Topic: Media Research Center
When we last checked in, the Media Research Center was ringing in Pride Month with lots of nasty hatred of transgender people, and as the month continued, so did the hate. R. Emmett Tyrrell wrote a June 9 column with the headline "My Plan for the Transgenders" -- yes, he thinks "transgender" is a noun -- in which he demanded that there be "a third and, for that matter, a fourth category for the gender-revised athletes" and mocked transgender male athletes:
The guys may be bold enough to show up at a girls’ athletic events wearing a girls’ frilly competitive outfit. Think of the feminine frills worn by female tennis stars or the tattoos worn by women boxers. Yet even the toughest transgender guy has got to be shaken after one of the burly girls snickers at him/her or offers to hold his/her towel. There are dozens of ways to bully a transgender athlete, and no matter how aloof or calloused he or she might be, still every slight has its affect.
In a June 13 post, Kevin Tober was outraged that "a transgender TikTok influencer went completely topless" during a Pride Month event at the White House, which he claimed "sparked outrage at the lack of decorum at the White House." While he conceded that "Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre condemning the activist for stripping on White House grounds and informing them that they will not be allowed back," he whined that "big three evening news broadcasts continued ignoring the incident in order to minimize the embarrassment for the Biden administration" -- while of course crowing that Fox News gave the incident ample coverage -- going on to huff:
Regardless of who you are or what your sexual orientation is, it is thoroughly inappropriate to take off your clothes on White House property. It seems everyone from all sides of the political spectrum is in agreement except for the big three evening news broadcasts.
In another June 13 post, Alex Christy complained that PBS interviewed a woman "who compared giving hormones to 8-year olds to treatment for an earache," asserting that the claim "should earn a 'pants-on-fire' rating" (but without explaining why). Then again, Christy thinks that small breasts in teenage girls is a "birth defect" that must be fixed by plastic surgery, so he may not be the best person to ask for medical advice. (Or maybe he's just turned on by large-breasted teen girls.)
Christy complained that there wasn't unanimous hatred of the topless transgender person at the White House in a June 15 post:
Rolling Stone’s Jay Michaelson spoke for all of CNN Tonight’s Wednesday panel when asked if it was wrong of a transgender activist to go topless at the White House with “yes, but” as he and his fellow panelists would equivocate on the “inappropriate” “act of joy.” Taking the top spot for outrageousness was The Root’s Jessica Washington who lamented the “oppressed have to be perfect 24/7.”
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Michaelson also lamented that this story is even a story at all, “I don't want this to distract from what is really happening, which is tragic war on trans people in this country. A new study just came out that said 41 percent of LGBTQ young people between the ages of 13 and 22 have seriously considered suicide in the last year. That number is even higher for transgender people. And so, while this was a misguided act of celebration, it was one in the context of a community that is under siege right now.”
Camerota then tossed the conversation to 2022 New York GOP Senate candidate Joe Pinion who butchered the conservative position, “I think most Republicans that I know would agree that trans people do have to live in fear. Most people who are Republican, who are conservative believe you should be able to love who you want to love, define yourself on your own terms. That is a thing that most people agree with.”
Legally being able to identify how you want and expecting to be taken seriously or demanding the law acknowledge it as true are two very different things, but Pinion continued, “Certainly, there are people who are bigoted, who have always used the urge to protect the children or to follow the faith, to justify some of the darkest chapters in American history.”
Christy didn't explain how, exactly, Pinion "butchered the conservative position" on transgender people -- which does, in fact, have as a key component spewing hate at them and denying their rights.
A June 15 post by chief MRC transphobe Tierin-Rose Mandelburg cheered a right-wing congressmasn for playing gotcha on a witness at a hearing about gender-affirming treatment:
Oh really? I wonder why?
During a House hearing Wednesday, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) debated witness Dr. Meredithe McNamara, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Yale School of Medicine. When Crenshaw asked McNamara about benefits of trans procedures for kids, she couldn’t name a single study that pointed them out.
Crenshaw recently proposed provisions that would remove federal funding from hospitals who provide transgender procedures for minors. Said procedures would include things like puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones or surgeries.
As reported by the "Washington Examiner," Crenshaw’s resolution would “remove federal dollars from facilities that perform these controversial treatment therapies in a similar manner as the Hyde Amendment removes funding for abortion procedures.” Essentially, training hospitals who teach about how to treat trans kids would be denied funding from the federal government. Presently, 58 hospitals receive that funding but if Crenshaw's proposal is instated, its highly likely that number would go down.
