A Republican Mississippi lawmaker raised more than $1,600 for a breast cancer charity after a critic tried to smear him as a “groomer” over a costume he wore to a 2020 breast cancer fundraiser, The Mississippi Free Press reports.
State Sen. Jeremy England was participating in the American Cancer Society's “Real Men Wear Pink” awareness initiative when he attended the 2020 Halloween fundraiser wearing a “pink onesie with a mesh skirt and dyed his hair to match,” according to the report.
England told The Free Press that criticism over the costume started shortly after he appeared in a television ad voicing support for Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who is running for re-election in the Aug. 8 Republican primary.
England said he received a text message from Melanie Sojourner, a state senate Republican colleague who is backing Hosemann’s opponent, suggesting she'd seen potentially damaging information against him.
“My family and I were just sitting there eating dinner and a text pops up from Melanie Sojourner — just my picture there with pink hair and a pink onesie. … It was an obvious attempt to let me know that she thought she had a shameful picture of me. It felt like they were trying to retaliate or bully me,” England told The Free Press.
England said he explained to his colleague that he wore the costume amid the pandemic when fundraising presented challenges, and that Sojourner appeared to accept the explanation.
But the next day he saw a tweet, reportedly from the supporter of his opponent, that called England a “groomer weirdo.”
“Hosemann and his groomer weirdos don’t have a chance on August 8th,” it said.
Ashton Pittman writes for The Free Press that, “The ‘groomer’ smear has been frequently used against LGBTQ+ people, but is also increasingly used against anyone who defies gender norms in any way — including by dressing up in a costume for a single night of trick-or-treating and fundraising.”
England decided to put the smear against him to good use, telling The Free Press on Wednesday that he decided to “see if we can’t raise some money off of some dirty politics today and turn this into a good cause while calling people out for shameful behavior.”
He has so far raised $1,600 for breast cancer awareness, the report said.
