How Is The MRC Hating Transgender People (And Those Who Won’t Hate Them) These Days?

It’s not enough for the Media Research Center to hate transgender people — it must also hate anyone who doesn’t hate them as much as it does. Thus, we have a May 4 post by Curtis Houck raging at the Kansas City Star newspaper — which he laughably and hypocritically called “hate-filled” in his headline — for correctly identifying a right-wing group as “anti-trans”:

On Tuesday, the far-left Kansas City Star uncorked a 1,800-word-plus tome of punditry masquerading as a news story melting down over the Kansas legislature’s passage of a bill that seemed unnecessary five or ten years ago in ensuring everyone’s clear on what is a man and a woman. 

Worse yet, they oversimplified the mission of the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) (a member of the MRC’s Free Speech Alliance) and smeared them as simply an “anti-trans” organization, never quoted them, and, as NewsBusters can report, spiked a column in support of the bill.

In “Kansas will legally define gender as sex at birth. What that means for transgender rights,” activist reporters Kynala Phillips and Katie Bernard touted six opponents of basic biology over ten quotes (and 11 indirect quotes) but none in support of the measure except that label of IWF.

It came in paragraph three: “The national anti-trans group Independent Women’s Forum has been pushing for this law and similar variations across the country. They say the law is meant to prevent judges from interfering with existing single-sex public spaces.”

Houck failed to explain why the Star must be labeled “far-left” simply by not viciously hating transgender people the way he does. And for all his complaining that the paper “oversimplified the mission” of the IWF, he didn’t dispute that it is, in fact, “anti-trans.”

Houck went on to huff that a Star article on the bill was “teeming with disdain” — then displayed his own disdain by sneering that an article from a transgender college student was written by “a woman pretending to be man.”

A May 5 post by chief transphobe Tierin-Rose Mandelburg complained about criticism of a anti-transgender bill in Florida, so she stuck to approved right-wing talking points and narratives in describing it:

Since the left is only going to present its side of what the bill does, here are the actual details.

Broadly, the bill prohibits minors from receiving “gender-affirming care.” That’s in quotes because when a child is chemically or surgically castrated, their body endures unnecessary and sometimes permanent damages, and that isn’t and shouldn’t ever be referred to as care. Now, the so-called “kidnapping” aspect comes in as the bill would allow a court to temporarily remove a child from his or her home if it’s found that they’ve been provided with these damaging procedures.

[…]

The bill also affirmed that a child’s biological sex on his or her birth certificate cannot be modified to affirm a “perception” that a child’s gender is inconsistent with their actual, biological sex.

The bill was set to keep kids safe from parents who allow their children to live a dangerous delusion. But, as mentioned, the left has touted it as the “kidnapping bill.”

The next day, Clay Waters whined that NPR did a story on states passing biologial definition laws that didn’t buy into anti-transgender narratives:

Wednesday’s edition of All Things Considered on National Public Radio showcased the latest in a long line of stories from tax-funded NPR trying hard to blur obvious biological lines, to further the cause of transgender activism.

The online version of the report — under the odd headline “These states are narrowly defining who is ‘female’ and ‘male’ in law” — began with a laughable sentence, especially given NPR’s self-image as educated science believers, that implied common biological terms were some kind of bizarre, made-up jargon:

Lawmakers in Montana, Tennessee and Kansas have voted in the past few weeks to narrowly define who is “female” and who is “male” in state law using such terms as “gametes,” “ova,” “sex chromosomes,”

Ah yes, those obscure terms that define the actual building blocks of life!

Waters returned for a May 13 post effectively complaining that PBS won’t hate transgender people enough:

Tax-supported PBS has attracted heat of late for indoctrinating children on “queer,” transgender, and related issues, including through its PBS LearningMedia brand used in schools, under the rubric “Understanding LGBTQ+ Identity: A Toolkit for Educators.” 

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt vetoed funding for the state’s PBS station for “indoctrination and over-sexualization” of children. Citizens Defending Freedom also called on PBS to be defunded for promoting an LGBT ‘toolkit’ for schools, and cited videos included in the package, including “All Oppression is Connected,” one of many examples of left-wing “intersectionality” propaganda in the education toolkit, which was initially created by the NYC Department of Education.

