POLITICS
More Transphobic Bloomberg Comments Surface
Democratic hopeful also faces tough scrutiny on race and gender issues
BY MATT TRACY
Presidential candidate
Mike Bloomberg last
year referred to transgender
women as “he,
she, or it” and “some guy wearing
a dress,” adding to the former Republican
New York City mayor’s
problematic record on issues like
race, gender, and LGBTQ rights.
Bloomberg made the comments
at a Bermuda Business Development
Agency event in Manhattan
on March 21 of last year and said
those words while he was explaining
why he believed presidential
candidates would not win if they
prioritized transgender rights.
“If your conversation during a
presidential election is about some
guy wearing a dress and whether
he, she, or it can go to the locker
room with their daughter, that’s
not a winning formula for most
people,” Bloomberg said, according
to a YouTube video that appears to
have been removed from the platform.
BuzzFeed News reported on
the video clip on February 18 and
the video was subsequently reposted
on Twitter and distributed
widely.
The comments surfaced just
weeks after a video showed
Bloomberg pushing a classist and
transphobic narrative about Midwestern
voters during an event
at Britain’s Oxford University in
2016. While there, he similarly
referred to trans women as men
“wearing a dress” and suggested
that folks from the Midwest do not
accept LGBTQ rights. Rather, he
insinuated that only educated and
wealthy people understand queer
issues.
“If you want to know if someone
is a good salesman, give him
the job of going to the Midwest,
and picking a town, and selling to
that town the concept that some
man wearing a dress should be in
a locker room with their daughter,”
Bloomberg said in a video
published on Twitter by journalist
Walker Bragman. “If you can
sell that, you can sell anything.
I mean, they just look at ya and
As he prepares for his fi rst faceoff against rival Democratic presidential hopefuls on Super Tuesday, Mike Bloomberg faces a spiraling controversy about the
way in which he has discussed transgender people and their rights, even in the recent past.
say, ‘What on earth are you talking
about?’ And you say, ‘Well, this
person identifi es as her gender as
different than what’s on her birth
certifi cate.’… ‘What do you mean?
You’re either born this or you’re
born that.’”
Bloomberg, who was mayor from
2002 to 2013, has most prominently
faced stinging criticism for
the proliferation of racist stop-andfrisk
incidents during his tenure,
but the 2020 hopeful has still
managed to climb in the polls after
dumping hundreds of millions
of dollars — and counting — on
television ads. His increased exposure
has also led to other revelations,
including a 2011 PBS interview
during which Bloomberg said
an “enormous cohort” of Black and
Latino men “don’t know how to behave
in the workplace.”
The billionaire’s record on queer
issues, however, has also been a
longstanding issue dating back
more than a decade, as outlined
by Gay City News’ Duncan Osborne.
During his tenure as mayor,
Bloomberg made cuts to HIV/
AIDS funding in the city, challenged
a state judge’s 2005 ruling
requiring city clerks to issue marriage
licenses to same-sex couples,
and oversaw a police department
that lured gay and bisexual men
into consensual sexual encounters
at city porn shops before busting
them for prostitution after offering
to pay them for sex. During the fi -
nal years of the push for marriage
equality in New York, however,
Bloomberg was a big supporter of
the issue and, curiously, he signed
the city’s transgender rights law
during his fi rst six months in offi
ce in 2002.
Meanwhile, numerous outlets
have reported on allegations of
rampant sexism in the workplace
at his business, Bloomberg LP. In
one example, Sekiko Sakai Garrison,
a former sales representative
there, sued Bloomberg in 1997 after
she said he told her to “Kill it!”
when she told him she was pregnant.
A former Bloomberg employee
who said he was there during
that conversation told the Washington
Post, “And Mike came out
and I remember he said, ‘Are you
going to kill it?’ And that stopped
everything. And I couldn’t believe
it.”
In her complaint, Garrison described
a misogynistic culture in
which Bloomberg would frequently
refer to women by saying, “I’d fuck
that in a second” and “that’s a
great piece of ass.”
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS/ GAGE SKIDMORE
Garrison also recalled a time
when, in the presence of several colleagues,
Bloomberg combined sexism
with racism when he allegedly
hurled disturbing comments at an
employee who was unable to fi nd
a nanny to take care of her child.
“It’s a fucking baby! All you need
is some Black who doesn’t have to
speak English to rescue it from a
burning building,” Bloomberg allegedly
said.
Bloomberg’s poll numbers have
risen to match or exceed other
moderate Democratic contenders
but he trails Vermont Senator
Bernie Sanders. A national ABC/
Washington Post poll from February
14 to February 17 showed
Sanders holding the lead at 32
percent, followed by 16 percent for
former Vice President Joe Biden,
14 percent for Bloomberg, and 12
percent for Senator Elizabeth Warren
of Massachusetts.
Bloomberg’s performance in the
fi rst debate last week was widely
panned, and though he fared better
in this week’s debate in South
Carolina he is not competing in
that state’s primary on Saturday
nor did he in Nevada. His fi rst encounter
with voters themselves will
come on March 3 when 14 Super
Tuesday states hold primaries.
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