David Knowles
·Senior Editor
Wed, June 14,2023
President Biden at a Pride Month celebration on the South Lawn of the White House, June 10. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
Tensions between the Biden administration and Fox News over Saturday’s Pride Month celebration at the White House boiled over this week, with the White House accusing the conservative network of lying about the meaning of a flag displayed at the event.
“@FoxNews is characteristically lying through their teeth,” deputy press secretary Andrew Bates wrote in a tweet that linked to a Fox News piece that read: “White House flew controversial new transgender flag that promotes grooming and pedophilia, say critics.”
In the article, Fox News reporter Kerry Byrne said critics of the flag told the network “it appears to reference a cult of pedophilia infecting many institutions and represents an unwanted takeover of traditional gay symbolism.”
Bates added that “Fox never even communicated the malicious and discredited foundation of this article to the White House. Then they lie about whether we responded at all.”
Fox News deleted the tweet and reframed the article to focus on how the transgender flag “troubles some critics in the gay community.”
The Progress Pride Flag
The Progress Pride Flag displayed from the balcony of the White House.
The Biden administration hung what is known as the Progress Pride Flag at the White House to mark Pride Month. On its website, the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group, explained the flag’s origin.
“The Progress Pride Flag evolved from the Philadelphia Pride Flag and was created by Daniel Quasar. Quasar added a white, pink, and light-blue stripe to represent the Trans community,” the group said.
“While the black and brown stripes still represented communities of color, the black stripe is also a nod to the thousands of individuals that the community lost during the HIV/AIDS crisis in 1980s and 1990s. Since its creation, the flag has become very popular.”
Flag code violation?
Conservatives upset over the display of the Progress Pride Flag also claimed its placement had violated the U.S. Flag Code, which requires the “flag of the United States of America should be at the center and at the highest point of the group when a number of flags of States or localities or pennants of societies are grouped and displayed from staffs.”
Fox News ran a story on those critics on Sunday, quoting Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton, who echoed the conservative belief that transgender people are "targeting children."
“To advance revolutionary transgender agenda targeting children, Biden violates basic tenet of US Flag Code and disrespects every American service member buried under its colors,” Fitton wrote on Twitter.
But an American flag was also being flown atop the White House, claiming the highest spot on the property.
Topless trans activist
Rose Montoya at the Queerties Awards in Los Angeles, Feb. 28.
At a time when conservatives have gone after private companies like Bud Light and Target for their promotion of gay and transgender rights, and Fox News airs regular segments promoting those boycotts, the decision for the White House to proudly champion those causes has been, for some, controversial.
That controversy was fanned when transgender activist and model Rose Montoya was photographed topless at the White House event. Fox News and other conservative outlets published multiple articles about the incident.
The White House released a statement barring Montoya from attending future events.
“The behavior was simply unacceptable. We’ve been very clear about that,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Tuesday. “It was unfair to the hundreds of attendees who were there to celebrate their families. So, you know, we’re going to continue to be clear on that, and that type of behavior is, as I said, unacceptable. It’s inappropriate, it’s disrespectful. And it really does not reflect the event that we hosted to celebrate the LGBTQ+ families.”
In an Instagram video, Montoya defended her support of “freeing the nipple.”
“Conservatives are trying to use the video of me topless at the White House to try to call the community groomers, etcetera,” she said. “And I would just like to say that, first of all, going topless in Washington, D.C., is legal, and I fully support the movement in freeing the nipple because why is my chest now deemed inappropriate or illegal when I show it off, however, before coming out as trans it was not?”
‘Wannabe dictator’
Tensions between the network and the White House were also exacerbated Thursday, when Fox News briefly ran a chyron that accompanied their coverage of former President Donald Trump's arraignment on felony counts stemming from his alleged mishandling of classified documents.
“Wannabe dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested,” the chyron read.
Fox News explained Thursday that it had removed that description “immediately.”
Asked Thursday to respond to the chyron, Jean-Pierre referenced the $787 million judgement against the company in the defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems.
“There are probably about 787 million things that I can say about this,” she said. “That was wrong what we saw last night, but I don’t think I’m going to get into it.”
President Joe Biden, first lady Jill Biden and Betty Who, left in red, arrive for a Pride Month celebration on the South Lawn of the White House, Saturday, June 10, 2023, in Washington.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Transgender advocate Rose Montoya is no longer welcome at White House events after posting on social media a video of herself and two others going topless for a time at Saturday's Pride Month celebration on the South Lawn.
“The behavior was simply unacceptable,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday. “It was unfair to the hundreds of attendees who were there to celebrate their families.”
