Fox News’ Ainsley Earhardt was just schooled by the Dictionary for referring to Christine Hallquist, who became the first openly transgender major party nominee for governor in the United States this week, as “that transgender.”
The gaffe happened yesterday when she and her Fox & Friends co-host Griff Jenkins were talking about Tuesday’s election results.
“In Vermont it was all about Bernie Sanders, and they nominated the first transgender candidate for Governor,” Jenkins said.
That’s when Earhardt replied: “That transgender beat a 14 year old! They didn’t have an age limit, so the 14 year old said, I’m going to run! Ran in the primary, didn’t win.”
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"that transgender" ??? pic.twitter.com/1l8FPOE2s4
— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) August 15, 2018
Understandably, people weren’t too pleased about Earhardt referring to Hallquist as “that transgender.” Many accused her of dehumanizing the candidate and trying to turn her historic victory into some sort of joke.
Chelsea Clinton tweeted:
Her name is Christine Hallquist. More about her here: https://t.co/6zaFuDnecO https://t.co/LaLYrOJp74
— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) August 15, 2018
To which Hallquist herself replied:
Thanks @ChelseaClinton – we're so excited by the letters of support we're receiving from across the country everyday! Together, we'll realign America's moral compass.
-Christine
Pronouns: she, her, hers https://t.co/qupR2dCFIA
— Christine Hallquist (@christineforvt) August 15, 2018
That’s pretty awesome.
But it was a tweet from the Dictionary itself that has gotten the most attention.
In response to Earhardt’s transphobic flub, Dictionary.com wrote: “Transgender is an adjective, not a noun.”
Transgender is an adjective, not a noun. https://t.co/LixUm5PIdr https://t.co/2m2UUTkuXv
— Dictionary.com (@Dictionarycom) August 15, 2018
Earhardt attempted to walk back her comments afterwards, telling The Wrap: “I was responding to the reporter’s comments when I moved too quickly and couldn’t recall Christine Hallquist’s name.”
She continued, “As a person of faith, I sincerely promise I never ever meant anything derogatory and I am sorry it may have come off that way.”
OK, we’re not sure what being “a person of faith” has to do with any of this, but whatev.
Better luck next time, Ainsley.
Related: Exclusive: America’s first trans candidate for governor talks about hope… & death threats
Kangol
No surprise there. Ainsley Airhead’s the same doofus who just said on air that the US defeated “Communist Japan,” a country in which the Communist Party has never held national governmental control; the US defeated the Japanese Imperial government, which was far-right and allied with Hitler’s Germany. Note that she did not link Communism and Russia, even though Russia was the chief Communist power on earth for almost 80 years. She’s clueless on history, basic facts, you name it, like most of the brainless talking heads on FauxNews. (Shepard Smith and a few others on there do have both common sense and intelligence.) But what does anyone expect from the GOP/Trump Propaganda Channel?
dwes09
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Please delete the above profile. It is once again another fake poster pushing a commercial (or malware ridden) website in contempt of Terms of Service!
These guys should be thrown off the site after their first post. It should not take well over 24 hours and several posts from them.
Checked out the site and it is sketchy at best.
Xzamilloh
Thank you, Kangol. I wish Queerty could have covered that, and not just this flub, because Fox News just spews lies a mile a minute. Trish Regan’s spiel on socialism in Denmark was especially egregious, and I loved watching NowThis destroy her argument point by point.
CanadianGuy62
“As a person of faith, I sincerely promise I never ever meant anything derogatory and I am sorry it may have come off that way.”
As if being people of faith had ever stopped them from saying derogatory things before. Yeah…right!
dwes09
That is so true!
It is “people of faith”, and regresives in general who are constantly dehumanizing transgender men and women, calling them “it” and refusing to acknowledge their gender and chosen pronouns. The regressives who post on this site are among the worst that way.
Faith and right wing politics seem to predispose people to contempt for differences.
JaredNorthcutt30
Even the most ardent progressives flub pronouns. Trans allies. Radical Faeries. But sure, let’s go after the low hanging fruit on Fox News.