A UC Berkeley law professor told Missouri Sen.Josh Hawleythat his line of questioning was “transphobic” during a Senate hearing related to abortion rights Tuesday.
The tense exchange began when Hawley, 42, asked Khiara Bridges, an expert in race and reproductive rights, for clarification regarding a comment she made about “people with the capacity for pregnancy.”
“Would that be women?” Hawley asked the professor, who was testifying in the hearing about the abortion restriction caseDobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which prompted the Supreme Court tooverturnRoe v. Wadelast month.
“Many women, cis women, have the capacity for pregnancy,” Bridges responded. “Many cis women do not have the capacity for pregnancy. There are also trans men who are capable of pregnancy as well as non-binary people who are capable of pregnancy.”
Francis Chung/E&E News/POLITICO/AP; Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/AP
“So this isn’t really a women’s rights issue?” the Republican senator asked.
“We can recognize that this issue impacts women while also recognizing that it also impacts other groups. Those things aren’t mutually exclusive,” she said.
The back-and-forth continued with Bridges telling Hawley that his line of questioning was “transphobic and it opens trans people up to violence.”
Hawley then told Bridges that he didn’t “think men can get pregnant,” to which she replied: “Then you are denying that trans people exist.”
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A day after the tense exchange, Hawleyposted his take on Twitterwhile tweeting a story from Fox News. “Every so often the left says what they really think out loud,” he wrote. “Yesterday was one of those moments.”
Other lawmakers have thanked Bridges for refusing to let bigotry toward a vulnerable population go unchecked, including Rep.Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who scoffed on Twitter at “Hawley’s feigned shock at the recognition that he incites violence.”
“The man raised a fist w/ Jan 6th-ers who yelled ‘Hang Mike Pence’ & fundraised off it,“she tweeted. “Now he wants to be all ‘Me?? Opening people to violence??😤’”
Hawley, the former attorney general of Missouri, unseated Democratic Sen.Claire McCaskillin the 2018 midterm election. During his three-and-a-half-year tenure as a senator, he has aligned with far-right extremist views, branding himself as a politician willing to carry on the legacy of former PresidentDonald Trump.
After Trumplost the 2020 election, Hawley announced that he would refuse to certify the Electoral College vote count in an effort to keep Joe Biden out of the White House. In addition to spreading election fraud lies, he was seen putting a fist in the air in solidarity with the Capitol rioters on Jan. 6, 2021, a move that ultimatelycost him his book deal with Simon & Schuster.
source: people.com