Speaking at the White House press briefing, Jean-Pierre said, “Individuals in the video certainly will not be invited to future events." The White House spokeswoman said the bare-chested display “was not a normal thing that has happened under this administration.”
President Joe Biden hosted the event to show the administration's support of the LGBTQ+ community. There has recently been a push by some Republican leaders at the state level to restrict drag shows and limit the options for youth who are seeking to transition their genders.
Biden said Saturday that he had a message for the entire community, but especially for transgender children: “You are loved. You are heard. You’re understood. And you belong.”
Parts of his speech appeared in the video posted on social media by Montoya, whose Instagram biography identifies her as an educator, model and actor.
Montoya defended her post on Instagram and Twitter, saying that “going topless in Washington, DC is legal and I fully support the movement in freeing the nipple.” She said critics of her toplessness affirmed that she is, in fact, a woman, as a man would not face similar pushback. She said she had “zero intention of trying to be vulgar or be profane in anyway," adding that she covered her nipples with her hands in the video “just to play it safe.”
Conservative outrage over transgender model posting topless video at White House Pride party
‘All you’re doing is affirming that I am a woman,’ the trans model said in response to conservative backlash
1 day ago
Rose Montoya, a trans woman who also advocates for her community, defended her decision to pose semi-topless with other trans activists during a White House Pride event over the weekend. She celebrated Pride with the other attendees and was given the chance to meet the president.
"I had the honor of attending @WhiteHouse Pride, the largest one in history where the pride flag flew for the first time," she wrote on Twitter. "This is trans joy. We're here at the White House unapologetically trans, queer, and brown."
After facing conservative backlash, she defended her decision.
Ms Montoya released a video following the backlash addressing the event and expressing their support for the “free the nipple” movement, which pushes back against the idea that women’s breasts are inherently sexual and should be covered in the name of “decency.”
She also pointed out the conservatives’ hypocrisy; while many refuse to acknowledge trans women as “real” women, she argued that their objection to their breasts only makes sense if they consider them a “real” woman.
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“I would just like to say that first of all, going topless in Washington DC is legal and I fully support the movement in freeing the nipple because why is my chest now deemed inappropriate or illegal when I show it off, however before coming out as trans it was not? All you’re doing is affirming that I am a woman. All you’re doing is saying that trans women are women because for some reason people like to sexualize women’s bodies and say that they’re inappropriate,” she said in the video.
“My transmasculine friends were showing off their top surgery scars and living in joy and I wanted to join them. And because it is perfectly within the law in Washington DC, I decided to join them and cover my nipples just to play it safe, because I wanted to be fully free and myself. I had zero intention of trying to be vulgar or be profane in any way. I was simply living in joy, living my truth, and existing in my body. Happy Pride! Free the nipple.”
She shared a video of the event on Twitter. At one point in the video Montoya can be seen exposing their breasts on the White House lawn near the Truman Balcony. A voice can be heard off camera asking "are we topless at the White House?"
A pair of transmasculine individuals who underwent top surgery also posed topless next to Montoya, who uses she/they pronouns.
Some social media commenters — mostly conservatives — offered their apoplectic reactions to the video.
Todd Starnes, a former Fox News staffer who was fired for saying Democrats worship the child-sacrifice-demanding pagan god Moloch, tut tutted at the sight of breasts near the White House.
"Could someone explain why transgender activists were permitted to disrobe in front of children on the White House lawn during Biden's gaypalooza?" he wrote on Twitter, along with the hashtags "pervert" and "criminal."
While children did attend the event, it is unclear if any children were present when the activists posed topless, or if that video was shot in a more secluded portion of the lawn.
CJ Pearson, another former Fox News commenter, lamented the "shame" of the event.
"This is the White House. Joe Biden has brought more shame onto this country than any other President in American history," Mr Pearson, whose presidential preference is a twice indicted former reality television host, wrote.
Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik offered similar rage.
“OK, so who is running the f******* White House and allowing this deviant garbage to go on right outside the oval office?” the former official, whose city is known for a man nicknamed "The Naked Cowboy," wrote. “We know it’s not @JoeBiden – this dude has no idea where he is. So who is it? Who is the cause of this international embarrassment?”
Karol Markowicz, a columnist at the New York Post and Fox News, argued that conservatives would condemn a conservative president who "befouled" the White House.
"Again, if a Republican president befouled the White House like this there would be a dozen thinkpieces from conservatives about how wrong it is. Where are the sane liberals calling this disgusting behaviour out?" she wrote on Twitter. "Stop hiding under your beds."
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