A lawmaker in Montana was silenced by her Republican colleagues on Monday, after they demanded she apologize for saying there would be “blood on your hands” if they voted for a bill to ban gender-affirming care for minors.
Last week, as the state’s House debated amendments to the legislation, DemocratiRep. Zooey Zephyr criticized the bill and its supporters, referencing the group’s opening prayer.
“I hope the next time there’s an invocation, when you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands,” she said.
A group of Republican lawmakers known as the Montana Freedom Caucus sought to punish Zephyr, accusing her of displaying “hateful rhetoric” and calling for the lawmaker’s censure in a letter shared on social media.
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Montana House Speaker Matt Regier later declined to allow Zephyr, the first openly transgender woman elected to Montana’s legislature, to speak about a bill that would put definitions of male and female into the state’s code.
She was also barred from speaking Friday during discussion on a bill seeking to prevent minors from seeing online pornography, and again on Monday when she sought to address a measure on student and parent rights in schools.
The moves were approved by a vote in the state House. On Monday, chants of “let her speak” broke out from viewers in the gallery above lawmakers.
Zephyr could be seen holding up a microphone toward those chanting.
‘Let her speak’
Outside Montana’s statehouse earlier on Monday, a group of supporters gathered to wave flags and also chant “let her speak.”
“I was sent here to speak on behalf of my constituents and to speak on behalf of my community. It’s the promise I made when I got elected and it’s a promise that I will continue to keep every single day,” Zephyr, a first-term lawmaker, said Monday.
Zephyr hasn’t officially been censured yet. But Regier is expected to continue not allowing Zephyr to speak on the chamber’s floor without an apology, though the lawmaker says she is standing by her comments.
The move comes after three Democratic lawmakers in Tennessee faced expulsion for participating in gun control protests. Reps. Justin Pearson and Justin Jones were expelled, while Rep. Gloria Johnson was nearly ousted from the body.
President Joe Biden welcomed the lawmakers to the White House on Monday, calling the Tennessee legislature’s move “shocking” and “undemocratic.”
Contributing: Associated Press
