The Massachusetts attorney general, Maura Healey, who is running for the gubernatorial nomination, issued a scathing reply to people uncomfortable with sharing a bathroom with a transgender person in 2016, telling them, “If you’ve got that much of a problem, hold it.”
Healey’s retort came in response to critics who slammed legislation that would have enabled transgender people to use a bathroom or locker room that fit their preferred gender identity.
“Healey, in addressing the panel, took aim at those who term the legislation a ‘bathroom bill,’ according to the State House News Service,” the Boston Herald reported in late April 2016.
When asked about girls feeling uncomfortable sharing a bathroom with transgenders, Maura Healey said, “then learn to hold it.”
Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce you to Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate, Maura Healey👇 pic.twitter.com/4HItEFFlV7
— Fibci (@Fibci2) March 20, 2022
Andrew Beckwith, then-president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, fired back, “I think it’s hypocritical. People like myself, organizations like the Massachusetts Family Institute that are concerned about the privacy and safety of all women and children … if we made a suggestion (about transgender people), if we said they’re expected to hold it, we would have been called bigots and haters and transphobic.
“Here’s the attorney general, who is supposed to be the chief attorney for everyone in the commonwealth, and she’s telling people like my 6-year-old daughter that she has to hold it?” he added.
“Healey, the country’s first openly gay AG, swiftly emerged as the frontrunner in the Democratic race when she announced her candidacy in January,” MassLive reported. “She faces Democratic state Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz, who became Massachusetts’ first Latina and Asian-American state senator in 2008.”
Jason Burrell, a former aide to Sen, Elizabeth Warren, has joined Healey’s campaign as campaign manager.
Earlier this month, GOP gubernatorial hopeful Chris Doughty, who is facing off against former state Rep. Geoff Diehl for the GOP nomination, created an online petition for a gas tax moratorium in the face of spiraling gas prices, suggesting that taxes be suspended until the price of gas falls to $3.70 or less per gallon but would be reinstituted if average prices returned to $4 per gallon.
Doughty wrote in the petition:
There is one thing on everyone’s mind – the price of gas. Here in Massachusetts the price has skyrocketed 54 cents in just one week. Ouch! We need relief. That’s why yesterday I called for a suspension of the state’s gas tax. Guess who has had nothing to say about the gas tax or the pain at the pump?
Answer: Maura Healey.
You and I know why she has been MIA on this issue. MIA Maura has no intention of working to make Massachusetts more affordable. Like so many others at the State House, they believe they are entitled to your savings and your paychecks. I believe you should be able to keep more! I am here to stop them.
“Healey’s war chest surpassed $4.2 million at the end of February, according to campaign finance reports. Doughty trailed far behind at $467,586.38, followed by Chang-Díaz at $351,058.75 and Diehl at $132,011.61,” MassLive noted.