As a matter of fact, 70 percent of taxpayers opposed the “barbaric treatment” on minors, as Crenshaw mentioned to assist his point that these treatments shouldn't receive federal funding.
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Of course, McNamara couldn’t name any of the benefits of trans surgeries for kids because - well, there are none. There’s nothing positive about chemically or surgically castrating anyone, nevermind a child. There’s nothing beneficial about mutilating an innocent, God-designed body to fulfill a complete and utter delusion. There’s no perks of training doctors on how to provide life threatening and life changing procedures to kids that frankly, do not need said procedures at all.
Crenshaw’s argument pointed that out clearly while squashing McNamara’s, so-called "rebuttals."
But Mandelburg offered no evidence Crenshaw allowed McNamara to answer his questions; her excerpts of the exchange largely involved Crenshaw interrupting and talking over her.
Tober returend for a June 15 post whining that an actual medical professional criticized right-wing anti-transgender laws:
On Thursday’s edition of CBS Evening News, anchor Norah O’Donnell had a sitdown interview with Doctor Jesse Ehrenfeld, the president of the American Medical Association who grumbled that doctors and other medical professionals were struggling in their professions due to states banning chemical castration and other transgender surgeries.
After introducing Ehrenfeld, O’Donnell asked him what he thinks was “the top issue facing physicians today.” Ehrenfeld responded that the United States has a “twin-endemic, a pandemic of the disease, plus a pandemic of misinformation and bad information.”
Narrating to the audience, O’Donnell bemoaned that “Dr. Ehrenfeld is taking over at a difficult time. Doctors are facing burnout, soaring medical costs, medicare payment issues, and new legislation targeting the LGBTQ community and reproductive rights.”
“We have a healthcare system in crisis,” Ehrenfeld proclaimed. When asked to clarify, he said, “In at least six states now, if I practice evidence-based care, I can go to jail. It's frightening. When a patient shows up in my office, if I do the right thing from a scientific, from an ethical perspective, to know that that care is no longer legal, criminalized, and could wind me in prison.”
There was no scientific evidence to support chopping off the healthy body parts of a young boy or girl in order to make them look like the opposite sex. Yet, O’Donnell never corrected him or challenged him in any way.
Even worse, she accepted his anti-scientific narrative by referring to it as “criminalizing of doctor care.”
Christy didn't explain why a doctor's care must be criminalized.
Tim Graham spent a June 18 post huffing about a story on a pregnant transgender man :
On Saturday, NPR exploited Father's Day to push "pregnant dads" with our taxpayer subsidies. The headline was "Americans celebrate dads this weekend. Three tell us about being a father in 2023." They pushed the "he was pregnant" pronoun inanity hard in their celebration:
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The only tiny hint of interesting opposition allowed in this propaganda is that allegedly a lot of people wanted this woman to abort. Then we had to be told "what people get wrong" with their opposition to upside-down gender-denying madness:
Graham didn't explain how adding right-wing anti-transgender hate to this story improved it any, given that we are all quite aware that right-wingers like him passionately despise the mere existence of transgender people.
A June 18 post by Tober assumed without evidene that children recieving gender-affirming care are being "abused" and, thus, create the need for right-wing transphobes to interfere in and override the opinion of parents, whom conservatives otherwise claim to believe know best for their chidlren:
On CBS Sunday Morning, correspondent Susan Spencer was once again wearing her leftist bias on her sleeve when she began arguing with American Principles Project president Terry Schilling over sex change procedures for children. The interview came during a segment on the growing fight between conservatives and leftists on whether children should be allowed to receive puberty blocking and cross sex hormones if they believe they’re the opposite sex.
Spencer kicked her biased questioning into high gear when she wailed at Schilling: "the parents of some of these children would look at you and say if you want to protect kids, leave us alone." This of course is absurd even for Spencer. Why would conservatives who believe children are being abused simply look the other way?
Schilling responded to her asinine question by noting "We are leaving your kids alone. We are the ones that are protecting them from getting sex change procedures and puberty blocking and cross sex hormones."
"I would tell them they don't," Schilling added. To which Spencer interrupted again: "who are you to say that?"
Schilling retorted by educating the Democrat CBS News activist: "I am an American citizen that gets to vote and organize people in politics. When we both disagree, then we go to the American people and make our cases to them and we see who can pass the most laws and right now we’re starting to win."
Tober then huffed, "Spencer would never grill a Democrat like this." It's telling that he has chosen to portray asking reasonable questions of a right-wing activist as "hostile" and an example of "leftist bias."
