The Media Research Center’s campaign of hate against Lia Thomas was the most visible recent manifestation of its anti-transgender ideology of hate. It has also spent this year hurling hate at other transgender people, as well as anyone who refuses to similarly hate them. Let’s go way back to early this year to review, shall we?
A Jan. 10 post by Alexander Hall went to great lengths to pretend that right-wing anti-transgender author Ryan T. Anderson doesn’t really hate transgender people, insisting that his book “When Harry Became Sally” is “compassionate but unapologetically honest.” In fact, Anderson embraces the view of discredited anti-trans researcher Paul McHugh — who is frequently cited by trans-haters — that transgenderism is a mental illness. Hall portrayed Anderson as a victim because his book was delisted by Amazon — though he doesn’t explain why a private business like Amazon is obligated to sell every single book that has ever been published — and suggested the book was delisted because it offered “scientific facts that offend liberals” and not because it pushes a hateful narrative.
In a Feb. 23 post, Kevin Tober lashed out at New York magazine for reporting on his anti-transgender activists are trying to influence education:
The left thinks they own your kids. Don’t believe me? Well, take a look at this article in New York Magazine‘s Intelligencer. In the article titled “Household Tyrants,” writer Sarah Jones begins by fear-mongering: “to empower parents, Florida Republicans would put children in danger.”
Jones argues that Florida’s pending Parental Rights in Education bill, which would “prevent public-school districts from ‘encouraging classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity,’” is some how a bad thing.
If you don’t want your eleven-year-old child learning about transgender ideology and other sexually inappropriate terms and theories, then you are a tyrant and a bigot according to Jones.
Tober didn’t identify what “ideology” being transgender is. He then argued that children are too stupid to know who they are, that parents who help children be who they are are child abusers:
Later on in the piece, Jones writes “the GOP’s position on parental rights isn’t entirely coherent. Any attempt to ban gender-confirming therapy for transgender children theoretically infringes on the rights of the parent.”
What Jones doesn’t understand is that parents don’t have a right to abuse their children.
Young children aren’t fully able to grasp the concept of what a man or a woman is (the bill deals with kids of elementary school-age). Parents shouldn’t be allowed to chemically castrate their children or give them sex hormone injections (which is what “gender-confirming therapy” is). When the child turns eighteen and still wants to do that, then it’s their prerogative as a legally recognized adult.
“The right insists that what’s good for parents is good for kids,” Jones claims, “the idea that children are already people, with thoughts and needs independent of their parents, never factors into the party’s position at all.”
Nobody doubts that children are people (except the left who wants to abort them), but the idea that a child’s thoughts and needs should be taken seriously is absurd. If your child wanted to eat candy all day long, would you let them? Obviously not, because children do not know what is good for them. That’s what parents are for, to look out for their child’s wellbeing.
Are parents who forcibly coerce a child into being something he or she is not guilty of child abuse too? Tober doesn’t say.
A Feb. 28 post by Matt Philbin accused an Arizona teacher of teaching “trans ideology indoctrination”; actually, all the teacher did is tell sixth-graders that gender fluidity is a thing and that mocking purportedly insufficiently masculine boys as sissies is a bad thing. Philbin clearly disagrees with the latter. Philbin also demonstrated his utter ignorance about transgender people by illustrating his post with a publicity still from the classic film “Some Like It Hot” — in which the main characters are not transgender but, rather, cross-dressing as women to escape from the mob. Philbin clearly doesn’t know (or care about) the difference.
A March 31 post by Rachel Peterson complained that the character played by transgender actor Elliot Page — whose transition the MRC has previously mocked — on the show “Umbrella Academy” would also transition.Peterson went on to mock Page’s preferred pronouns of he/they: “Still not sure how someone’s pronouns can be both he and they.” The same day, Alex Christy grumbled that MSNBC’s Hallie Jackson used “dishonest framing” to portray Republicans (like, um, Christy) as anti-trans by passing anti-transgender laws: “Jackson made it seem as if these laws are tantamount to child abuse when all they seem to do is protect the integrity of women’s sports, don’t allow adults to affirm childhood beliefs about gender identity, or ensure that adults don’t encourage minors to make life-changing decisions about their bodies.”
