US President Joe Biden has rejected criticism over his annual proclamation of March 31 as Transgender Visibility Day, which this year coincided with Easter Sunday. His ambiguous remarks on the matter, however, were perceived by his critics as a flat denial of the move he had made just a day before.
Biden was pressed on the matter by reporters and asked about the criticism, voiced by Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, who called the step “outrageous and abhorrent’ tradition-busting moves.”
The president stated the speaker was “thoroughly uninformed” on the matter, producing what appeared to be a flat denial to a follow-up question on how exactly Johnson was “uninformed.”
I didn’t do that.
The remarks re-ignited the criticism, with Johnson taking to X (formerly Twitter) to poke fun at the president and posting a screenshot of Biden’s proclamation of March 31 as the Transgender Day of Visibility.
“This you, Joe Biden?” the speaker wrote.
Some, however, translated the president’s remarks as an attempt to explain that he was not the one to introduce the tradition in the first place, rather than a denial of his own move.
The proclamation dates back to 2009, when then-President Barak Obama introduced it shortly after assuming office, marking March 31 as Transgender Visibility Day. The date will not coincide with Easter Sunday for decades to come.
The White House appeared to back this position as well, with Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre insisting any backlash over the president’s move was “misinformation.”
“So surprised by the misinformation that’s been out there around this and I want to be very clear: every year for the past several years on March 31, Transgender Day of Visibility is marked,” she stated, adding that the nature of the situation was evident “for folks who understand the calendar and how it works.”
“Easter falls on different Sundays, right, every year, and this year it happened to coincide with Transgender Visibility Day. And so that is the simple fact. That is what has happened. That is where we are,” she explained.
Still, the affair has triggered a storm of criticism from prominent Christians and conservatives alike, getting further aggravated by the fact that the Biden administration has opted to ban children participating in the Easter Egg design contest from using religiously themed designs.