Marjorie Taylor Greene rages at FEMA for helping trans women: “They hate Christians”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is outraged that FEMA showed any concern about the safety of immigrant trans women during its response to the fallout of Hurricane Helene. Greene argued that being concerned with the safety of trans people proves that FEMA “hate[s] Christians.”
On social media, she shared a clip from what appears to be a training session led by FEMA financial management specialist Reilly Hirst, who is also the director of education/training for FEMA’s Pride Federal Employee Resource Group. “Pride” in this context usually refers to an LGBTQ+ group. There is no indication that this training session is recent or directly related to Hurricane Helene.
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“Being a migrant trans woman, there is an undocumented concern,” Hirst says in the clip that is being shared by conservatives online. “There is also a concern of whether they would trust the places that are offering shelter that is faith-based because of the way they’ve been responded to in the past.”
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“And if they are accepted, what would happen in terms of misgendering, in terms of bedrooms and bathrooms, etc. And then, in addition, public safety once they’re inside from those who are actually sheltering with them.”
“FEMA Training Director is concerned about faith-based shelters misgendering “migrant transwomen,'” Greene wrote, getting Hirst’s title wrong. “These are the unqualified idiots using FEMA disaster relief funds to house migrants and FAILING western NC Hurricane Helene victims.”
“They hate Christians.”
FEMA Training Director is concerned about faith-based shelters misgendering "migrant transwomen.”These are the unqualified idiots using FEMA disaster relief funds to house migrants and FAILING western NC Hurricane Helene victims.They hate Christians. pic.twitter.com/FqGxdcfYnN— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (@RepMTG) October 5, 2024
Greene’s rant implies that she believes that FEMA should leave immigrants in affected areas to die. FEMA’s help for immigrants has been subject to extensive scrutiny and misinformation by the right, including Donald Trump’s baseless allegation that FEMA money was stolen “from a bank so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season.”
The concerns Hirst raised about transgender people in shelters are valid. A Center for American Progress study in 2016 of 100 homeless shelters in four states found that only 30% of such shelters were willing to house trans women with women. 13% housed trans women with men, and 21% refused to provide shelter to trans women at all.
And, despite Greene’s insistence that it’s a sign of “hatred” of Christian people to believe that they may be more likely to be transphobic, the Pew Research Center found in 2022 that religious people – especially white evangelicals – were more likely to believe that a person’s gender can’t be different from their sex assigned at birth. The category “religiously unaffiliated” – which includes atheists, agnostics, and “nothing in particular” respondents – was more likely in the survey to accept trans people as their authentic selves.
Greene herself is a staunch Christian who has made her faith an integral part of her political identity, and she is perhaps the most anti-trans member of Congress, introducing legislation to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth and restrict it for trans adults at the federal level, so it’s unclear why she specifically would be surprised that many trans women would be reticent to be housed by a religious organization.
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