During a Wednesday episode of MSNBC's The ReidOut hosted by Joy Reid, Charlotte Clymer, a transgender activist and former press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign, suggested conservative media hosts weren't "walking with Christ" because of their opposition to transgenderism.
Reid cited statistics suggesting transgender-identifying people were more likely to be victims of gun violence before suggesting a "moral panic" had "shifted" towards transgender-identifying people following Monday's shooting at the Covenant private Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee.
Clymer agreed with the MSNBC host's comment, further citing gun violence statistics suggesting less than 1% of gun violence is committed by transgender-identifying people.
"If we're gonna ban someone, maybe we should ban people who are not transgender from owning weapons, if that's the logic," the activist said. "They're not trying to fix the problem, they're trying to weaponize it and exploit these senseless deaths."
Clymer noted their Christian faith by suggesting it was "offensive to leverage Christ's teachings" against transgender-identifying people.
"LGBTQ are initials that all stand for somebody who is beloved of God, made in the image of God," said fellow guest and Director of Georgetown University Center on Faith and Justice Jim Wallis.
Reid noted the "moral panic" was resulting in a crackdown on drag performances
"Children are only unsafe at drag shows when a shooter shows up to kill them," Clymer said. "That's where the threat is."
The activist further challenged people to "get to know trans people."
"We are a vibrant diverse community — as diverse as anyone else," the Texas-born Clymer said.
"My faith is very important to me, but God made me in her image. God made me transgender," the activist continued. "To see these people so cynically weaponize this and exploit these children's deaths and their teachers' deaths, it breaks my heart."
Reid cited Michael Knowles' comments on transgenderism from his speech at 2023's Conservative Political Action Coalition (CPAC) earlier this month. The MSNBC host also noted Fox News' Tucker Carlson's coverage of the "Trans Day of Vengeance" scheduled for Apr. 1 outside the Supreme Court in Washington D.C.
"I can't see Christ in their words, that's for damn sure," Clymer responded. "I can't see where the biblical principles of loving your neighbor and walking the walk with Christ that they can see. I can't see what they're seeing right now because that's not of Christ."
"This is anti-gospel [and] antichrist," Wallis added. "This is a false worship we're confronting here ... they're worshiping a false God and they're literally sacrificing all our children."
At CPAC, Knowles criticized transgender ideology, saying it “puts forward a delusional vision of human nature that denies the reality and importance of sexual difference and complementarity.”
“The problem with transgenderism is that its acceptance at any level necessarily entails the complete destruction of women’s bathrooms, women’s sports, all of the specific rights and spaces that women currently have for themselves,” Knowles continued.
He continued:If transgenderism is true — if men really can become women and women really can become men — then it is true for everybody of all ages. If transgenderism is false, as it is — if men and women really are different, as we are — then it is false for everybody too. And if it is false, then we should not indulge it, especially since that indulgence requires taking away the rights and customs of so many people.
