Virginia lieutenant governor offers awkward 'apology' after misgendering trans lawmaker Danica Roem

Virginia’s lieutenant governor has apologized — awkwardly — after misgendering Sen. Danica Roem during Monday’s Senate session.

Roem, the first transgender person to serve in any state legislature, directed a “parliamentary inquiry” to Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, who was presiding over the session, regarding how many votes it would take to pass a bill on prescription drug prices with an emergency clause.

“And what would be the exact number for that, Madam President?” asked Roem, a Democrat and a trans woman. “Yes, sir, that would be 32,” replied Earle-Sears, a Republican.

Sears Calls Roem Sirwww.youtube.com

Roem then walked out of the chamber. Earle-Sears initially refused to apologize, and the Senate went into recess twice before she finally did, reports The Progress-Index, a newspaper in Petersburg, Va.

However, she made the apology somewhat about her, as she said Senate Democrats had shown disrespect to her. “I upset Senator Roem,” Earle-Sears said. “Let it be known I am not here to upset anyone. I am here to do the job the people of Virginia have called me to do, and that is to treat everyone with respect and dignity. I myself have at times not been afforded that same respect and dignity.”

“But in this body, as long as I am president of the Senate and by the grace of God, I will be treated with respect and dignity, and I will treat everyone else with respect and dignity,” she continued. She said she had misspoken before, calling people by the wrong name and referring to the Senate as the House.

“It is never my intention to make anyone offended, and I hope that others would consider that they would try not to offend me as well,” she said. “We are all equal under the law. And so I apologize, I apologize, I apologize, and I would hope, I would hope, that everyone would understand there is no intent to offend but that we would also give each other the ability to forgive each other.”

“I have seen us conduct ourselves in ways that we would not expect of our own children or nieces or nephews, and so I would hope that we would take this opportunity to be kind to each other, to be gracious to each other, to be about the people’s business,” the lieutenant governor added.

Sears Non Apology Apologywww.youtube.com

Roem was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 2017 and to the state’s Senate last year, making her the nation’s second out trans state senator — Sarah McBride in Delaware was the first — as well as the first in Virginia or in any southern state. Earle-Sears, elected lieutenant governor in 2021, is the first Black woman in that position and therefore the first to preside over the state Senate.

The Advocate has sought comment from both but has not received a response. Roem has declined comment to several other outlets. However, Progress Virginia, a liberal group, is lambasting Earle-Sears.

She has a “troubling history of anti-LGBTQ+ commentary,” according to a Progress Virginia press release. It quotes her, as lieutenant governor, saying school boards seeking to protect the privacy of LGBTQ+ students were “mak[ing] policies that destroy families.” In a newspaper column in 2004, she wrote, “I also believe our society has gone immeasurably beyond almost all standards in accommodating the homosexual community [over] the last couple of decades.”

She has “accused the LGBTQ+ community of co-opting the movement for Black civil rights,” the press release notes, and in her run for lieutenant governor, she had the support of E.W. Jackson, a virulently anti-LGBTQ+ minister who sought the position in 2013. She attended Regent University, a conservative Christian school founded by homophobic televangelist Pat Robertson.

“Senator Danica Roem was gracious in the face of the Lieutenant Governor’s disrespect, but the fact is that she shouldn’t have to deal with that nonsense in her workplace,” LaTwyla Matthias, executive director of Progress Virginia, said in the press release. “We support Senator Roem and every other LGBTQ+ community member who has to face this kind of unprofessional conduct from people in power. Winsome Sears’s tired old bigotry is a relic of a previous age, and we applaud Senator Roem and other progressive voices in the General Assembly for their continued work to move our Commonwealth forward.”

Pictured, from left: Winsome Earle-Sears and Danica Roem