Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Tierin-Rose Mandelburg continued her war on (and ignorance of) transgender people in an Oct. 7 post than embraced the social-contagion theory of transgenderism -- that because people are suddenly wanting to be transgender because media depictions of them aren't portraying them as evil the way Mandelburg demands:
In 2020, there were roughly 24,000 new diagnoses of gender dysphoria from kids aged 6-17 but in 2021, that number has nearly doubled in size to more than 42,000 cases. Reason being? The media and society recruiting today’s impressionable kids to force the leftist, progressive narrative and facilitate delusions of gender dysphoria.
Author David Marcus tweeted an image of a graph from Komodo Health analyzing the findings of an October 6 Reuters report. Reuters cited The National Institutes of Health -- the numbers are staggering. Again, in 2021 there were 42,167 new diagnoses of gender dysphoria. What's more, 17,683 children have started on puberty-blockers or hormones in the last five years, 5,063 of them in 2021. Reuters noted that “These numbers are probably a significant undercount since they don’t include children whose records did not specify a gender dysphoria diagnosis or whose treatment wasn’t covered by insurance.”
Oh great! Even more trans kids!
Yep.
The Reuters article mentioned a quote from Dr. Rachel Levine the assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, oh and if you didn’t know, Levine is transgender. (And, in case you doubt the media complicity in creating this social contagion, note that Levine was named a USA Today "Woman of the Year" for 2022.)
"Gender-affirming care for transgender youth is essential and can be life-saving," Levine noted.
That’s exactly why we have an issue with this sudden surge of transgender youth. The current administration is not only enabling but encouraging its staff, Big Tech, legacy media and schools to push any and all narratives that promote this gender delusion to kids.
In other words: The media doesn't portray transgender people as freaks anymore, and Mandelburg absollutely hates that. She then cited "nine examples accumulated from various MRCTV articles from just the last 12 months that prove who is at fault for this attack on our kids," which, again, largely amount to complaining that the non-right-wing media and schools won't spew hate at transgender people of the kind Mandelburg is used to hearing (and sewing) in her right-wing bubble. Bullet points include:
- School districts buy and push books emphasizing transgenderism
- Other than books, schools present lessons on transgenderism
- Children’s programing pushes the trans agenda
- The media glorifies transgender youth
Mandelburg never expained what this "trans agenda" supposedly is, of course. Another bullet point was "Children’s hospitals provide puberty-blockers and hormone therapy," which mesh with her tacit approval of threats and violence against children's hospitals who provide gender-affirming care to transgender youth (based on a falsehood by homophobic Libs of TikTok operator Chaya Raichik).
Yet another bullet point is "Media is silent on many crises that arise as a result of gender dysphoria," citing a single case in which "transgender activist Eli Erlick was accused of sexually assaulting people after illegally distributing hormone pills. The media never blinked an eye." Mandelburg didn't explain why this person is apparently representative of all transgender people; her silence suggests she wants to dishonestly use this single case to smear all transgender people as perverts.
More bullet points followed:
- Celebrities encourage transgenderism
- Big Tech pushes transgender ideology (again, Mandelburg failed to explain what "transgender ideology" purportedly is)
- Drag performers have become normal entertainment for kids
Ah, yes, drag performers (which is a completely different thing from transgenderism). Mandelburg used that point to whine that "As of late, a drag queen serves as a contestant on Dancing With The Stars which airs on Disney+." We've documented her hate-filled freakout over this.
I could go on all day with the dozens of example on how the left is pushing the transgender ideology. The takeaway is that all of these tactics are normalizing transgender youth. Kids see it on TV, at church, in their classrooms, and even from their doctors, so it’s no surprise that the numbers are on the rise. Furthermore, it's become more popular for woke parents to validate this delusion to "fit in" with the progressive crowd than be strong, rooted moms and dads.
Kids are being exploited by unscrupulous people for nefarious ends, and most of the nation couldn’t care less.
This is all performative outrage, of course -- the MRC pays Mandelburg to rant, so rant she does, speaking in right-wing code words she never has to explain to anyone outside her right-wing media bubble. Meanwhile, in the real world, actual researchers have not found a "social contagion" narrative to increasing numbers of transgender youth. The research did find that gender-diverse youth are bullied at much higher rates than other youths -- an outcome Mandelburg seems comfortable with, if not outright encouraging.
What Mandelburg won't tell you is that she is among those "unscrupulous people" exploiting ftransgender people -- but as enemies of the state who shouldn't even be considered human -- and her "nefarious ends" are to advance right-wing narratives that hate everything even remotely LGBTQ, with the goal of shame, censorship and destruction. In Mandelburg's view transgender people are more useful as dehumanized pawns to be beaten up than as actual people who deserve compassion or the right to live their lives as they see fit.
