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American politician Katie Hobbs' press secretary, Josselyn Berry, was slammed online for posting a controversial tweet. On Monday, March 27, Berry posted a GIF from the 1980 crime-drama film Gloria that showed a woman holding handguns in each hand.
Captioning the since-deleted tweet, she wrote:
"Us when we see transphobes."
The since-deleted tweet was made hours after the Nashville school tragedy and after law enforcement identified the killer as a transgender person.
Josselyn Berry has since made her Twitter account private.
Republicans ask Katie Hobbs to fire Josselyn Berry over her controversial tweet
After Josselyn Berry's "us when we see transphobes" tweet gained traction, several people on Twitter slammed Katie Hobbs and her press secretary. They demanded that the politician take action on the matter.
On Wednesday, March 29, The Arizona Freedom Caucus, comprising the state's most conservative lawmakers, demanded Berry's dismissal from the position.
"Calling for violence like this is un-American & never acceptable. @joss_berry should be fired immediately."
Republican Senator Jake Hoffman leads the Caucus, which frequently opposes Hobbs' policies and promises to challenge her over her first executive order.
Senator Anthony Kern, from the Arizona Senate Republican Caucus, also issued a statement against Josselyn Berry, asking the press secretary to "resign immediately." He also called her tweet "reprehensible and massively disturbing."
In a follow-up tweet, Arizona Freedom Caucus slammed Berry for making her account private after making a "disgusting" tweet.
Several other users called out Katie Hobbs' press secretary and asked the Governor of Arizona to fire her immediately. Some of the backlash tweets are:
As per news outlet AZ Central, Josselyn Berry shared another tweet on transgender rights and progressive politics the same day. Her tweet read:
"If you work in the progressive community and are transphobic, you're not progressive."
As of this article's writing, it is unknown what she was referring to.
The backlash comes after Katie Hobbs remarked on the Nashville school shooting and wrote:
Katie has been an active supporter of LGBTQ rights ever since becoming the Arizona Governor in November 2022.
The controversy comes a day after 28-year-old Audrey Hale, a transgender person, killed three kids and three adults at The Covenant School, a small Christian school, at around 10.13 am on Monday, March 27.
Officials shared that the shooter was under an "emotional disorder" and had legally purchased seven firearms locally. Hale was using male pronouns but was assigned female when she was born.
As per The Daily Mail, the names of the three deceased adults were Katherine Koonce, Cynthia Peak, and Mike Hill. The three nine-year-old children were William Kinney, Evelyn Dieckhaus, and Hallie Scruggs.
As of this article's writing, Katie Hobbs is yet to respond to the controversy created by Josselyn Berry.
