Texas sheriff hopeful threatens to beat trans women unconscious if he finds them in public bathrooms
A police officer in line to be the Sheriff of a major Texas county has threatened to assault any transgender women he finds using public bathrooms.
Tracy Murphfree is running to be the new sheriff of Denton County on a Republican ticket – and has no Democratic opponent.
But in a Facebook post last week, Murphfree made extremely disturbing comments amid a wave of anti-trans bathroom bills.
He wrote: “This whole bathroom thing is craziness I have never seen. All I can say is this.
“If my little girl is in a public women’s restroom and a man, regardless of how he may identify goes into that bathroom.
“He will then identify as John Doe until he wakes up in what ever hospital he may be taken to.
“You identify does not trump my little girls safety.”
Denton resident Amber Briggle, the mother of a transgender child, said the comments made her scared for the safety of her son.
She said: “I feel like [transphobic thugs] might have gotten a blessing then from potentially the future sheriff for vigilante justice.”
“I understand how they interpreted it, I understand how they saw it, I understand their anger. For that, I apologize,” said Murphree.
Murphree told DFW he was not referring to transgender women… despite his post very clearly specifying he was talking about people “regardless of how [they] identify”.
He said: “I understand how they interpreted it, I understand how they saw it, I understand their anger. For that, I apologize.”
But he doubled down on the issue and claimed that transgender anti-discrimination protections give a “window” to sex offenders.
Murphree said: “What you’re doing is you’re raising the odds of these predators. You’re giving them a window, you’re giving them an opportunity.”
