Boebert Watch: Boebert Takes on Disney…and Transgender Athletes

Representative Lauren Boebert is no fan of the House of the Mouse.

She made that clear in a tweet responding to the Walt Disney Company’s recent denouncement of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, a complicated measure with undefined parameters that not only bans classroom instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity, but allows parents offended by such instruction to file suit against a school district.

After an initial response that was considered too conservative by many within the company, Disney issued a statement on March 28 saying that HB 1557 “should never have passed and should never have been signed into law,” and vowed to support any appeal.

After that, Boebert, never one to shy away from stepping into an issue that she doesn’t fully understand, tweeted this: “Next year, the woke Disney lobbyists will ask Congress to extend Micky Mouse’s trademark.I think not.”
Which, of course, immediately brought responses from people who pointed out the misspelling of the name of the world’s most famous mouse, as well as some intellectual property confusion. Writer and historian Kevin M. Kruse tweeted “Mickey, not Micky. Copyright, not trademark. Other than that, great tweet.”
Sarcasm aside, it was yet another excellent example of why Lauren Boebert is a terrible representative for Colorado. How does she still have supporters? Are they simply happy she spelled “mouse” right?

But the low academic bar is not the real problem: It’s the anger that Boebert has weaponized. Just look at how she’s grabbed on to the issue of transgender men and women in sports. In the last week, she’s posted about the subject seven times — an average of once every day. “I’ve had enough of the woke foolishness,” she said on March 30, declaring that she’s “leading a House Resolution to declare Emma Weyant the winner of the NCAA Women’s 500 yard freestyle swim,” in which transgender athlete Lia Thomas took top honors. She ended with this: “You cannot be a man and win a women’s swimming race.”

Since then, she’s praised Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt for signing the “Save Women’s Sports Act,” which seeks to prevent transgender Americans from participating in sporting events not in line with the gender assigned at birth. She’s working to make a hero out of Weyant, who hasn’t commented on the situation except to shake hands to congratulate Thomas after the race. The third- and fourth-place finishers in the race, Erica Sullivan and Brooke Forde, have come forth to offer Thomas absolute support; both have written publicly about the rights of transgender athletes, and specifically about Lia Thomas.

Not that niggling details like facts bother Boebert. She’s all about the big picture, so long as that big picture angers-up her outraged base and supports her fundraising and re-election hopes. So it makes sense that she's attached herself to the "Don't Say Gay" bill, heavily pushed by guy-you-wouldn't-buy-a-used-car-from Governor Ron DeSantis. Since DeSantis is a Trump wannabe, and Boebert ran on the slimy fake-tan coattails of the Donald, she's now hooking her simple wagon to DeSantis's star, questionable as it is.

If Boebert does win her re-election bid this November, it's safe to say that she won't be grinning into the camera, giving a victorious thumbs-up  and saying, "I'm going to Disney World!" 

But Florida? Laughing it up at Mar-a-Lago? Entirely possible.