Sen. Tommy Tuberville calls trans people 'deranged' and rants about furry pilots in bizarre speech

This story originally appeared on Them.

Tommy Tuberville, the U.S. Senator from Alabama who is currently the Republican nominee for the state’s governor, said that transgender people are “deranged” in a speech on the floor of Congress on Tuesday.

Appearing next to a poster featuring a pregnant man emoji that read, “Transgenderism Is a Mental Disease,” Tuberville opened his speech by saying that he wanted to speak about “people who the left refers to as ‘transgender’,” saying that he would instead use the term “gender-confused” because the term “transgender,” in his view, “implies that it is possible for a person to change their God-given sex.”

Throughout the speech, Tuberville made multiple derogatory references to transgender people, including saying, “It is not normal. It is a cry for help, and our society needs to stop affirming people who are suffering from this mental illness.”

Later in the speech, Tuberville says that there is “significantly overlap” between “people who are gender confused and the furry community.” After intentionally conflating trans people and furries, the lawmaker went on to outline why he believes they should not be allowed to pilot planes.

“When you walk onto a commercial flight, it’s possible that the pilot flying your plane could have a deranged fetish of dressing up like an animal,” Tuberville said, before going on to suggest that we “bring back mental institutions as a normal part of our society.”

He later said, “Why is the Democrat Socialist party elevating these people who are clearly mentally deranged? Why is that happening? Joe Biden had multiple gender-confused people working in high-profile jobs in his administration." Though he did not name former Health and Human Services assistant secretary Rachel Levine or assistant Secretary of Defense for Readiness Shawn Skelley by name, he did mention that Biden had such people working in both the HHS and the Department of Defense, making it obvious to whom he was likely referring.,.

Tuberville not only criticized trans people themselves, he also said doctors who treat trans people are guilty of “medical malpractice” and that parents who support their trans kids are guilty of child abuse. These comments mirror past remarks the politician has made against parents who affirm their children. Following Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde’s mention of transgender children during National Cathedral prayer service for the Jnauary 2025 presidential inauguration, Tuberville wrote on social media that trans kids should “live in fear of their parents and the sick people that enable those ‘guardians,’” going on to once again call support for trans kids “child abuse” and an “absolute disgrace.”

In January 2025, Tuberville reintroduced federal legislation to ban trans women and girls from competing on sports teams that match their gender identity. Tuberville had first introduced the legislation in 2023; however, Democrats banded together to block the federal ban that March.

The Alabama Trans Rights Coalition criticized Tuberville’s speech in a statement issued on Tuesday to local news website AL.com.

“Tuberville’s comments reveal his desperation to keep the narrative focused on culture war issues, instead of trying to solve the real problems Alabamians are facing,” Tris Wilson, an organizer for ATRC, said. “Tuberville may not like the word ‘transgender,’ but science and medicine affirm the existence of a spectrum of gender that includes cisgender and transgender people alike.” Wilson continued, “We just want to be free to participate in society like everyone else.”

Tuberville’s speech also represents an ongoing rhetorical conflation between transgender people and the furry community, which has included several right-wing politicians lying by claiming that schools have supplied litter boxes for students identifying as animals.

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