When Florida Man Matt Gaetz body shamed a 19-year-old Texas abortion rights activist, it’s safe to say he bit off more than he could chew.
Gaetz had this to say at a Turning Point USA speech in Florida on Saturday: “Why is it that women with the least likelihood of getting pregnant are the ones most worried about having abortions? Nobody wants to impregnate you if you look like a thumb. These people are odious from the inside out,” Gaetz added. “They’re like 5’2″, 350 pounds.”
After his comments at the weekend rally at the conservative Turning Point USA Student Action Summit drew condemnation, Gaetz was asked by a reporter whether he believed that women who attended abortion rights rallies were “ugly and overweight,” and he doubled down on his comments. When asked what he had to say to people who were offended by those comments, he said: “Be offended.”
The insult didn’t go unnoticed by Olivia Julianna.
In apparent retaliation, Gaetz then tweeted an image of her next to a news story that mentioned his comments from the rally. The tweet went viral and unloaded a barrage of vile comments from Gaetz followers.
And then Olivia Julianna got even, and began fundraising for Gen Z for Change, a 500-person youth-led group that says it seeks to create tangible change on “issues that disproportionately affect young people” and supports abortion rights.
“I would like Matt Gaetz to know he picked the wrong activist” to start a fight with, Olivia Julianna said.
The donations will be split among 50 abortion funds, with the goal of widening access to abortion services, birth control, contraceptives, among other reproductive health-care services, she said.
Olivia Julianna grew up as a queer Latina in a small conservative rural Texas community. “I’ve been mocked, ridiculed and harassed for most of my life. I will not tolerate that kind of behavior anymore,” she said.