Thread by @jbendery

In light of Youngkin's win last night, I'd just note the role that Senate Republicans played in trying to help him win by ginning up fear, anger + transphobia over a misreported sexual assault incident in a Virginia school. huffpost.com/entry/republic…

During this Judiciary Committee hearing in late Oct, nearly every Republican focused on a May incident involving a teenage boy sexually assaulting a teenage girl at a high school in Loudoun County, Va.

This was a hearing for a nominee to a California-based U.S. court seat.

I did a whole thread on this at the time because it was bizarre and made no sense why Senate Republicans were doing this -- until you considered what they were doing in the context of the tight Virginia governor's race.

https://twitter.com/jbendery/status/1451189037297913861

Holly Thomas, the nominee to the California-based seat on a U.S. appeals court, didn't even know about the Virginia school incident. Why would she?

She said so at the start of the hearing. But every Republican used their time to talk about it.

Republican senators were doing this at a time when national conservative media outlets were amplifying an inaccurate, transphobic narrative about what happened with this sexual assault at a Virginia high school school.

Not a coincidence.

Conservative media outlets were blaming a Virginia school's trans-inclusive bathroom policy for a "gender fluid" boy going into the girls' bathroom to rape a girl.

One by one, Senate GOPers amplified this false story in an unrelated hearing for a California court nominee.

But this was not a case of a girl being ambushed in a girls' bathroom by a "gender fluid" boy.

It was 2 teens who had been regularly using the girls' bathroom for consensual encounters, and then one of their encounters turned into a horrific rape. huffpost.com/entry/gop-virg…

The school didn't even have a trans-inclusive bathroom policy in place when this happened.

Even if it did, there is no evidence that trans-inclusive bathrooms enable predators to attack women.

But Republicans distorted a story about a young girl being raped for political gain.

The lies and transphobia Senate Republicans were spreading in the context of a young girl being raped were disgusting.

And look who put out a press release the day after the Senate hearing, saying Terry McAuliffe didn't care about this incident. Youngkin!

Here's a breakdown of the Senate hearing where this all went down.

A disgusting and cynical attempt at scoring political points that didn't get much media attention. huffpost.com/entry/republic…

What's especially infuriating about this is that a young girl was raped by someone she knew -- an all-too-common form of violence in this country -- and not a peep out of any of these concerned Republicans senators when the facts of this story came out.

In related news, the Violence Against Women Act's authorization expired 2 years ago and hasn't been renewed because of... opposition from Senate Republicans.

There's supposedly a bipartisan Senate bill coming, but it's just been crickets. huffpost.com/entry/senate-v…