Messages of hate target local transgender community

BOSTON — Gay and transgender advocates are raising concern after fliers were circulated in Massachusetts and New Hampshire with messages of hate against proposed policies to end discrimination.

Sunday, residents in South Boston and Roxbury found fliers on their cars that called a proposed bill to prohibit businesses from discriminating against people based on their gender identity “unfair and unsafe.”

The flier also cited incidents in other states where “men have been entering women’s locker rooms, disrobing and refusing to leave. They are not even ‘identifying’ as female.”

“They didn’t put the source of that information on there, which I think is very revealing, ” said Matt Wilder, a spokesman for Freedom Massachusetts. “Our message on these fliers is that they are complete lies.”

In New Hampshire, where school officials are discussing new policies to create gender neutral bathrooms, another flier was circulated last week that referred to transgender students as “pedophiles.”

“The language that they use, quite frankly, is disgusting,” Wilder said.

Wilder and others are working with a bipartisan coalition to push Massachusetts’s transgender public accommodations law through the legislature.

Wilder said with the backlash in North Carolina after state leaders passed a bill that forces people to use a bathroom based on the gender listed on their birth certificate, transgender advocates are keeping a close eye on misinformation that is being passed around.

“We are asking people to open their minds, do their own research, and not necessarily believe what they read on a sheet of paper,” Wilder told FOX25.

FOX25 contacted the organization listed on the flier found in South Boston, Renew MA Coalition, but representatives did not return a request for comment.

Cox Media Group