Anti-Trans Stickers Surface in Manhattan
Gay couple confronts transphobes spreading hateful messages
BY TAT BELLAMY-WALKER
A gay couple from Hamilton
Heights told Gay
City News they witnessed
two women
plastering transphobic stickers
throughout the district.
“Trans women Are Men, and
Most Have a Penis,” the sticker
read.
Simon Chartrand, 28, and his
partner, Sean Baugh, 33, said
they were on their way to visit a
pharmacy along 144th Street and
Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan
when they fi rst noticed the stickers.
Moments later, the couple saw
the individuals slapping the labels
onto lampposts and near sidewalks.
“That’s the kind of discrimination
that gets people killed,” said
Chartrand, who is a transgender
man. “Any child can see that type
A gay couple claims two women plastered transphobic stickers throughout Hamilton Heights.
of thing and act on it. Any adult
can see that type of thing and act
on it.”
According to a cellphone video of
the incident posted on Facebook,
the couple confronted the women
about the stickers.
“You have a couple of transphobic
people right here, discriminating
people, hanging these transphobic
stickers up,” yelled Chartrand in
FACEBOOK/SIMON CHARTRAND
the video. “You know being transphobic
kills people!”
During the video, the couple is
heard swearing and telling them to
move out of New York. In response,
the individuals protested that the
couple is misogynistic.
“I wanted to call it out because I
didn’t want it to be swept under the
rug,” Chartrand said.
This is not the fi rst time these
CRIME
stickers have been posted, according
to Chartrand, who said his
friends have spotted these labels
on multiple occasions in locations
across lower Manhattan.
As it turns out, the stickers
have a long history: In 2019,
known trans-exclusionary feminist
(TERF) Posie Parker — who
once made headlines when she
harassed Sarah McBride, who is
now a state senator in Delaware
— released the transphobic sticker
campaign that has now made its
way to the streets of New York. A
green version of the stickers are
still on sale.
“These stickers are as dangerous
as a lethal weapon, use with
care,” reads a description below
the sticker on Parker’s website,
StandingforWomen.
➤ STICKERS, continued on p.9
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