Topic: The ConWeb
Fox News has very much earned its status as a anti-transgender outlet -- it pushed the hateful narrative about a Loudoun County, Va., student who was "wearing a dress" who assaulted a female student (in fact, the students had consensual sexual contact before the incident), was one of the leaders in demonizing transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, and it aired dozens of segments maliciously portraying transgender people as "groomers." But that's not enough for the ConWeb -- Fox News must be all-transphobia, all the time.
When Fox News hired Caitlyn Jenner as a commentator earlier this year, trtanphobic WorldNetDaily columnist Michael Brown threw a fit over the channel offering a "celebratory embrace of Jenner as an iconic trailblazer in the LGBTQ+ community" and declaring that Fox News could no longer trusted to hate the same people he does: "In short, just because Fox was pro-Trump doesn't mean Fox was (and is) pro-Bible (as if support for Trump equated with support for the Bible). And just because Fox is more conservative politically and fiscally than CNN or MSNBC doesn't mean that Fox is conservative morally or spiritually."
In darly June, Fox News committed the offense of not spewing hate in a segment about a transgender teen -- and the ConWeb exploded in outrage. The Media Research Center's Tierin-Rose Mandelburg whined in a June 10 post:
Oh come on! Seven million people saw a viral YouTube video of a transgender teenager and none other than Fox News just gave the delusion another platform to spread on.
At the 10 o'clock hour today onAmerica's Newsroom with Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino, the show highlighted the story of Ryland Whittington to show the company’s support of the LGBTQ community during Pride Month.
Dang it, I guess I’m gonna have to find a new channel to watch.
Mandeburg even suggested that it would be better that the teen killed himself rather than transition. In response to the teen's mother declaring that “I’d rather have a living son than a dead daughter,”Mandelburg sneered, "Nobody wants anyone to harm themselves in any way, I don’t think that indulging delusional sense of identity is the way to combat that."
Mandelburg concluded her post with another whine: "The only thing this story led me to understand is that Fox is a bit more woke than I’d like to admit. Prayers go out to the millions of people that saw this segment and think that transitioning the youth isn’t child abuse." Are there any prayers for someone who thinks the only possible response to transgender is to engage in her own form of child abuse by spewing hate and encouraging suicide?
(By contrast, the MRC was silent when former Fox News host Megyn Kelly attacked her former employer over the segment despite actually defending trans rights in a Fox News interview six years earlier.)
Newsmax joined the hate parade with a June 11 article by Jay Clemmons arguing that the Fox News audience (well, right-wing transphobes) was "stunned" that a transgender teen wasn't treated as evil:
Fox News stunned its audience Friday after it aired a sympathetic transgender story about a biological girl who had "transitioned" beginning at the age of 5 to become a boy.
As part of Fox News' special series called "America Together: LGBTQ+ Pride Month," Fox correspondent Bryan Llenas featured a Southern California family who decided to help make their female child a transgender boy named Ryland, now 14.
[...]
Shortly after the Fox report aired, conservative commentator Ben Shapiro slammed Fox for airing the pro-transgender segment as a "complete betrayal."
"Every element of this [Fox News] video is propagandistic, dangerous garbage," Shapiro said.
[...]
Likewise, Daily Wire host Michael Knowles knocked Fox News for spotlighting a controversial issue that goes against the beliefs of its Christian viewers.
"Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer when my conservative news outlets don't encourage parents to trans their little children," he said.
[...]
The sentiment was largely the same among regular Fox viewers.
One commenter wrote, via Twitter, "You're done with me now. Stop pushing the woke trans abuse of children. The media is the enemy of the people. That includes Fox News too. Nobody needs your propaganda."
Clemmons went on to complain that this story, along with the hiring of Jenner, demonstrated how the channel "has been undergoing a transitioning of sorts itself as it moves away from its more traditional base of viewers." Newsmax's TV channel has been gunning for the right-wing audience who thinks Fox News isn't transphobic or pro-Trump enough.
The MRC's "news" divisiobn, CNSNews.com, want a piece of that hateful action too. It published a June 14 commentary by Suzanne Bowdley of the right-wing, anti-LGBT Family Research Council's "news" operation, the Washington Stand, issuing the well-worn complaint about being sad that Fox News doesn't offer the 24/7 homophobia and transphobia she demands:
For the last handful of years, no one’s been under the impression that Fox News is particularly conservative. But at least they were reasonable, many thought. After Friday’s glowing endorsement of transgenderism, the benefits of those doubts are gone.
[...]
Maybe the network was trying to get back into the Human Rights Campaign’s good graces, after being dinged on this year’s Corporate Diversity Index after years of a perfect score. Still, the idea that anyone could be supportive of a movement so sinister and lethal to children is mind-boggling to viewers, who’ve seen the heartbreaking results firsthand. The pain and regret from teenagers who latched on to these new identities because of the adults in their lives is real.
She then cited examples of transgender people who regret their transition that right-wingers like her are exploiting to fuel their anti-trans hate.
CNS also cheered Shapiro's hate in a June 17 article by intern Janey Olohan:
Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro is railing against the Fox News Channel for airing a sympathetic segment highlighting a family that encouraged their young daughter to identify as a boy from the mere age of five, calling the report “despicable,” and “a complete betrayal of anything remotely resembling conservatism or decency.”
In Monday’s episode of “The Ben Shapiro Show,” Shapiro dissects and refutes, piece by piece, the “insane propaganda” of the Fox News segment, “California transgender teen, family hope to be an inspiration to others,” promoting the transition of the young girl.
[...]
Shapiro called Ryland’s transition from such a young age “child abuse,” stating that, “the vast majority of children who display signs of gender dysphoria desist over time.”
He called the report “horrifying propaganda,” and ridiculed the mother, Hillary Whittington, for referencing her Christian faith to justify transitioning her daughter as an infant.
Olohan even parroted Shapiro calling the teen's mother a liar for defending her child:
Olohan did no fact-checking whatsoever of Shapiro to make sure he really dod "refute" everything in the segment. She apparently didn't consider the possibility that it was Shapiro and not Fox News who was serving up "propaganda." That's sadly par for the course, given how CNS is teaching its summer interns how to peddle right-wing bias instead of learning journalistic principles.“I’d rather have a living son than a dead daughter,” Ryland’s mother told “America’s Newsroom” – a claim Shapiro calls mere propaganda, not fact:
“There is no credible evidence that transition alleviates suicidal ideation among children who identify as LGBTQ+.”
