Florida Lawmaker Calls Transgender People ‘Demons’ and ‘Mutants’

A Florida legislator resorted to dehumanizing, denigrating language in supporting a bill that would ban transgender people from using bathrooms that align with their gender identity. “We have people that live among us today on planet Earth that are happy to display themselves as if they were mutants from another planet,” state Rep. Webster Barnaby, a Republican, said during the debate, according to the Orlando Sentinel. Barnaby also called the trans people who testified during the hearing “demons and imps who come and parade before us and pretend that you are part of this world.” He later apologized for using the word “demons,” after the House Commerce Committee approved the measure.