Advocates are praising a man’s impassioned speech to legislators against an anti-trans bill during which he asked, “Do y’all ever get tired of being on the wrong side of history?”
Nick Berg appeared before the Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs to testify against House Bill 229, which would legally erase trans people by defining sex based on reproductive organs alone.
Related
Singer gives trans fan her new name & the crowd goes wild: “Now that’s a baptism”
The fan could not contain her joy when Beth McCarthy shared her idea.
Republicans continue to dismantle trans rights under the guise of protecting cisgender women, and Berg called them out for using women’s rights as a “Trojan horse.”
Never Miss a Beat
Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today
He said for years the GOP claimed the world would end when the nation achieved marriage equality, but that once public opinion shifted, they “had to pick a new scapegoat.”
“That’s what you always have to do. It’s not that you can actually sit here and do the business of the people,” he said sarcastically, “make lives better for Texans like me. No, no, no, no, no, no, there’s no time for that. We’ve got to
He then said that if they were sitting in that room 50 or 60 years ago, they’d be debating whether Black women could enter white bathrooms rather than trans women entering women’s ones. “Do y’all ever get tired of being on the wrong side of history?” he asked.
The Human Rights Campaign posted a video of Berg’s testimony and thanked him for speaking out.
“I still feel like I’m clumsy and awkward when public speaking,” he wrote on one of the comments, “but eager to empower all my homies to speak out against bigoted buffoonery!”
Some wrote he made them proud to be Texans, and many expressed gratitude for his strong voice. One commenter declared, “Replace the entire Democratic Party with just this guy please.”
Unfortunately, the bill still passed the Senate and has been sent to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) desk. Abbott has already supported many anti-trans measures and thus will likely sign the bill into law.
“This bill was not needed,” said Equality Texas interim CEO Brad Pritchett in a statement, “no judges were asking for legislative direction about definitions. Now, a clumsy and discriminatory definition will be implemented that will infect every corner of the state government with anti-trans animus.”
“We have fallen so far from our ideals of freedom that lawmakers are now trying to implement their own dictionary so that they can erase people from society. They will be shocked to learn that trans people have been around longer than the state of Texas, longer than the United States of America, and this small piece of paper cannot undo that history nor erase trans people’s future. This fight isn’t over. Our trans neighbors mean too much to too many.”
Equality Texas also pointed out that the Texas legislature has filed more than 200 anti-LGBTQ+ bills during this legislative session alone.
Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.