Before Will Smith's slap, Rep. Ayanna Pressley was fighting in Congress for those with alopecia like her and Jada Pinkett Smith

• Before Will Smith defended his wife, Pressley fought in Congress to support those with alopecia.
• The Squad member was diagnosed with the auto-immune disease in 2019.

Rep. Ayanna Pressley was fighting for those with alopecia, long before Will Smith slapped comedian Chris Rock live on stage.

The Massachusetts Democrat, who tweeted and apparently deleted praise for Smith's physical defense of his wife Jada Pinkett Smith at the Oscars, has pushed House measures in the last two years to support medical wigs and fund research on Alopecia, an auto-immune disease that attacks the hair follicles and causes hair loss.

About 7 million people in the US suffer from the disease, including Pressley and Pinkett Smith, who Rock mocked on Sunday by saying "Can't wait for G.I. Jane 2."

"Thank you #WillSmith," Pressley wrote in her now-deleted tweet. "Shout out to all the husbands who defend their wives living with alopecia in the face of daily ignorance & insults."

On Monday, she followed up by tweeting "I don't endorse violence in any form," and offered appreciation for those who support those living with alopecia.

"Our bodies are not public domain," she tweeted. "They are not a line in a joke—especially when the transformation is not of our choosing."

Pressley, a progressive member of Congress, was diagnosed in 2019 with Alopecia Universalis. She discussed the difficulties of her hair loss in a personal January 2020 video, in which she described "waking up every morning to sinkfuls of hair."

She said she didn't have "the luxury of mourning what felt like the loss of a limb" when she lost the last bit of her hair because of pressing business before the House of Representatives: A vote on the impeachment of then-President Donald Trump. She left the House floor and hid in a bathroom stall, feeling "naked, exposed, vulnerable."

"I felt embarrassed, I felt ashamed, I felt betrayed, and then I also felt that I was participating in a cultural betrayal," she said, because of young girls who had looked up to a member of Congress who wore braids.

Following the Oscars, the National Alopecia Areata Foundation responded to the incident by offering support to the community and encouraging awareness to reduce the stigma around the disease.

"Simply put — Alopecia areata is no joke," the foundation wrote in a statement.

In 2020, the House passed an amendment introduced by Pressley to provide $5 million to fund alopecia research, though her office says the funding did not make it into final legislation. Pressley is also backing legislation that would allow wigs to be covered under Medicare.

This month, the House passed legislation the CROWN Act co-sponsored by Pressley to ban race-based hair discrimination.

"Black girls with our braids, locks, afros, all forms of natural hairstyles, and yes, even our smooth alopecian bald heads belong everywhere," she said on the House floor while urging passage of the bill. "For too long black girls have been discriminated against and criminalized for the hair that grows on our heads and the way we move through and show up in this world."

She said two high school students in Massachusetts were disciplined for showing up with braids, given numerous detentions, kicked off the track team, and banned from prom, "solely for their hairstyle."

She said the legislation affirms, "Black is beautiful and so is our hair."