A new anti-LGBT organization has posted a 30-second attack ad against trans women who merely want to use the restroom.
A new group headed by an anti-gay Republican activist is running a new filthy and disgusting ad. The 30-second audio spot will run for two weeks in the Houston market at a cost of $100,000. It features the voice of a young woman attacking the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO), on which voters will have to decide in November.
“No men in women’s bathrooms,” the incendiary and misleading ad begins. “This ordinance will allow men to freely go into women’s bathrooms, locker rooms and showers. That is filthy, that is disgusting, and that is unsafe,” the woman, falsely, says in the ad. She also claims to speak for “all moms, sisters, and daughters,” which is false.
The group sponsoring the ad is called the Campaign For Houston, and it’s headed by Jared Woodfill, a 47-year old attorney and former Chairman of the Republican Party of Harris County, Texas.
Its website appears to be down currently, but an archived version states the group is comprised of Houston citizens “of all races, creeds and political beliefs.”
It falsely claims HERO “limits free speech and religious expression in unprecedented ways,” “gives new special privileges to two special interests, neither of which qualify as true ‘minorities’ requiring special legal protection,” and calls HERO’s “naming of these groups … a ruse in an attempt to hide the ordinance’s real purpose, which is to make ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identification’ two new protected classes.” It also falsely claims sexual orientation and gender identification “are defined by their behaviors – not by characteristics given to them at birth.
Calling the ad “not subtle,” ThinkProgress’ Zack Ford offers a few observations:
Gender identity, as protected by HERO, is not something that can be flipflopped every day, and moreover, predatory behavior is still illegal. If HERO fails to pass, it will actually force many men into women’s restrooms, the very outcome they claim to oppose.
Houston Unites calls the ad “vulgar and grossly misleading.”
“Nothing in the equal rights ordinance changes the fact that it is – and always will be – illegal to enter a restroom to harm or harass other people,” the group told the Houston Chronicle. “And the ad leaves out the fact that the law protects tens of thousands of Houstonians from job discrimination based their race, age, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability.”
NCRM reached out to Woodfill inquiring about the composition and funding of his group, but did not receive a response before our publication time.
Listen:
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