“Gregory, Gregory, Gregory. It’s hard enough with you being an intolerable, soulless and empty shell of a human being. But how do you continue to live with yourself with a hairline looking like that?” Billy Porter says in a new PSA directed at Texas governor Greg Abbott. “Is that a lacefront?”
The Emmy, Grammy and newly minted two-time Tony winner has teamed up with poet and influencer Lynae Vanee for a pair of “Transphobe Takedowns,” a campaign in support of Strands for Trans, a movement encouraging barbershops and salons to be trans-friendly. The movement was started in 2017 by Barba Grooming Salon in New York City.
As two of the nation’s most vocal transphobic politicians, Abbott and Texan senator Ted Cruz each have a takedown dedicated to them. “I know it’s confusing based on the history of this country but no, you do not get to build policy off of your religious beliefs. The separation of church and state is not limited to buildings, my boy,” Vanee says. “It actually applies rather specifically to your personal biases and how they affect personal biases and how they affect policy making.”
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Adds Porter, “People just want to go to the bathroom in peace, but you just keep putting your greasy-ass head in it!”
To ensure its message reaches its target audience, Strands for Trans announced that it will “crash” the Texas State Republican Convention, currently taking place June 16-18 in Houston, by boosting the PSAs directly into the phones of convention attendees via geo-targeting the convention center. “Petty? Maybe a little,” the press release reads. “Necessary? 100 percent.”
The PSAs conclude with a call to action to visit Strands for Trans’ website, where businesses can add their names to the listing of trans-friendly barbershops and salons (more than 7,500 across the country have already done so) and send emails condemning transphobic legislation to their local lawmakers in Texas, Georgia, Alabama, Florida and South Carolina.
Watch the Transphobe Takedowns below.
