‘I don’t come from your planet’
McGowan gets in argument with trans woman
The book tour for her new memoir BRAVE may have only just begun, but on a Thursday night appearance at Barnes & Noble in New York, Rose McGowan launched into a headlinegrabbing shouting match with a trans woman.
McGowan had been answering pre-submitted questions from the audience when the woman interrupted to ask about her controversial comments on sexual misconduct in the trans community.
The woman said, “I have a suggestion. Talk about what you said on RuPaul. Trans women are dying and you said that we, as trans women, are not like regular women. We get raped more often. We go through domestic violence more often. There was a trans woman killed here a few blocks (away). I have been followed home —.”
McGowan cut her off and said, “Hold on. So am I. We are the same. My point was, we are the same. There’s an entire show called ID channel, a network, dedicated to women getting abused, murdered, sexualized, violated, and you’re a part of that, too, sister. It’s the same.”
The woman then said McGowan has “done nothing” for the trans community, which incited a heated exchange between the pair, during which McGowan shouted such things as “I don’t come from your planet;” “We are the same;” and “Leave me alone.”
She later added, as the woman was being removed from the event by security, “And you can label this thing as a breakdown. That, motherf-- kers, is a breakdown. Maybe not for me, but for you. ... Stop boxing everybody into s-- t. I didn’t agree to your cis f--king world. OK? F--k off.”
She continued to reiterate that, in her opinion, trans women have no difference in experience than cis women: “Trans women are women and what I’ve been trying to say is that it’s the same. The stats are not that dissimilar. When you break it down, it is a much smaller population. There’s not a network here devoted to your f-- king death. There’s not advertisers advertising tampons with a camera lovingly going up a girl’s body as she’s being lovingly raped and strangled. Piss off. And until you can collect that f-- king cheque, back up. My name is Rose McGowan and I am obviously f--king brave.”
Her event at the bookstore followed a similarly awkward appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, during which she declared that she is “comfortable with discomfort.”
The following day, during an on- stage interview with journalist Ronan Farrow at New York’s 92Y, McGowan said she believes the trans woman at Barnes & Noble was a “paid plant.” Her implication being that Harvey Weinstein, who she accused of raping her in 1997, is still “going after her.”
Earlier this week, Weinstein’s team released emails from Ben Affleck in an effort to disprove her claims that Affleck had been aware of the rape.