Sen. Josh Hawley's (R-MO) exchange during a Senate hearing on abortion with Khiara Bridges, a law professor at University of California-Berkeley, went viral on Tuesday, as the pro-abortion witness accused the senator of transphobia and perpetuating violence against transgender people for questioning her as to if only women can get pregnant.
His line of questioning was picked up by The Washington Post, which initially referred to the Republican senator as a Democrat in a tweet.
While the correction was made, the mislabeling of Hawley's political affiliation is hardly the only problematic aspect of the article, written by Mariana Alfaro, whose headline points out that "Sen. Hawley accused of transphobic questioning at abortion hearing."
The subheadline goes on to read that the "Missouri Republican refused to acknowledge that some transgender men can get pregnant," which is itself statement that denies the biological reality that if a transgender man can, in fact, get pregnant, that person is a biological woman.
Abigail Marone, Hawley's press secretary, tweeted about the correction that she's "Still waiting for the correction that acknowledges men cannot get pregnant."
It gets worse from there. "Some experts on gender and reproductive rights use gender-neutral terms including “people with a capacity for pregnancy” and “pregnant people” when talking about these issues, which help illustrate that not only cisgender women have the ability for pregnancy — and cisgender women aren’t the only ones impacted by decisions to restrict reproductive health care," Alfaro goes on to claim, failing to cite these so-called "experts."
Alfaro's biologically inaccurate piece is mostly a recap of the viral back-and-forth that Sen. Hawley and Professor Bridges engaged in. The senator was merely asking about Bridges' belief that only women have the capacity to get pregnant.
It's worth emphasizing the far-fetched points that Bridges was making to indeed accuse the senator of being "transphobic." Because Hawley asked her if she thought only women could get pregnant, and stated that he recognized that, Bridges thought it necessary to declare "I want to recognize that your line of questioning is transphobic and it opens up trans people to violence by not recognizing them as..."
Bridges, who is, again, a law professor, even brought up non-sequiturs of the transgender suicide rate and claiming that the senator was "denying that trans people exist" and "pretending not to know that they exist," which she said is "dangerous."
Alfaro also referenced the rates of suicide for "transgender and nonbinary youth," though she did not mention if these people had fully transitioned, as well as transgender people facing "bias-driven assault."
Hawley and Fox News' Sean Hannity delved further into the incredulousness of acknowledging how only women can get pregnant is somehow transphobic, during Hawley's Tuesday night appearance on "Hannity."
Alfaro closed her piece by pointing out that "Bridges did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the exchange." There is no indicated that she reached out to Sen. Hawley, though.
As Matt highlighted last month, Bill Maher aptly pointed out that Democrats could blow the abortion issue by claiming it's not only women who can get pregnant. That is exactly what these Democratic witnesses are doing.
"MEN CANNOT GET PREGNANT," in all caps, has been trending over Twitter on Wednesday, in response to Sen. Hawley's line of questioning and reactions to it.
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