Donald Trump Jr has been ridiculed after seemingly falling for a parody Twitter account that called for Aretha Franklin’s “Natural Woman” to be banned.
The account, The Trans Cultural Mindfulness Alliance (TCMA), which states that it’s run from Oslo, Norway, posted that the 1967 song was “offensive to trans women” and should be removed from Apple and Spotify but later added that the posts were “satire”.
“There is no such thing as a ‘natural’ woman,” the post argued, adding that it “perpetuates multiple harmful anti-trans stereotypes” and that it has “helped inspire acts of harm against transgender women”.
Albeit satirical, the argument that “Natural Woman” should be banned prompted outrage from many Twitter users - including the former president’s son.
“I stand with Aretha Franklin. I stand with classic, American, legendary songs,” Mr Trump Jr said in a video shared on social media.
Lawyer Ron Filipkowski tweeted that Mr Trump Jr “has become the latest right-winger to fall for the Norwegian parody account’s post demanding Apple & Spotify remove Aretha Franklin’s Natural Woman”.
“Doesn’t he claim to be an executive? Doesn’t he have a company to run? Who has the time to rant about anything and everything that trends on Twitter? Oh. Right. A useless rube,” Twitter user Matt Flammable wrote.
“It’s hilarious how hard he’s trying to imitate dad. His little mannerisms and speech nuances…anything to make daddy love him!” Jason Cirillo added.
“Will never forget his dad’s touching memorial tweet in which he mentioned ‘she worked for me’,” Leif Erickson wrote.
Following Franklin’s death in 2018, then-president Donald Trump had tweeted: “I want to begin today by expressing my condolences to the family of a person I knew well. She worked for me on numerous occasions. She was terrific.”
In a second tweet he wrote: “The Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, is dead. She was a great woman, with a wonderful gift from God, her voice. She will be missed!”
In his video rant responding to the TCMA tweet, Mr Trump Jr railed against the “woke mob”.
“Now they have to attack the song Natural Woman. But I’m told folks, I’m told that trans women are women. Right?” he said. “They can breastfeed, they can get pregnant, they can do all of the things that a woman can do.”
“A biological male playing in women’s sports is a natural woman playing those sports, right? So now they have a problem,” he added.
“Think about that for a second folks, someone who was a groundbreaker in music, probably one of her most-known hits, everyone knows it. Everyone knows the song, but you know what, makes them feel a little uncomfortable, folks.”
Critics pointed out the TCMA account appeared to be attempting to fuel the flames of the left-right culture war with posts such as “there have been zero meaningful studies into the gender identities of pets” and “it seems meaningless, but many children learn gender from their pets ... just because you bring home a ‘gendered’ pet, allow your child to choose the gender of the pet - don’t assign it one ‘at will’”.
“You do not need to bleed to have a period. You do not need to ovulate to have a period,” the account wrote. “A period is a state of mind than an actual state of being.”
In the wake of the Franklin post going viral, the person behind the TCMA account insisted it is a parody.
“This is a parody account,” the unnamed person told iHeartRadio. “Never imagined anyone would take it seriously lol.”
They added that it was a comment on “woke” culture and “media stupidity”.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, the account runner said: “It is satire, there’s no actual TCMA that I’m parodying. It is a commentary on the state of the ‘woke’ movement in general.”
But a since-deleted tweet, the account holder wrote “for clarification, the TCMA is not a parody organization,” saying that the people behind the account “are a group of trans individuals seeking to make culture more fair for transgender individuals”.
After adding and removing the words “PARODY/SATIRE” from its bio, the account now describes itself as being “founded January 2023 exclusively by trans individuals promoting cultural changes to ensure the inclusivity of trans individuals. If you think it’s parody it is”.
The account appears to have been created in January 2009, but its first public tweet is from 20 January of this year.
