Yesterday in the United-States, Robert Kennedy Jr (the conspiracy theorist Trump put in charge of the Centre of Disease Control) and Dr. Oz (the TV personality at the center of a pyramid scheme Trump put in charge of Medicaid and Medicare) made the following joint statement:
Men are men. Men can never become women. Women are women. Women can never become men. … It takes organized efforts to deny these fundamental truths. Sadly, we’ve seen such efforts succeed from time to time. The denial of fundamental truths can destroy nations from within. At the root of the evils we face, such as the blurring of the lines between sexes and radical social agendas is a hatred for nature as God designed it and for life as it was meant to be lived. This ideology does not just deny biology, it declares war against it.
Allowing trans people to exist is to “destroy nations from within”, “at the root of evils”, and a “hatred for nature”. What followed were directives to weaponize the state to prevent trans kids from receiving health care. The administration also made moves to block the sale of binders for trans people of all ages.
This is on top of a slew of other measures with equally inciteful wording aimed at eliminating trans people from society.
The failure of legacy media
Mainstream media sanewashed the Kennedy/Oz speech. ABC did not mention “evil” or “hatred” or “destroy” in its news article:
HHS proposes actions to limit access to gender-affirming care for minors
Actions are being taken by several agencies including CMS and FDA.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on Thursday a series of proposed actions to limit access to gender-affirming care for minors.
HHS proposes actions to limit access to gender-affirming care for minors – ABC News
Nor did the Associated Press:
Trump administration moves to cut off transgender care for children
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday unveiled a series of regulatory actions designed to block access to gender-affirming care for minors, building on broader Trump administration restrictions targeting transgender Americans.
Trump administration moves to cut off transgender care for children | AP News
Nor did virtually any other mainstream outlet I examined. These intentional omissions permit these and other efforts to purge trans people from society to be cast as reasoned and fact-based when they are so transparently the opposite.
It also facilitates the cross-pollination of transphobia across the anglosphere. One example is the English Cass Review, which was commissioned by the Tories to counter the mountain of evidence that supports gender-affirming care. Though thoroughly debunked, the New York Times uncritically repeated its false claims in their coverage of the “evil” trans people speech:
An influential report released in Britain last year found that the scientific evidence on the benefits and risks of the treatment was “remarkably weak,” and concluded by recommending that puberty blockers be restricted to research trials only.
Trump Moves to End Gender-Related Care for Minors, Threatening Hospitals That Offer It – The New York Times
In Canada, coverage that runs cover for transphobes like this has assisted anti-trans legislation and policies in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and New Brunswick. Elsewhere in the anglosphere, it helped bring in a puberty blocker ban for trans children in New Zealand (but not cis children though, that’s ok).
Trans-led coverage to the (partial) rescue
As has long been our tradition, where locked out, trans people create our own alternatives. When it comes to news organizations, such alternatives include:
That these publications can reach so many trans people is possible in this moment where distribution isn’t defined by having access to a television station or a printing press. This is great for us.
However, this same ecosystem means that disinformation spreads just as easily, if not more so because rage-bait gets more clicks. The cis people susceptible to that are not going to read Erin In the Morning. Nor will, frankly, cis people who read mainstream news outlets aside from the most sympathetic.
Then there’s the question of scale: the biggest pushers of disinformation have audiences in the millions, because they’re for conservatives more broadly and trans people are only one of their targeted communities. They are also given preferential treatment from politicians, and all of these factors create more opportunities to accrue followers. Alternative coverage by trans people have a tiny audience by comparison. That makes content from the former far more prolific on platforms like Facebook.
The asymmetry is by design
There’s an asymmetry of reach. Worse yet, transphobes, by being the news makers, also get to frame the coverage that ensues. I never see trans people’s framing represented in the headlines.
It doesn’t help that American news orgs are actively pandering to a burgeoning dictatorship, British ones are beholden to tabloid-transphobes, and Canadian press will repeat the disinformation from both.
There’s no way out of that in the short-term because trans people don’t have the power to change this dynamic. It’s no coincidence: conservatives chose us as the target of their manufactured panic specifically because of our lack of representation. It was a choice made in the wake of anti-gay rhetoric losing effectiveness as the public was increasingly exposed to positive representation.
It will take years for media organisations to stop uncritically amplifying transphobic disinformation. Until then, please consider supporting your favourite trans news outlet. They’re a little bit of sanity in a deeply unwell world.