Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — she’s just like us? The New York Democrat seemed to struggle to consistently use the preferred gender-neutral terminology when discussing Texas’ abortion ban Tuesday on CNN
SO WHAT
It’s hard to be both a feminist and a transgender ally these days.
WHAT HAPPENED
As she bemoaned the new Texas’ “heartbeat law” to CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, Ocasio-Cortez variously referred to its supposed victims as “women,” “people who do give birth” and “any menstruating person.”
Money quote: “None of this is about supporting life,” Ocasio-Cortez said of the Texas abortion ban. “What this is about is controlling women’s bodies and controlling people who are not cisgender men. This is about making sure that someone like me, as a woman or any menstruating person in this country, cannot make decisions over their own body.”
WHAT THEY SAID
Conservatives on Twitter mocked Ocasio-Cortez for the uncharacteristic lapse in wokeness.
- “HAHAHAHA. AOC just tripped over the lingo for a ‘menstruating woman’ with on CNN. Jumped from woman to female to person,” tweeted radio host Erick Erickson.
MEANWHILE
Some commentators on the left have protested mainstream liberals’ feminist framing of the stake in Texas.
- “Stop writing [S]ubstack posts and articles that talk about Texas women being in trouble or Tex[a]s women’s bodily autonomy being under siege,” progressive journalist Imani Gandy tweeted Thursday. “It’s pregnant Texans. Pregnant people. It’s ignorance and cruelty at this point. That’s how I view it and I know a lot of you know better.”