Photo: Craig Sjodin/getty
Bette Midleris clarifying her tweet about women’s rights that some fans viewed as transphobic.
The legendary actress, 76, initially sparked backlash with her tweet Monday, in whichshe wrote: “WOMEN OF THE WORLD! We are being stripped of our rights over our bodies, our lives and even of our name! They don’t call us ‘women’ anymore; they call us ‘birthing people’ or ‘menstruators’, and even ‘people with vaginas’! Don’t let them erase you! Every human on earth owes you!”
While some fans believed that Midler’s tweet was meant to criticize theU.S. Supreme Court’s overturning ofRoe v. Wadeand subsequent state abortion bans, other followers of the actress argued it was ananti-trans comment.
On Tuesday, she penned a series of tweets to clear the air and said that her original message was not meant to be viewed as “transphobic.”
“There was no intention of anything exclusionary or transphobic in what I said; it wasn’t about that,” she added.
She went on to say her tweet “was about the same old s— women — ALL WOMEN — have been putting up with since the cavemen. Even then, men got top billing.”
The Tony-winning actressurgedthose who believe she has an issue with “any marginalized people” to “go to Wikipedia and type my name.”
“I’ve fought for marginalized people for as long as I can remember. Still, if you want to dismiss my 60 years of proven love and concern over a tweet that accidentally angered the very people I have always supported and adored, so be it,” Midler wrote.
In a final tweet, sheconcluded, “But the truth is, Democracy is slipping through our fingers! I’m all in on trying to save Democracy for ALL PEOPLE. We must unite, because, in case you haven’t been paying attention, divided we will definitely fall.”
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Midler’s statementcomes after the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning ofRoe v. Wade, which eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion and fueled the ongoing debate surrounding women’s rights.
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Midler was one of the first toreact to the reversalof the 1973 law andtweeted, “GET READY, GAYS. YOU’RE NEXT,” referencing a prediction that the Supreme Court will now lookto overturnLawrence v. TexasandObergefell v.Hodge— the rulings that currently protect the right to a same-sex relationship and the right to same-sex marriage.
source: people.com
