A Montana lawmaker will continue to be silenced after telling her colleagues they would “have blood on your hands” over legislation to ban gender-affirming care for transgender children.
The state House voted to keep Democratic Montana Rep. Zooey Zephyr from participating on the chamber floor. She will be allowed to vote remotely for the remainder of the legislative session, which is set to adjourn next month.
Last week, as the state House debated amendments to the legislation that would impact transgender children, Zephyr, the first openly transgender woman elected to Montana’s legislature, was critical of the bill’s supporters, referencing an opening prayer.
“I hope the next time there’s an invocation, when you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands,” she said at the time.
The lawmaker on Wednesday told her colleagues the legislature has “systematically” targeted the LGBTQ community in Montana.
“I was not being hyperbolic,” Zephyr said of her previous comments. “I was speaking to the real consequences of the votes that we as legislators take in this body.
“And when the speaker asks me to apologize on behalf of decorum, what he is really asking me to do is be silent when my community is facing bills that get us killed. He’s asking me to be complicit in this legislature’s eradication of our community. And I refuse to do so,” she added.
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A group known as the Montana Freedom Caucus called for her censure and accused her of spreading “hateful rhetoric.” Montana House Speaker Matt Regier declined to allow Zephyr to speak on multiple bills until she apologized.
On Monday, Zephyr was barred from speaking about a measure on student and parent rights in schools. The move, approved by a vote in the state house, prompted chants of “let her speak!” from viewers in the gallery above lawmakers, and seven protesters were be arrested.
Prior to voting to punishing Zephyr, Republicans in the body accused her of inciting the group.
Reiger called the disruptions a “dark day for Montana.”
“Currently, all representatives are free to participate in House debates while following the House rules,” Regier said Tuesday. “The choice to not follow the House rules is one that Rep. Zephyr has made. The only person silencing Rep. Zephyr is Rep. Zephyr. The Montana House will not be bullied.”
The incidents in Montana come after Tennessee state Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson were expelled after participating in a gun control protest that interrupted proceedings.