The White House banned a transgender model from its grounds after she flashed her breasts at a Pride event that sparked outrage from conservatives and moderates alike. This comes amid growing tension nationwide over transgender rights.

The transgender activist and model, Rose Montoya, posted on social media a video of her visit to the White House that quickly went viral, after it was shared by widely followed conservative accounts like Libs of TikTok. 

In the video, Ms. Montoya is seen shaking hands and taking selfies with President Biden before exposing her breasts on the South Lawn, the White House and its Pride Flag visible in the background.  

“This behavior is inappropriate and disrespectful for any event at the White House. It is not reflective of the event we hosted to celebrate LGBTQI+ families or the other hundreds of guests who were in attendance. Individuals in the video will not be invited to future events,” a White House representative said in a statement.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a transgender woman or not, it’s just pretty classless and gross,” a gay, libertarian commentator, Brad Polumbo, founder of Based Politics, tells the Sun. “That’s not representative of most LGBT Americans, and I think most of us would be disappointed at that display.”

President Biden and the first lady welcomed hundreds of guests to the South Lawn on Saturday for what was billed as the largest ever White House Pride Month celebration. The president and first lady gave speeches before mingling with attendees on the lawn.

“Outside the gates of this house are those who want to drag our country backwards,” the first lady said in her speech.

“For all the progress we’ve made, we know real change and real challenges remain. When a person can get married in the morning and thrown out of a restaurant for being gay in the afternoon, something is still very wrong in America,” President Biden said. “You’re some of the most brave and most inspiring people I’ve ever known.”

“I mean, you’re welcome,” Ms. Montoya is heard replying off camera in her video.

“Are we topless at the White House?” another voice is heard off camera later in the video, as Ms. Montoya holds her breasts and shakes them up and down. A transgender man stands fully topless next to her, showing off his “top surgery” scars.

Mr. Polumbo says actions like this and overly sexual displays at Pride parades are hurting the cause for gay rights and mainstream LGBTQ acceptance. “It’s frustrating for me as a gay person, because most of the LGBT community are just normal people, but historically we’ve been hyper sexualized or reduced to our sexuality in a bigoted way,” he says.

The rhetoric around LGBTQ issues has grown increasingly angry in recent months, mainly regarding transgender issues. The major flashpoints are transgender participation in women’s sports, transgender medical care for minors, and the inclusion of LGBTQ lessons in schools. Fistfights have broken out in front of school board meetings. The right accuses the left of “grooming” children, while the left says the right is just bigoted.

The largest LGBTQ rights organization, Human Rights Campaign, declared a “national state of emergency” this month — the first in its 40-year history — following what it calls “an unprecedented and dangerous spike in anti-LGBTQ+ legislative assaults sweeping state houses this year.”

Many criticized this declaration as alarmist and ahistorical, particularly for an organization that was around during the AIDS crisis and when gays couldn’t marry or adopt children. Yet it’s undeniable that LGBTQ issues are taking center stage now in the culture war. It will likely only ramp up further as the 2024 election nears. 

Americans’ opinions on transgender issues, though, are more nuanced than partisan bickering suggests. More than 60 percent of Americans think transgender persons should be protected from discrimination in areas like housing and employment. Yet the rapid push for transgender acceptance in other areas is fueling a backlash.

A Gallup poll released Monday finds that 69 percent of Americans think transgender athletes should compete only against persons of their natal sex, not their gender identity — up 7 points from just two years ago. That same poll finds that 55 percent of Americans say it’s “morally wrong” to change one’s gender, up 4 points from 2021.

“We’re living through something of a pendulum swing,” Mr. Polumbo says. Transgender activists “clearly took things too far over the last several years, whether it’s a million genders and a gazillion different neo-pronouns or it’s pretending there’s no biological differences in sports, or it’s pushing irreversible treatments for minors. I think they clearly overstepped, the activist wing of the LGBT community.”

Ms. Montoya’s appearance Saturday is one more skirmish in the transgender culture war. Despite the administration’s support for LGBTQ rights, it likely realized flashing breasts at the White House made for bad precedent.

Ms. Montoya, though, is defending her actions. “First of all, going topless in Washington, D.C., is legal,” she says in another video. “And I fully support the movement in freeing the nipple.”

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Saturday was the day of Ms. Montoya’s appearance at the White House; the day was reported incorrectly in the bulldog.