For years, Republican Rep. Cory Mills of Florida has claimed to defend women from the alleged dangers of “the left’s gender agenda.” “We must stand to protect women from biological males competing unfairly,” Mills wrote on X, then called Twitter, in 2022. “We must stop the left’s attack on women.” This week, a Florida judge ruled that the real danger was Mills himself.
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On Tuesday, Circuit Judge Fred Koberlein Jr. issued a final injunction for protection against dating violence against Mills, 45, concluding that the second-term congressman harassed and threatened his former girlfriend, Lindsey Langston, the reigning Miss United States and a Florida Republican Party official. The order bars him from contacting her directly or indirectly and forbids him from mentioning her on social media. It remains in effect through January.
According to The New York Times, the court found that Langston “has reasonable cause to believe she is in imminent danger of becoming the victim of another act of dating violence.” The judge rejected Mills’s claim that he no longer possessed intimate videos of Langston, writing that his testimony was “not truthful.” The ruling concluded that Mills caused “substantial emotional distress” and offered “no credible rebuttal” to Langston’s account.
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Langston told the court that Mills repeatedly threatened to release sexual videos of her and warned that any future boyfriends should “strap up.” Drop Site News reported that she made 11 requests for him to stop contacting her, which he ignored, continuing to reach out through alternate accounts and even through other people.
The ruling capped a series of tense hearings, including one in September in which Langston testified that she was “scared” of Mills, describing him as “powerful, well-connected, and wealthy,” Politico reports. “I thought I could handle it by myself,” she told the judge through tears. “Please help me.” Mills, who was married to another woman at the time, insisted that his phone had been damaged and that he no longer possessed any explicit material.
The Florida ruling followed Washington, D.C., NBC affiliate WRC’s revelation in February that D.C. police had investigated Mills after another woman accused him of shoving her out of his apartment. Police reports described the woman as “physically shaking and scared.” No charges were filed after she recanted, but internal affairs opened an investigation into the police response.
Mills’s record of hostility toward LGBTQ+ people underlines the hypocrisy of his self-styled moral crusade. In June, Florida Politics reported that he told Fox News he opposes same-sex marriage, saying, “Marriage can only exist between a man and a woman.” He made those remarks on the tenth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, which legalized marriage equality nationwide.
Mills has also called gender-affirming care “child abuse” and introduced the DEI to DIE Act, to abolish all federal diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
This article originally appeared on Advocate: Judge finds anti-trans Republican Florida Congressman Cory Mills to be a danger to women
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