Melissa Harris-Perry Uneasy About Obama Being ‘Insensitive’ to Trans Heckler

Last week, during an LGBT Pride Reception at the White House, President Obama was heckled by Jennicet Gutiérrez, a transgender undocumented immigrant unhappy with “how LGBTQ and transgender immigrants are treated in this country.”

She shouted out to the president about the matter, but Obama told her to knock it off, saying, “You’re in my house!… Shame on you, you shouldn’t be doing this.”

Well, on Melissa Harris-Perry‘s MSNBC show today, Professor Paul Frymer brought this up in the context of Obama’s otherwise great week, and Harris-Perry admitted she was put off by it.

The crowd cheered Obama as he told Gutiérrez to stop interrupting and that it’s “my house,” but Harris-Perry said that first off, “it’s actually the people’s house,” and secondly, “I’m down for talking tough, but I don’t know to the most marginalized person in the room how tough that feels to me.”

Frymer said this was a moment of “great insensitivity” to Obama, and Harris-Perry remarked, “It’s odd in the days now following that Friday eulogy [in Charleston] to think of the president as insensitive.”

Watch the segment below (the relevant discussion starts around the 6-minute mark), via MSNBC:

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!