A Utah state school board member, Natalie Cline, is under fire for her insensitive comments falsely suggesting that a teenage girl is transgender. The Utah Governor Spencer Cox and many other local authorities are calling for her immediate resignation.
It all started when Cline falsely suggested that a girl on a high school basketball team was transgender in a Facebook post. Although she has deleted it now, her post caused the girl to receive many bad messages, including online threats and harassment.
It got so bad that the girl’s family spoke out in an interview with Salt Lake City ABC affiliate KTVX. Al van der Beek, the girl’s father, said, “They’re putting pictures of other people’s children on the internet and then allowing people to just bully a child. It’s an adult bullying a child.”
“It doesn’t matter what their agenda is or what they think they thought — there’s really no excuse that can merit putting another person’s child on social media and then allowing them to be attacked.” The family is also calling for Cline’s immediate resignation.
As a Republican, it is not surprising that Cline appears to be transphobic. However, her post caused a lot of damage, even though she deleted it and apologized afterward. She claimed she made the mistake because of the girl’s larger build.
In her original post, she put up a picture of the girl with a weird caption. She wrote: “Girls’ basketball,” according to The Salt Lake Tribune. Moreover, she didn’t stop there. She continued, “We live in strange times when it is normal to pause and wonder if people are what they say they are because of the push to normalize transgenderism in our society.”
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Her post continued, “We most certainly recognize that there is great variety within females when it comes to physical characteristics, and of course, we are accepting of these differences and want all girls to feel welcome in school sports.
Sadly, our good faith efforts to be accepting of differences has, at times, been taken advantage of, causing a loss of trust, which leads to suspicion about girls who are more buff than most.”
Therefore, it is clear to see why anti-transphobia advocates are calling for her resignation. Both Utah’s state governor and Lt. Governor Deidre are also against Cline’s post. Henderson called the post “inexcusable” on all levels.
Together with Cox, he asked the Utah State Board of Education to “hold [Cline] accountable” for her actions. According to his statement, Cline has made past controversial statements as well. Therefore, she shouldn’t just get away with such comments as a high official.
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The Board also released a statement stating their displeasure with Cline’s actions. “Board Leadership is very concerned about this post and the harm it has caused to students and families in Utah.
We are deeply saddened by the events that have taken place and will be taking prompt action regarding this matter as determined by the full Board,” it read. Transphobia leads to bullying, harassment, and even death sometimes. Therefore, it is necessary to take a stance against it, especially with people in public offices.
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