Utah’s Republican-dominated legislature has taken unusual action in condemning the transphobic behavior of Natalie Cline, a member of the State Department of Education.
Last month, Cline shared a flier for a high school basketball team on Facebook. She commented, “Girl’s basketball…” and implied that one athlete on the team was transgender. The student in question, a 16-year-old, subsequently received a firestorm of harassment both online and in person. It got so bad that, according to the girl’s school district, they had to appoint police protection for her to continue attending classes. Her parents described that she was not, in fact, transgender, but rather a “tomboy” who has her “own style.”
Soon after, Cline deleted her original post. She expressed her “deepest apologies” to the girl’s family, but strangely, she then seemed to imply that it was transgender people’s fault that she had made such an egregious error. She wrote, “(The student) does have a larger build, like her parents… We live in strange times when it is normal to pause and wonder if people are what they say they are because of the push to normalize transgenderism in our society.” Cline has a history of spreading transphobic rhetoric, as with a post she made last Independence Day claiming that schools were responsible for “grooming” children into “queer, gender-bending ideologies.”
It’s no surprised that Cline’s halfhearted “apology” didn’t sway over the student’s parents, who started to call for her resignation. What is surprising is that they seem to have the support of some of the state’s most conservative lawmakers. State Representative Kera Birkeland (R), who sponsored a bill banning trans women from women’s athletics two years ago, says, “It is not brave or responsible to attack someone based on their outward appearance, especially when it’s a child. It’s horrible.” And what’s more, Governor Spencer Cox (R) just recently signed the “House Concurrent Resolution Condemning and Censuring State School Board Member Natalie Cline,” a resolution condemning Cline drafted by Utah’s Republican-dominated legislature. Utah’s Department of Education also voted to strip Cline of her powers and requested her immediate resignation.
However, it seems like Cline isn’t ready to quit. Instead, she’s decided to double down on her decisions, claiming that the Republican party is holding her to a double standard. She tells local news, “You can’t step into this arena without making mistakes, and there is not a single person who has gotten into office that has done everything perfectly. But I have done my very best. I say make your decision at the ballot box, and I am fine with whatever way the voter decides.”
Photo courtesy of social media
