Bette Midler has come under fire on social media after she tweeted about the “erasure” of women as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, comments that some people saw as transphobic.
On Sunday, in what appeared to be a reference to the Roe news, Midler tweeted: “WOMEN OF THE WORLD! They deprive us of our rights to our bodies, our lives and even our names! We are no longer called “women”; they call us “childbearing” or “menstruating” and even “vagina people”! Don’t let them delete you! Every person on earth is in your debt!”
The tweet sparked a firestorm of controversy, garnering more than 20,000 responses, a significant number of which criticized Midler for using language that some considered anti-trans because it excluded trans people who needed abortion care. The more extreme backlash saw some users accuse Midler of being a “TERF” or trans-exclusionary reactionary feminist, an epithet that has been used against JK Rowling. Some have even floated the idea of boycotting Disney+’s upcoming Hocus Pocus sequel, in which Midler reprises her role as Winifred.
Among the usual backlash on Twitter, author Katie Mack summed up the issue with Midler’s tweet, “The term ‘pregnant people’ includes pregnant women and also people who are pregnant but not women. This in no way erases/negates women; it’s just more inclusive. I am a woman. I have friends who are not women but can get pregnant. The language that includes them doesn’t hurt me.
The backlash against Midler comes as some states seek to limit healthcare options for transgender people. In February, Texas Governor Greg Abbott instructed state health agencies to begin investigating parents who allow their transgender children to receive gender-affirming surgeries. Abbott describes such operations as “child abuse.”
On Tuesday, in an effort to provide context to her original tweet, Midler shared a New York Times op-ed by Pamela Paul on her Twitter account. Paul’s article claims that “the far right and the far left have found one thing they can agree on: women don’t count.”
Sharing the link, Midler tweeted: “WORLD PEOPLE! My tweet about women was in response to this fascinating and well-written article in the NYT on July 3rd. There was no intention of anything exclusionary or transphobic in what I said; it wasn’t about that.”
She continued: “It was about the same old shitty women – ALL WOMEN – who have suffered since the caveman days. Even then, men got the highest fees.’
The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to Midler’s representatives for comment.
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