Military pilot Jo Ellis said she had to hire private armed security for her family because of the false claims, which went viral on social media.
A transgender military pilot filed a defamation lawsuit Wednesday against a conservative influencer who falsely claimed on social media that she was flying the helicopter that collided with a commercial jet near Reagan National Airport in January, killing 67 people.
“I want to hold this person accountable for what they did to me,” Jo Ellis, a pilot who has served more than 15 years in the Virginia Army National Guard, said in a statement to NBC News. “It’s become too common that people can say horrible things about someone, profit at their expense, and get away with it.”
On Jan. 30, less than 24 hours after the crash, conservative influencer Matt Wallace, who has 2.2 million followers on the social media platform X, shared a post from another account he operates stating that the helicopter pilot was transgender, according to the lawsuit. Wallace included a photo of Ellis, and the post went viral, the lawsuit states.
I’m one of those people that prefers to have my name used instead of she/her or they/them, and it works quite well once people shake the cobwebs off their brains.
However, living your life as “he” while knowing you are “she” is full of moments that hurt. The English language may not require the distinction, but in practice it is how we define people. Why would you continue to hurt someone by using a pronoun that isn’t what they’ve described themselves as? It’s like someone who has gotten your name wrong, and no matter how often you correct them, they continue to call you the wrong name. Except it isn’t just one person, it’s a class of people that is filled with both those that hate your existence and those who refuse to understand it.