ISLE OF WIGHT, Va. - Ask 17-year-old Maggie Ann Schafer for her opinion, and she’s not afraid to tell you what she thinks.
But Maggie says she was afraid when she started receiving hundreds of threats, after a post she made on Facebook went viral.
“At first I was just shocked, because I couldn’t believe that people who didn’t know me at all, you know, could say stuff like that,” Maggie told NewsChannel 3 in an exclusive interview earlier this week.
Maggie disagrees with Target’s new transgender bathroom policy, which welcomes “transgender team members and guests to use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity.”
Maggie's post about Target's transgender bathroom policy went viral, and the 17-year-old's world changed overnight.
So Maggie took to Facebook. Wearing a Reagan-Bush sweatshirt, Maggie posted her concerns about women’s safety and the bathroom policy. The post went viral.
“It had made it on Twitter. I’m not even on Twitter," she said.
Suddenly, Maggie’s world changed overnight.
“By midnight that night, when she had about 2,000 shares, we were kind of like, ‘Oh, look at this, you’re going to go viral,” said Maggie’s mom Monica.
Maggie received messages from hundreds of people around the world, calling Maggie ‘trash’, ‘dumb’ and ‘ignorant’, telling her to ‘jump off a cliff’ and to ‘kill [herself]’.
When asked how these messages from complete strangers made her feel, Maggie started to get emotional during her interview.
“I am just trying so hard to keep it together. I just wasn’t expecting to get emotional, you know what I mean? ... It definitely made me doubt myself.”
But Maggie’s mom says her daughter “Is a strong young woman,” and she isn’t backing down. Instead, she has a message for her bullies.
“The people who were telling me to kill myself and jump off a cliff, what if I had?” Maggie asks. “You know, you don’t know what someone struggles with.”
Maggie decided to write about her experience. Writing not only helped her through the brutal bullying, but she hopes it can help someone else who might find themselves in her shoes one day.
“I kind of called out a challenge to my generation to make them realize, you know, you want to fight for something? That’s awesome, but fight for something. Don’t fight against someone,” the 17-year-old told NewsChannel 3.
Watch NewsChannel 3 at 11 Sunday night to hear our full story on Maggie.
