How do we know that WorldNetDaily is having a transgender freakout? It drags out the slanderous photo it stole from the Associated Press of a man wearing a dress and heels (which is, in fact, not a photo of a transgender person but, rather, from a 2012 “hairy legs on heels” race in Madrid).
That photo graces a June 30 WND article by Bob Unruh detailing an attempt by right-wing legal group Liberty Counsel to get soldiers out of “transgender awareness” training. Why does Liberty Counsel want to keep soldiers securely hateful of people who are not like them? Unruh explains:
Liberty Counsel contends transgender “training” mostly “requires personnel to accept false statements about the nature of sex, gender, biology and morality.”
“This directive includes requiring officers to approve medically unnecessary surgeries and harmful, unproven hormone replacement, all at taxpayer expense; addressing gender-confused officers and soldiers ‘identifying’ as the opposite sex by false gender pronouns and false gender titles; and requiring female soldiers (and vice versa) to sleep, shower and perform private bodily functions in the presence of the opposite biological sex.”
Needless to say, Unruh made no effort to contact the military to find out exactly what the “transgender awareness” actually entails. That would be too much like journalism.
This was followed the next day with an article by WND intern Joe Wilson — also illustrated with the same misleading, malicious stolen photo — complaining that transgenderism has been “de-pathologized” and worrying about “the impact on impressionable children who see such people celebrated in the media and given special privileges.” Wilson does not identify the “special privileges” transgenders purportedly receive.
Instead, Wilson quotes anti-LGBT “experts” like his boss, WND managing editor David Kupelian:
Many transsexuals suffered from sexual abuse as children, often from a parent or a close family member. This could be a cause of their “gender dysphoria,” as Kupelian points out.
“Little children, being so exquisitely impressionable, are powerfully shaped by the environment in which they grow up. Early sexual abuse … can be devastating,” he said.
But instead of treating the underlying cause of the “dysphoria,” the modern world seems more interested in hushing it up and calling it normal, Kupelian contends.
“The most vulnerable members of society are the young, so exposing children to dangerous and confusing cultural delusions, like the idea that transgenderism is perfectly normal, is particularly reckless and dangerous,” he said.
Should decision-makers encourage children in behavior that will lead to attempted suicide for 40 percent of them? Is it really child abuse to tell them that biology doesn’t make mistakes? Can the nation justify running all of these risks so that changeable children can act out a gender identity that most of them would lose naturally as they grow older?
The answer is no for many experts who contend that encouraging transgenderism in children should be described as it was for decades: child abuse.
WND apparently never got around to teaching Wilson the part of journalism where you tell both sides of the story. Of course, if Wilson was actually interested in fair and balanced journalism, he wouldn’t be interning at WND.