Marjorie Taylor Greene Says Lesbian Union Leader Is Not Really a Mother

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has added to her record of outrageous and anti-LGBTQ+ statements by saying that stepparents aren’t really parents and repeating her assertion that pandemic-related school closures caused gender dysphoria.

During a Wednesday hearing of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, the Republican congresswoman said witness Randi Weingarten isn’t really a mother and was therefore not qualified to give advice on school closures.

Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, is married to Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, and they have two daughters who Kleinbaum brought to the relationship. Weingarten described herself as a “mother by marriage” and thanked Kleinbaum for being at the hearing.

Greene said Weingarten made recommendations to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on school closures even though she is “not a medical doctor, not a biological mother, and really, not a teacher either.” The last time Weingarten taught full-time was in 1997.

“None of your advice had to do with — to stop the spread of COVID-19,” Greene said. “It was all about teachers staying home.”

“I am a mother,” Greene continued, and she said all three of her children were affected by school closures, which is something she said Weingarten can’t understand. “I had also advocated for our children, not for teachers getting to stay home and kids being forced into virtual schooling,” the congresswoman added.

Weingarten, Greene said, is simply a political activist who was advocating for the teachers’ union, not for anything that benefited children.

“Kids have suffered greatly,” Greene went on, “and as a matter of fact, suicides increased. … You know what else happened? While kids were forced to stay home, and you approve of this, the diagnosis of youth with gender dysphoria surged.”

This isn’t the first time Greene has claimed that at-home learning turned children transgender. At a hearing of the same subcommittee in March, she asserted that when classes went virtual, young people spent excessive time on social media, and that led to “a dramatic increase in trans-identifying children, which is not something that was normal nor common many years before this, and I think that’s completely devastating.”

Weingarten didn’t have the opportunity to respond directly to Greene, but U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia, a California Democrat on the subcommittee, defended the union leader.

Garcia, a gay man, said Greene’s comments were “unacceptable” and affirmed to Weingarten, “You are a mother. Thank you for being a great parent.” Garcia’s mother and stepfather both died of COVID.

Another Democrat on the subcommittee, U.S. Rep. Raul Ruiz, condemned Greene’s “cruel personal attacks” on Weingarten and adoptive parents in general.

Among Greene’s other bizarre statements, she asked if Weingarten believed in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, given that Weingarten praised Greene’s suspension from Twitter at one point. However, the First Amendment means that governments cannot censor speech except in certain circumstances; private companies are free to take action against speech they disapprove of.

Greene also objected to the emojis on Weingarten’s Twitter profile, saying the placement of a Ukrainian flag to the left of the American flag means Weingarten puts Ukraine before the U.S., and the congresswoman wondered if an emoji of a flexed arm with a dark brown skin tone was “digital blackface.”