Republican Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears slammed a racially-charged sign directed at her and waved by a left-wing supporter of transgender ideology, in an ad released Friday morning.
Earle-Sears’ ad blasts her opponent in the 2025 Virginia gubernatorial race, former Virginia Rep. Abigail Spanberger, over her refusal to comment on the issue, and also prominently features the sign which reads, “Hey Winsome, if trans can’t share your bathroom, then blacks can’t share my water foundation.” A white woman was photographed holding the sign at a protest against the black GOP gubernatorial nominee’s speech condemning gender ideology policies at the Arlington County Public School Board meeting Thursday night.
“I’m disgusted, but not surprised. This is the ‘tolerant’ left Abigail Spanberger defends,” Earle-Sears wrote on X late Thursday, after pictures of the sign began to circulate on social media. “There is no place for this disgusting hatred in our Commonwealth. Anyone who doesn’t condemn this sign is complicit in approving it.”
Arlington Public Schools is one of the five northern Virginia school districts to keep its gender identity policies in place, despite the Trump administration determining that such policies violate civil rights laws. Although Spanberger has been silent over the policy controversy, a spokesperson for the candidate said she made a public comment specifically condemning the protester’s racist sign, adding, “Abigail condemns this repulsive display. It’s racist, abhorrent, and unacceptable.”
Spanberger on Friday afternoon sent an X post from her campaign account condemning the sign.
“As I said yesterday, the sign displayed in Arlington last night was racist and abhorrent,” she wrote in the post. “Many Virginians remember the segregated water fountains (and buses and schools and neighborhoods) of Virginia’s recent history. And no matter the intended purpose or tone and no matter how much one might find someone else’s beliefs objectionable, to threaten a return of Jim Crow and segregation to a Black woman is unacceptable.”
Once the woman who created the sign realized it was sparking controversy online, she told FOX5 DC, “It was satire meant to provoke conversation around the absurdity of prejudice. If anyone thinks we are actually supporting separate drinking fountains based on race they are mistaken.”
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