Transgender Space Camp Employee Accused of Being Transgender
Conservatives are trying to get a transfemme fired for being transgender. The case highlights the increasing danger of the moral panic that insinuates trans people are inherently dangerous to children.
by Evan Urquhart
Alabama Republicans are calling for the firing of a transgender employee of NASA’s Space Camp after she… didn’t do anything in particular and, in fact, is simply existing as a trans person in proximity to children.
On Saturday, March 9, an Alabama man with a completely blank Facebook profile posted that his daughter had planned to attend the U. S. Space and Rocket Center’s Space Camp in Huntsville, AL until he learned that the camp employed a transfemme counselor. The post by Clay Yarbrough of Owens Cross Roads included screenshots of purported posts by this employee and began gaining notice primarily on Facebook. On March 11, the story was picked up by the notorious Twitter account Libs of Tik Tok, which is known for driving numerous bomb and death threats to individuals and organizations the account targets.
screenshot from Facebook
Right wing media also picked up the story on March 11, with a story on 1819 News, the website whose coverage of the secret online life of a small-town mayor, Bubba Copeland, led to their death by suicide. Several prominent Alabama politicians, including Senator Tommy Tuberville, subsequently issued statements implying that the existence of a transgender member of the staff posed some sort of danger to children at Space Camp. These statements were in turn covered by Fox News and other more mainstream news outlets on March 12.
There have been no allegations that the Space Camp employee’s behavior has been inappropriate. Instead, her identity combined with several social media posts purporting to have come from an account she controls have been portrayed as reason for her firing.
The contents of the social media posts are not particularly disturbing or violent, though they do include profanity and lighthearted discussions of transgender anatomy. “Some days I wish I was a boy that had a pussy unstead of a girl that has a dick……..” reads one typical example. Also included in the screenshots are what looks to be a selfie with the self-descriptor “butch coded space queer.”
screenshot from Facebook comment by Clay Yarbrough
It has yet to be verified that the social media posts are linked to the Space Camp employee, although the link seems plausible.
A group called the Alabama Transgender Rights Action Coalition is circulating a petition in support of the Space Camp employee. The petition has close to 2000 signatures as of this writing.
Evan Urquhart has worked as a journalist for ten years and is the founder of Assigned Media.