President Joe Biden’s latest comments reacting to conservative ire over the Transgender Day of Visibility has prompted yet more pushback from Republicans.
The International Transgender Day of Visibility was created in 2009 by LGBTQ+ activist Rachel Crandall Crocker, to be held each year on March 31. The day was created in response to what Crocker saw as a lack of days meant to celebrate the trans community and act as a balance to the Transgender Day of Remembrance, which is a day of mourning.
Even though the event is 15 years old, controversy was sparked among Republicans this year when Biden released a statement proclaiming March 31, 2024, as the latest Trans Day of Visibility. This year’s event coincided with the heterodox Christian Easter Sunday for the first time since 2013, sparking outrage from conservatives, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, accusing Biden of hijacking the holiday. A Newsweek fact check of the accusations determined them to be false, given the event’s history.
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Speaking to reporters on Monday, Biden was pressed about his thoughts on the outrage from the likes of Johnson. The president called the speaker “thoroughly uninformed” and said that he “didn’t do that.” While not explicitly clear from the brief comments Biden offered, it is possible that he referred to having no involvement in the decision to host the day on March 31 in 2009.
Nevertheless, the remarks from Biden generated a new wave of pushback from conservatives on X, formerly Twitter. The official account for Johnson shared an excerpt from the official transcript of Biden’s proclamation of the Trans Day of Visibility for 2024, including phrases like “do hereby proclaim” and “by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States.”
“This you, @JoeBiden?” Johnson’s account wrote.
A similar screenshot was shared by the official account for the House Judiciary GOP, which accused Biden of “lies.”
“If Biden didn’t do it, who signed his name to the official proclamation,” Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri wrote in a post. “It’s bad enough he deliberately desecrated the most sacred holy day in the Christian faith. Then he lies about it.”
The conservative outrage over Trans Visibility Day has received pushback from voices on the left. On X, the popular liberal political commentator Joanne Carducci offered a response to Hawley’s post.
“You’re lying Fist Pumper. It’s been Transgender Day of Visibility since 2009,” Carducci wrote. The President didn’t make this date up. He didn’t change it so that it coordinated with Easter. It coordinated with Easter because that’s how calendars work. He signed the proclamation honoring the day as he as [sic] done on MARCH 31st in years past.”
Newsweek reached out to the White House and Johnson’s office via email for comment.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.