[…]

Such radical tax-funded PBS content supports the argument that public broadcasting is pushing gender agendas onto children.

Waters didn’t explain why it’s “indoctrination” and an “agenda” to not hate transgender people.

A May 16 post by Waters mocked NPR for pointing out how Florida is creating a hostile atmosphere for transgender people:

More taxpayer-supported “gender-affirming” propaganda, full of cringy sentimentality, came courtesy of National Public Radio’s misnamed All Things Considered news program Thursday: “As conservative states target trans rights, a Florida teen flees for a better life” The hagiographic tale under the guise of news was told by Stephanie Colombini, a health reporter for Tampa Bay’s NPR-member station WUSF.

(Colombini, naturally, has pronouns in her Twitter bio. She took the photo that accompanies the story.)

The rearranged print edition of the radio story captured the melodramatic tale of Josie, a teenager forced to “flee” the burgeoning authoritarian regime of….Florida, to start a new life in the free state of Rhode Island.

[…]

NPR even provided two trans-related phone numbers “for support.” Now close your eyes and imagine an alternate universe where NPR provides phone numbers for a pro-life rescue ministry, and realize how far-out the publicly funded radio network has gone out on the limb of “gender affirmation.”

Waters didn’t explain why it’s “propaganda?” to not hate trangender people, while his clear and vicioius hatred apparently is not.

Alex Christy used a May 18 post to attack a parent for understanding her child’s transgender identity:

As Texas moves to ban “gender-affirming care” for minors, MSNBC’s Jose Diaz-Balart asked a parent, simply known as Rachel, on Thursday if Republicans were being hypocrites. Naturally, Rachel agreed and claimed that they were and that her daughter (son) knew she (he) was a girl before reaching the age of five.

With some bad moral relativism, Diaz-Balart wondered, “So what parental rights do you think — are there any limits to parental rights and I’m just wondering because you do — there are inconsistencies, right in what people define as parental rights.”

[…]

While Rachel did not intend to argue for medical treatment for 5-year olds, she did advocate for “social transition,” claiming “So, the vast majority of transition is social. It is allowing children to be able to show the rest of the world who they are on the inside, and for my daughter, that meant growing her hair out, wearing dresses, and changing her name. So, it’s—there’s really not any kind of medical intervention until puberty and, you know, puberty blockers are totally reversible.”

That assertion is contentious, at best, but parental rights wasn’t the only issue Rachel alleged Republicans were being hypocrites on, “These are used for a variety of different healthcare reasons, not just for transgender youth and that’s how we know this is a deeply discriminatory bill, because it is only banning the same healthcare that is accessible to non-transgender children and only, only targets trans kids.”

Yeah, because Johnny thinking he’s Susie is not the same thing as treating someone for precocious puberty or idiopathic short stature.

Christy didn’t explain how he — who, as far as we know, is neither a medical expert nor a parent — could possibly know better than this mother about her child, or why that attitude doesn’t conflict with the usual right-wing posturing that parents always know best when it comes to their children.

Waters spent a May 19 post complaining that the New York Times pointed out how right-wing activists are exploiting a handful of people who detransitioned from being transgender as a tool for anti-transgender activism:

A front-page story in Wednesday’s New York Times fiercely defended trans rights, reducing concerns that activists are leading children to make irrevocable surgical decisions, because they were “born in the wrong body,” to political cynicism: “G.O.P. Focuses On Testimonies Of Trans Regret.” (An earlier version really pressed the editorial thumb to the scale: “G.O.P. Focuses On Rare Stories Of Trans Regret.”)

This “news” attack on those who choose to detransition — to stop identifying or to stop taking actions towards being transgender — was reported by Maggie Astor, who stands out even among the paper’s woke staff for her devotion to the transgender cause. Previously she blamed Donald Trump for violence against transgenders, a story which opened with almost a parody of wokeness that had to be corrected later: “Transgender women of color led the uprising at the Stonewall Inn…”

[…]

Astor criticized Chloe Cole, a girl who lived as a transgender male and tragically got a double mastectomy at the age of 15, before detransitioning. Astor defined Cole’s detransition as “returning to her female identity,” not as returning to “biological reality.”

Waters also huffed that “Astor heaped skepticism on the detransitioner ‘minority,’ something she doesn’t do for people who are convinced they were born in the wrong body.”