Today, in the Senate, Senator Josh Hawley had the following conversation with Khiara M. Bridges, of the University of California, Berkeley:
Hawley: You’ve referred to people with a capacity for pregnancy. Would that be women?
Bridges: Many cis women have the capacity for pregnancy. Many cis women do not have the capacity for pregnancy. There are also trans men who are capable of pregnancy, as well as nonbinary people who are capable of pregnancy.
Hawley: So this isn’t really a women’s rights issue?
Bridges: We can recognize that this impacts women while also recognizing that it impacts other groups. Those things are not mutually exclusive, Senator Hawley.
Hawley: Your view, the core of this right is about what?
Bridges: I want to recognize that your line of questioning is transphobic, and it opens up trans people to violence by not recognizing them.
Hawley: Wow. Are you saying that I’m opening up people to violence by asking whether or not women can have pregnancies?”
Bridges: So, I want to note that one out of five transgender persons have attempted suicide. so I think it’s important that—
Hawley: Because of my line of questioning? So we can’t talk about it?
Bridges: Because denying that trans people exist, and pretending not to know that they exist—
Hawley: I’m denying that trans people exist by asking you whether you’re talking about women—?
Bridges: Are you? Are you? Do you believe that men can get pregnant?
Hawley: No, I don’t think that men can get pregnant.
Bridges: So you’re denying that trans people exist. Thank you.
This is grotesque bullying from Bridges, and it ought to be condemned as such. First, Bridges says that Hawley’s “line of questioning is transphobic.” Next, she says that “one out of five transgender persons have attempted suicide.” When asked whether Hawley’s line of questioning is responsible for those attempted suicides, Bridges says that “denying that trans people exist, and pretending not to know that they exist” causes those suicide attempts, and then asks Hawley whether he thinks that “men can get pregnant.” When Hawley says “no,” Bridges tells him that he is “denying that trans people exist” — the very act that she just said causes one out of five transgender persons to attempt suicide.
Translation: Agree with me, or my friends will kill themselves.
No.
There is no nice way to put this, so I’ll say it bluntly: If the choice before me is between engaging in free dialogue and indulging threats of suicide, then I am on the side of the free dialogue every time. I will happily chat to anyone about anything, but I will not cower before threats of self-harm, and I do not recommend that anyone else does, either.