Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is now calling Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE) a “groomer” and a “child predator,” despite not having any evidence that McBride had done either of those things. She also shared McBride’s deadname on social media.

Greene shared a clip from a “Jazz & Friends National Day of School & Community Readings” event at which McBride spoke about Jazz Jennings, a trans television personality who has been open about her transition since a young age. In the video, McBride is holding a copy of I Am Jazz, Jennings’ book. The events involved reading LGBTQ+ books to kids.

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Greene said that it would be “assault” for McBride to use women’s facilities at the Capitol.

“She went to the doctor, and the doctor said that she, she’s a girl and everyone should treat her as, treat her like a girl,” McBride explains in the video to an audience of children at the “Welcoming Schools” event. “Which is to say, they should call her ‘Jazz’ and they should treat her with respect.”

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McBride explained that Jennings was a girl but that people thought she was a boy, which is a common way of explaining trans identity.

“This groomer is lying to children,” Greene wrote on X in response, sharing the video originally posted by hate influencer Chaya Raichik, who goes by “Libs of TikTok” online. “God created us in HIS image, male and female, he created us.”

“No doctor, body mutilation, or lifetime of pharmaceutical drugs will ever change your sex/gender. Congressman [deadname] McBride is a child predator and LIAR.”

“Grooming” refers to “manipulative behaviors that the abuser uses to gain access to a potential victim, coerce them to agree to the abuse, and reduce the risk of being caught,” according to the anti-sexual violence organization RAINN. The term “groomer” has come, over the last several years, to be used as a slur against LGBTQ+ people, with conservatives using it to insinuate “that LGBTQ people are pedophiles, sexual predators, and threats to children,” according to the media organization GLAAD.

There is no reason to believe that Rep. McBride is a groomer or a child predator.

The video showed a part of a “Jazz & Friends National Day of School & Community Readings” event. The events are sponsored by the National Education Association (NEA) and HRC, an LGBTQ+ organization. They are held in libraries and community centers and sometimes in private homes, according to their website, and involve reading books to kids. In a separate clip posted by Raichik to X, McBride can be seen reading the book to the kids.

The children in the video Greene shared were likely attending with their parents or guardians.

McBride is the first out trans member of Congress. Just after she was elected, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) introduced a resolution to ban McBride from using the women’s facilities at the Capitol complex, despite how trans people have been working at and visiting the Capitol for years without incident. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) enacted the rule without putting it up to a vote by the House.

Mace also posted about the HRC/NEA event that McBride participated in and said that she was “grooming” while calling Jennings’ book “sexually explicit.” It is not.

Greene has been trying for several years to pass a federal ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth that would also make gender-affirming care harder to access for trans adults.

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