Sen. Josh Hawley has been accused of transphobic rhetorics during a Senate hearing on the future of abortion rights on Tuesday.
Khiara Bridges, a law professor at UC Berkeley, was one of the witnesses that Hawley questioned over why she kept referring to women as “people with a capacity for pregnancy” while outlining who would be affected by abortion bans and restrictions.
“Would that be women?” Josh Hawley questioned.
Bridges clarified that she was using this phrase to encompass all people that these laws will touch.
“Many cis women have the capacity for pregnancy, many cis women do not have the capacity for pregnancy,” Bridges explained. “There are also trans men who are capable of pregnancy as well as non-binary people who are capable of pregnancy.”
“So this isn’t really a women’s rights issue, it’s a — ” Josh Hawley countered.
“We can recognize that this impacts women while also recognizing that it impacts other groups. Those things are not mutually exclusive,” said Bridges.
Hawley continued by inquiring as to what she perceived the “core of this right” to be. At that point, Bridges pointed out that his comments were limited in terms of who the discussion of abortion rights should be focused on.
“I want to recognize that your line of questioning is transphobic, and it opens up trans people to violence,” added Bridges, who went on to highlight research about transgender people’s high likelihood of suicide attempts.
Hawley questioned whether his comments would incite violence, which prompted Bridges to point out that he was negating the existence of trans people.
Bridges’ worries are in line with the rise in physical violence that has accompanied lawmakers’ political attacks on trans people, including denials of their existence and the use of legislation to restrict their freedom of movement, access to activities, and access to health care.
An increase in legislation that targets trans persons has reportedly been accompanied by a spike in anti-trans violence, according to a 2021 Time report.
According to a UCLA study from 2021, trans persons—particularly Black and Brown trans people—were much more likely than cis people to become victims of violent crime.
