Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center was certainly enthusiastic about mysterious sports blogger Jay Maxson's latest post on May 12, tweeting it out with a picture of Caitlyn Jenner (back when he was Bruce) under the headlines like "Stars, Stripes & Trannies Forever in Sports Illustrated." It is on brand for the MRC to bash transgenders with such crude language; the NewsBusters subject archive lists Jenner under Bruce with the addition, "Olympic medalist turned transgender activist 'Caitlyn.'"
Strangely, though, Maxson's post was deleted some time after it was first posted, and the MRC has provided no explanation for why.
We found a copy of it at another blog, though. It appears Maxson was triggered by a report that Jenner would pose in Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue "wearing only an American flag and the gold medal won by Bruce Jenner in the 1976 Olympic decathlon." Let the nasty trans-bashing begin (bolding in original):
- "America's Olympic champions usually wrap themselves in the flag after winning gold. ... They don't usually change their gender 40 years later and then wrap themselves in the flag for naked photos in Sports Illustrated. But in 1976 men were men and now Bruce Jenner is Caitlyn Jenner. There's a market for flag-wearing nudie transgenders in the weird, wide world of sports media in 2019, thanks to SI."
- "Falcone isn't only confused about which anniversary Jenner is observing, but also about the biological gender of the man who was hailed as the world's greatest male athlete 43 years ago. She writes that Jenner will retrieve "her most prized possession”from the bottom of a makeup drawer because she didn't want it to be a visible reminder for her five children of what they would have to compare their achievements to."
- "Jenner confirmed to Sports Illustrated's Tim Layden in 2016 that the gold medal was being stored in her nail drawer. However, there was no confirmation if it had been tarnished by pink nail polish."
- "The LGBT pressure groups might change their tune on Trump now that he has given Jenner the huge victory about where she can urinate, however."
Again: Trans-bashing is totally on-brand for the MRC -- an MRC videographer once embarrassed himself by pretending to be a transgender student at a college (his idea of "transgender" was dressing in shorts and a tank top and talking with a lisp) who wanted to use the women's locker room, and Maxson has previously mocked a transgender sports writer for having "Jennered" to "womanhood" (scare quotes his).
We're still not clear on why the MRC pulled this post, since it's just as tranphobic and insulting as other prevoius MRC works -- and the arguably even more offensive "Stars, Stripes and Trannies" tweet is still live as of this writing. Can someone at the MRC explain further?
