Comment Days after being publicly insulted by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) on Twitter, Olivia Julianna, a 19-year-old abortion rights advocate, wrote him a sweet note on the platform. “Dear Matt, even though your intentions were hateful, your public shaming of my appearance did me no good but benefited me,” she wrote after her tweet sparked a barrage of harassment — as well as a flood of donations to her reproductive rights organization . . In just one day, he helped raise about $115,000 for the non-profit organization Gen Z for Change. At a rally last weekend in Tampa, Gaetz had mocked abortion rights activists, calling them “disgusting” and overweight. Olivia Julianna, who publicly uses her first and middle names because of privacy concerns, criticized the comments on Twitter, noting the sex-trafficking allegations against Gaetz. In apparent retaliation, Gaetz then posted a picture of her next to a news story that reported his comments from the rally. That tweet by Gaetz has since been retweeted hundreds of times and has sparked online attacks against the teenager. In response, Olivia Julianna announced a fundraising campaign on behalf of Gen Z for Change, a 500-person youth-led group that says it seeks to create tangible change on “issues that disproportionately affect young people” and supports abortion rights . “This is absolutely the craziest amount of donations we’ve had so far from individuals, especially in such a short amount of time,” he said in an email. “On a larger scale, this underscores the extreme power of social media mobilization and shows Republican politicians that their cheap attacks and political theater will no longer be tolerated.” Gen Z is influencing the abortion debate — from TikTok After his comments at the weekend rally at the conservative Turning Point USA Student Action Summit drew condemnation, Gaetz was asked by a reporter if he thought women who attended abortion rights rallies were “ugly and overweight” and stood by his comments . When asked what he had to say to people offended by those comments, he said: “Be offended.” Gaetz is an ally of former President Donald Trump and was first elected to Congress in 2016, representing a district in the Florida Panhandle, an area that has voted heavily Republican in recent decades. He has voiced his opposition to abortion and abortion rights advocates, and this month voted against two bills aimed at ensuring access to abortion. In May, Gaetz was criticized for saying that those protesting his ouster Roe v. Wade they are “over-educated, under-loved millennials.” “I’d like Matt Gaetz to know that he picked the wrong activist” to start a fight, Olivia Julianna said. The donations will be distributed among 50 abortion funds, with the goal of expanding access to abortion services, birth control, contraceptives, among other reproductive health services, he said. Olivia Julianna grew up as a queer Latina in a small conservative rural Texas community. “I have been mocked, ridiculed and harassed for most of my life. I will not tolerate this kind of behavior any more,” he said.
