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The conservative is mad that FEMA is using Hurricane Helene relief resources to "house migrants." Her evidence? A discussion panel from a year and a half ago.
Marjorie Taylor Greene couldn't have been more wrong on this one.
The conservative took to Twitter/X recently to attack FEMA for something that isn't happening, falsely claiming the organization is using its funds to "house migrants" instead of assisting communities recovering from Hurricane Helene.
As "evidence," she posted a clip from a virtual panel held on March 28, 2023 called Helping the LGBTQI+ Community Before Disasters: Preparedness and Mitigation Considerations, in which FEMA financial management specialist Reilly Hirst, who is also the director of education and training for FEMA’s Pride Federal Employee Resource Group, discussed the concerns undocumented trans women have when seeking relief.
“Being a migrant trans woman, there is an undocumented concern. 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," Hirst said. "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. All those concerns are there.”
Greene's response to the panel — which took place over a year and a half before Hurricane Helene struck — was to offhandedly call Hirst an "unqualified idiot" while asserting "FEMA hates Christians."
"FEMA Training Director is concerned about faith-based shelters misgendering 'migrant transwomen' [sic]," she wrote. "These are the unqualified idiots using FEMA disaster relief funds to house migrants and FAILING western NC Hurricane Helene victims. They hate Christians."
FEMA is currently working with over 7,000 personnel to provide food, water, generators, and other "critical supplies" to areas devastated by Helene, such as in Asheville, North Carolina, according to its website. It can be assumed at least some aide goes to transgender or undocumented people in those areas, as opposed to just letting them die.
Transgender women do encounter difficulties when searching for shelter — a 2016 report from the Center for American Progress found that only 30 percent of 100 shelters in four states were willing to house trans women with cisgender women, whereas 13 percent housed them in isolation or with cisgender men, and 21 percent flat out refused to shelter them.
Related: How to help women, children, and LGBTQ+ people impacted by Hurricane Helene