Philbin returned for an April 5 post about a target the MRC has spread numerous falsehoods about in the past, a school district in Virginia:
Normal people who have to send their kids to Loudoun County Virginia’s public schools face a Whack-A-Mole game of lefty dysfunction. As soon as you get a handle on Critical Race Theory, an unreported school rape pops up. Force the resignation of a lunatic school board member, the prospect of boys on the girls volleyball team leaps out at you. Heck, not even changing governors can tamp down the crazy. And the hits just keep on coming.
Passed last August, LCPS Policy 8040 doesn’t just degrade girls’ sports and disregard their safety by allowing biological males into girls’ restrooms and locker rooms. It also “elevates students’ ‘privacy rights’ concerning their gender identity over parents right to know,” according to the group Fight for Schools.
So anyone who’s not a right-wing transphobe like Philbin isn’t “normal people”?
An April 9 post by Clay Waters whined that the New York Times called out right-wing activists for imposing anti-trans policies on schools, claiming without evidence that the activists represent “the mainstream consensus on children and transgender issues.” An April 11 post by Tober lashed out at MSNBC’s Chris Hayes for calling out Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for treating parents who seek gender-affirming care for their children as criminal child abusers:
On Monday night’s episode of MSNBC’s All In, host Chris Hayes freaked out over Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordering the state’s child protective services to investigate reported instances of children receiving transgender surgeries, ironically accusing Abbott of being the real child abuser.
The deranged host started off by viciously attacking Abbott claiming he “found it helps him politically to be cruel to transgender children.” He then claimed Abbott denies the “very existence” of transgender children, despite the fact that there’s no such thing as a transgender child, the transgender ideology needs to be instilled in children by their parents or other adults.
This brings us to the reason for the Hayes meltdown. In his wailing over the order, Hayes claimed it “takes what used to be normal care for trans kids and classifies that care as child abuse in the eyes of the state.” As if chemically castrating children is “normal care.”
[…]If anything, this order helps weed out the people who aren’t fit to work in child protective services. If someone finds preventing children from being mutilated so offensive, then they shouldn’t be allowed to be anywhere near children.
The only viciousness and derangement we see is in Tober’s high level of transphobia.
Tim Graham spent a May 1 post whining that NPR covered a speech by a transgender Biden administration official:
On the Friday night commute, NPR listeners witnessed an audio press release of sorts for the Biden administration. Transgender activist and assistant HHS secretary Rachel Levine is giving a speech to an LGBTQ health conference at Texas Christian University, and NPR promoted it like a press secretary. No opposing view was considered, certainly not about the “Christian” part.
Graham didn’t explain how, exactly, it is “Christian” to hate transgender people the way the typical MRC employee does.
Karen Townsend freaked out over a fictional transgender person — as the MRC likes to do — in a May 13 post, insisting there aren’t enough transgender people to warrant appearances in TV shows:
Television networks are determined to advance the idea that transgenderism is normal behavior, especially in family dynamics. You will be made to accept the LGBTQ agenda, regardless of your personal opinions and religious beliefs. At least that’s their plan. Tolerance is not optional.
The May 12 episode of ABC’s Station 19, “The Road You Didn’t Take,” saw the ongoing battle between divorced parents of a transgender boy play out. She was born Mary and now lives as Matt with her father’s blessing. Her mother, Jane (Romy Rosemont), still considers her to be her daughter, Mary.
[…]The number of Americans identifying as transgender is miniscule compared to the total population. According to the CDC, the number is about 1 million people, about 0.6 percent of the adult population in the United States. Nonetheless, television networks persist.
Townsend didn’t explain why she apparently believes the opposite to be true — that transgender people in fiction must be treated as freaks who deserve to be hated and denigrated. Oh, and complaining there are too many LGBT characters on TV is something the MRC loves to do.