Bette Midler: Her transphobic Twitter garbage
Since the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe V Wade, people have been really showing their true colors. On July 4, 2022 Bette Midler threw her hat in the ring and tweeted out panicked, anti-trans rhetoric in response to the language being used to describe the group of people that Roe V Wade impacts.
In an emotional tweet that is clearly intended to incite fear, Midler said, “WOMEN OF THE WORLD! We are being stripped of our rights over our bodies, our lives and even of our name! They don’t call us “women” anymore; they call us “birthing people” or “menstruators”, and even “people with vaginas”! Don’t let them erase you! Every human on earth owes you!”
Bette Midler seemed to miss the point entirely that using trans inclusive language takes nothing away from women at all, and simply serves to include more people in the pool of those impacted by this horrendous new legal turn of events. Twitter responded to Midler’s comment immediately.
Midler has since issued a tweet stating that her original tweet that caused such an uproar was in response to this New York Times OpEd, where she does pull direct language such as “people with vaginas” “menstruators” and “birthing people” directly from the article.
However, the language is so rooted in trans erasure and transphobia, that the damage was already done before she posted her follow up statement. Instead of simply apologizing to the trans community, Bette Midler attempted to justify her actions, albeit rather dismissively:
Her use of the words “accidentally angered the very people” and the following phrase “But the truth is” simply waters down any attempt that this statement might have been at an apology to the trans community.
Using trans inclusive language in the discussion over abortion rights in the United States does costs people absolutely nothing. It doesn’t diminish cisgendered women of their womanhood at all. If Bette Midler were really the LGBTQ activist that she claims herself to be, she would understand that tweeting out something inflammatory like she did, using those specific words, would be targeting the trans community.
The LGBTQ community is still waiting for a legitimate, proper apology from the the actress (whom they once considered a queer rights ally).
