Mike Huckabee ‘jokes’ about transgender man who was raped and murdered
Pro-Trump Republican Mike Huckabee is under fire after cracking an anti-LGBT ‘joke’ .
Huckabee, who launched a failed Presidential campaign for President in 2015, made the comments after the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer made an emotional speech opposing Trump’s migrant ban.
The former Governor of Arkansas mocked Schumer, tweeting: “Breaking news from Hollywood! Sen. Chuck Schumer cast in lead role for remake of Boys Don’t Cry.”
Boys Don’t Cry is the 1999 film based on the real-life story of Brandon Teena, a trans man who was brutally murdered by two men in a hate crime incident.
Mr Teena was raped, shot in the head and stabbed in the chest by two ex-convicts after they discovered he was biologically female.
There was no federal LGBT hate crime law at the time of the murder, and the GOP continued to block attempts to put one in place for another decade – until President Obama signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act in the face of of Republican opposition.
Unsurprisingly, people were not quite rolling on the floor laughing at the ‘joke’ about how a man crying is somehow like a transgender person who was raped and shot in the head.
Out comic Cameron Esposito fought back by using the incident to raise money for a transgender support line.
She tweeted Huckabee: “Cool that u’d highlight LGBT folks’ need for anti-hate legislation… let’s turn a heartless joke into a heartfelt action & donate to Translifeline in Brandon Teena’s memory. I am!
“We won’t be divided by awful jokes or awful laws! Donate now, pals.”
So far the fundraiser for Trans Lifeline has raised in excess of $25,000.
Huckabee has a long history of anti-LGBT animus.
He rallied behind Kentucky clerk Kim Davis, compared anti-LGBT activists to Martin Luther King, labelled gay parents ‘destructive’, and ‘joked’ that he wishes he were transgender to spy on teenage girls in the shower.
In a previous ‘joke’ he said: “Your seven-year-old daughter, if she goes into the restroom, cannot be offended and you can’t be offended if she’s greeted there by a 42-year-old man who feels more like a woman than he does a man.
“Now I wish that someone told me that when I was in high school that I could have felt like a woman when it came time to take showers in PE.
“I’m pretty sure that I would have found my feminine side and said, ‘Coach, I think I’d rather shower with the girls today’.”
