Conservatives Are Completely Melting Down Over A 2018 Anne Hathaway Speech About Equality—Because Of Course

In May of 2018, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC)—the largest LGBTQ+ civil rights and political lobbying organization in the United States—awarded actor Anne Hathaway their Ally for Equality Award at their annual dinner.

Actor and rapper Awkwafina introduced Hathaway with a brief career highlight reel followed by Hathaway giving a short acceptance speech where she touched on historic power dynamics, where some hold unearned power and privilege over the minority or marginalized—something HRC works against.

During her remarks to HRC members and guests, Hathaway shared:

"It is important to acknowledge with the exception of being a cisgender male, everything about how I was born has put me at the current center of a damaging and widely accepted myth. That myth is that gayness orbits around straightness, transgender orbits around cisgender, and that all races orbit around whiteness."

"This myth is wrong. But this myth is too real for too many. It is ancient, so it is trusted. It is a habit, so it’s assumed to be the way things are."

You can watch a clip of Hathaway's remarks here:

The full introduction by Awkwafina and Hathaway's full acceptance speech can be viewed at the end of this article.

Now that Hathaway is in a hit film, Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, that's drawn the ire of White supremacists like Elon Musk and transphobes like J.K. Rowling, a bigot seeking attention decided to use a clip of Hathaway's speech to boost their own social media presence.

United Kingdom based anonymous transphobe HerTribeVibe, with only 2,764 followers, shared the clip to karma farm.

@hertribevibe/X

A term coming from Reddit, karma farming refers to a social media user who posts with the sole goal of getting as many likes and as much engagement as possible

The account captioned the almost 8 year old clip with a long diatribe, claiming it was:

"...a new speech for the Human Rights Campaign..."

You can see a screenshot of their post here:

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Whether the account user couldn't understand what Hathaway was saying or deliberately misrepresented it is unclear.

That didn't stop conservatives like Kyle Becker, Tomi Lahren, and Elon Musk for resharing the video with their own hot takes.

Some replies called out HerTribeVibe for their attempt to appeal to the bigots already upset about Nolan's diverse casting for his blockbuster film in a thinly veiled attempt to boost their online profile.

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But HerTribeVibe's fellow bigots also latched onto the post, attacking Hathaway, Hollywood, and drawing The Odyssey and actor Elliot Page into their gripes.

They also included some unhinged conspiracy theories and complaints about "human rights."

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Lacking any self-awareness, HerTribeVibe posted a GIF from Schitt's Creek on almost all of the comments that supported them.

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The series was famously supportive of the LGBTQ+ community, having been created by community member Dan Levy and his father Eugene Levy, both vocal advocates for equality.

Several commenters took exception to HRC's use of the phrase "human rights" in their organization name. HRC, founded in 1980 as the Human Rights Campaign Fund by Steve Endean, wanted to convey that LGBTQ+ equality was part of a broad political struggle for universal human rights, not "special rights" as opponents claimed.

You can watch the 2018 HRC award presentation and Hathaway's full acceptance speech here:

www.youtube.com