention of it during the month of May.
In addition to the screenshot, the person left a reminder for the Congresswoman, tweeting: “Oh, hun. How many times have we told you, before you say something silly just google it?”
Others responded to the representative’s comment by reposting a tweet from the U.S. Marines verified account, which was published over an hour earlier. This tweet thanked out members of the United States military, while also calling for “an environment free from discrimination.”
Rep. Greene also made other controversial statements in the past few days, saying during her MTG: Live streaming broadcast: “Probably in four or five generations, no one will be straight anymore. Everyone will be either gay, or trans or non-conforming, or whatever the list of 50 or 60 different options there are.”
While Greene’s claim has not been backed by any research, it appears to be a reference to the documented increase in people identifying as LGBTQ, both in the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey and in recent Gallup polls showing the percentage of Americans identifying within the LGBTQ spectrum have increased. Those surveys have also shown that LGBTQ identity has risen with each subsequent generation, with higher numbers of Generation Z identifying as LGBTQ than previous generations.
Comedian Bill Maher recently made a similar claim, taking polls showing a higher percentage of youth identify as LGBTQ as “evidence” that younger people responding to the survey are doing it just to be “trendy” or to rebel against authority.
When Rep. Greene’s office was asked for a clarifying statement on her tweet, Greene’s communications director, Nick Dyer, told Forbes: “Her tweet is self-explanatory.”
Greene also made an unsubstantiated claim during her broadcast that 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, the now-deceased gunman in the Robb Elementary School massacre that killed 19 elementary school students and two adults in Uvalde, Texas, was a “cross-dressing loner.”
The comment echoes a false claim previously made by U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) in a now-deleted tweet that Ramos was a “transsexual leftist illegal alien.” That rumor, spread on right-wing websites and news outlets, including the 4chan messaging board, was based on photos stolen from the Reddit account of a transgender female artist, who conservatives insisted was Ramos – despite the user denying the connection and writing “it’s not me. I don’t even live in Texas,” hours after Ramos was confirmed dead.
While later-published accounts from some of Ramos’ childhood friends – who had since fallen out of touch – noted that Ramos had donned black eyeliner in at least one of his social media photos, the use of eyeliner by high school students from various cliques – including goths, skaters, punk rockers, artists, musical theater performers and heavy metal enthusiasts, just to name a few – has been a trend since the mid-1990s, and is neither unusual, nor, when taken alone, an indicator of “cross-dressing,” let alone transgender identity.
According to those friends, Ramos began wearing all black, letting his hair grow out, and donning military boots as a symbol of his outsider status after being mercilessly bullied and even physically assaulted for a childhood speech impediment, his love of video games, and scars imposed as part of self-harming behavior.
Greene is running for re-election to her congressional seat after a judge allowed her to run despite possible connections to the alleged insurrection attempt during the U.S. Capitol riots on Jan. 6, 2021.
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