Newly unearthed video shows Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg making comments in 2019 that refer to transgender people as “it” and “some guy wearing a dress” when entering a girls’ locker room — as he argued that transgender rights would be harmful to the Democratic platform, according to Buzzfeed News.
He made the comments in March 2019 at a forum sponsored by the Bermuda Business Development Agency. His remarks were part of a larger discussion in which Bloomberg chided other 2020 candidates’ willingness to talk about transgender protections.
“If your conversation during a presidential election is about some guy wearing a dress and whether he, she, or it can go to the locker room with their daughter, that’s not a winning formula for most people,” Buzzfeed reports Bloomberg said.
The former New York City mayor has faced backlash recently for his past policies and discriminatory rhetoric, particularly around stop-and-frisk and redlining. Another video from 2016 also shows Bloomberg describing a hypothetical transgender woman as “some man wearing a dress.”
Now, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has called on the 2020 presidential hopeful to apologize for his previous comments about the transgender community.
Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign, took to Twitter to release a statement addressed to Bloomberg, stating that “We expect all pro-equality candidates, including Mayor Bloomberg, to create policy solutions to end the epidemic of violence out community faces, not use the same talking points our opponents use to dehumanize transgender people and justify their own hateful beliefs.”
Words matter and Mayor @MikeBloomberg should apologize for using language that demoralizes and dehumanizes members of our community. My full statement: pic.twitter.com/xhgp2lyu91
— Alphonso David (@AlphonsoDavid) February 19, 2020
David refers to Bloomberg’s 2019 comments pandering on conventional stereotypes that undermine the experience of transgender individuals–on an emotional, physical and social level.
“Transgender women aren’t ‘he-she or it,’ they’re women. LGBTQ people are human and deserve to be treated with respect.”
NBC News reports that in response to the video and subsequent fallout, a Bloomberg campaign spokesperson stated that Bloomberg realizes the violence and discrimination the transgender community and women in particular have suffered, and points to the transgender civil rights bill Bloomberg signed into law as mayor.
“As president, he has a comprehensive plan to secure rights for transgender Americans, including passing the Equality Act, ensuring transgender people have access to affirming healthcare and working to end the crisis of violence against transgender women,” the campaign spokesperson told NBC.
Prior to this, Bloomberg has supported the HRC’s platform for legalizing gay marriage, and appeared in a promotional video in 2011. Recently, the politician and businessman has also apologized for her previous stop-and-frisk policy in New York City, which was found to disproportionately affect minorities and people of color.
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