Carrie Pasquarello Stakes Cambridge City Council Run on Public Safety, but Faces Scrutiny For Transphobic Tweets

Cambridge City Council candidate Carrie E. Pasquarello is running on a platform of government accountability and public safety — though her campaign has come under increased scrutiny after transphobic and Islamophobic tweets she liked came to light.

Pasquarello, the founder of Global Secure Resources Inc., a risk mitigation and threat assessment firm, has emphasized her experience in protecting victims and preventing crime amid her contentious run for Council.

“On my small business that I run, I focus on preventing victimization,” Pasquarello said in an interview with The Crimson. “A lot of skill sets that I’ll be able to bring are related to my crime prevention or trying to protect victims.”

Pasquarello has worked both abroad for the U.S. State Department and locally through her company and other Boston area advocacy groups.

“All of these experiences really developed my passion for helping other people,” Pasquarello said. “I was with the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center for a number of years, working on a 24-hour hotline, doing community awareness and prevention programs and also facilitating survivor speakers.”

Pasquarello’s platform also prioritizes transparency and government accountability. In the interview, she said the city’s website is difficult to navigate and needs to be more user-friendly, particularly for seniors.

“If people go to find out about policy orders [or] they look for what’s happening in Cambridge — it’s so discombobulated,” Pasquarello said.

On the controversial proposed amendments to the city’s 100%-Affordable Housing Zoning Overlay — which would increase height maximums for affordable housing developments — Pasquarello said residents were “left out of the conversation.”

“They felt unsupported. They felt unheard,” Pasquarello added. “Instead of passing something really quickly, to try to just get the heights and the density, we really should be focused on how livable our community is.”

Pasquarello divides public safety issues into “three buckets” — the overdose epidemic, homelessness, and mental health issues in the community.

“We need to make sure that we’re working together collaboratively with the police department, with the other social services,” Pasquarello said.

She added that she thinks Cambridge is representative of a larger national crisis of fentanyl “seeping into the country.”

“We need to pull in regional support, and because all of these issues are just not a Cambridge issue,” Pasquarello said. “It’s a state issue. It’s a national issue.”

She said that she hasn’t seen “the Council really focusing on how we can reduce the violent crime in our community,” adding that she wants to expand the Cambridge Police Department’s special investigation unit and cybercrime training.

In the past week, Pasquarello has faced intense scrutiny alongside fellow Council candidate Robert Winters over a large swath of transphobic and Islamophobic social media activity that came to light.

At a celebration for candidates endorsed by the Cambridge Citizens Coalition Sunday — including Pasquarello — protesters with the Boston Democratic Socialists of America demanded that the group unendorse the two candidates over the posts. One demonstrator’s sign read “Drop Winters & Pasquarello.”

Protester holds up sign with Drop By Julian J. Giordano

The protesters distributed a flyer depicting what it described as “a slew of transphobic, homophobic, white supremacist, and openly secessionists posts publicly liked by Pasquarello.”

One statement included in the flyer showed a tweet Pasquarello had liked that stated, “We’ve been told that teachers talking to kids about sex (fantasies, orientation) doesn’t lead to grooming!” Other tweets on the flyer liked by Pasquarello included references to “anti-white sentiment” and derided a “drag show” and “forcing your pronouns upon others.”

In a June 2023 tweet, Pasquarello wrote of laws allowing trans people to use bathrooms corresponding to their gender identity that “predators love that some people R supporting them by giving access to what they want — changing rooms, bathrooms, & private spaces to victimize people.” That month, she also liked a tweet that depicted violence and derogatorily accredited the act to an “Islamized France.”

Pasquarello wrote in a statement to The Crimson Monday that she is being targeted by political opponents and has been cyberbullied, adding that the allegations are completely false.

“As a victim advocate who has not only worked in support services and strategized safety for the LGBTQ+ and members of the Islamic community, but I have also developed a program for student online safety to spotlight mental health issues from social media and cyberbullying,” Pasquarello wrote.

Amid the controversy, she has committed to carrying on with her campaign.

“I will continue to focus on transparency, accountability, public safety, and other issues of our city because I care for Cambridge,” Pasquarello wrote.

—Staff writer Muskaan Arshad can be reached at muskaan.arshad@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @MuskaanArshad or on Threads @muskarshad.