The MRC's Dishonesty And Hate Toward Transgender People

So filled with anti-transgender rage is the Media Research Center that it will publish dishonest and misleading claims about transgender people -- and bury or censor the fact that those claims have been debunked.

By Terry Krepel
Posted 5/3/2023

Tierin-Rose Mandelburg

When reading daily headlines, I often find myself thinking that I dreamt what they say due to the extreme level of radical lunacy … Friday was one of those days.

Boston Children’s Hospital recently boasted about its new procedures for kids. It plans to offer hysterectomies as part of its “gender-affirming" treatment in order to help children remove organs that they don’t want.

No, this is not part of a dystopian fictional narrative. This is August, 2022 where even the craziest of stories and situations are coming to fruition.

Just one problem: It's not true -- meaning that it was, in fact, a fictional narrative. (But the internet is forever.) Mandelburg was later forced to update her post, as an editor's note pointed out:

PolitiFact fact-checked the Libs of TikTok tweet and clarified that Boston Children's does not perform hysterectomies on minors. Nonetheless, these are surgeries that take place at Boston Children's Hospital, a pediatric medical facility.

As part of the correction, Mandelburg changed "children" to " patients" but also added a sneer: "Boston Children's has not explicitly stated that it won't extend the procedure to younger patients in the future, not to mention, 18 is still too young for sterilization if you ask me." But nobody asked her, given that she's not a medical professional or is capable of expressing anything but hate and contempt for transgender people. The rest of Mandelburg's post was largely intact -- including the false Libs of TikTok tweet that remains embedded -- including her concluding rant:

Boston Children's has the potential to help and save so many lives but this “gender-affirming care” is a regression of those possibilities. This will only hurt patients in the long run and the media needs to expose the group for its lunacy in order to combat these vile, malicious, and destructive practices.

As right-wingers get called out for spreading this false information -- and as that misinformation resulted in threats against the hospital and its staff to the point that the hospital sought help from law enforcement, even as Libs of TikTok continued to spread misinformation -- Alex Christy tried to parse things to justify the false attack in an Aug. 18 post:

On Wednesday’s installment of New Day on CNN, host Brianna Keilar and correspondent Alexandra Field alleged that it is “misinformation” and “demonstrably false” to say that Boston Children’s Hospital provides genital surgeries for minors. Unfortunately, reality is more complicated.

Keilar kicked off the segment by reporting that “Boston Children's Hospital says its doctors and staff have been facing violent threats after right-wing groups spread online misinformation and conspiracy theories like this one on TikTok about their facility providing care for transgender children.”

Obviously threats are not acceptable, but the purpose of this segment was to shut up BCH’s critics and Field wasted no time attempting to do just that, “Look, the claims being made online are demonstrably false, unequivocally.”

She further reported that, “But the hospital has now put out a statement saying it’s taking all possible measures to protect members of the community, and it is saying in no uncertain terms it condemns the attacks and misinformation that is being spread. It also goes on to say in very clear terms, ‘Boston Children's does not perform genital surgeries as part of gender affirming care on a patient under the age of 18.’”

It is true that if you go to BCH’s website it says in bolded text that “To qualify for vaginoplasty at Boston Children's Hospital, you must be at least 18 years old and meet certain,” but on August 7, before the video went viral, the same website said in unbolded text that the age was 17.

Either the original website was wrong and nobody noticed until they got embarrassed on Twitter or BCH is lying. Either way, it is dishonest to say critics are spreading conspiracy theories that are “demonstrably false.”

Christy censored the fact that his co-worker Mandelburg had her post on the subject corrected for repeating false information, and he failed to explain why false attacks against the hospital shouldn't be "shut up."

(Christy's post originally carried the headline "CNN Fact Check Peddles False Claims About Hysterectomies For Minors," but since he didn't actually identify any false claims CNN made, the headline was later changed without disclosure or explanation to "CNN Screams 'Misinformation' to Defend Woke Boston Children's Hospital.")

When the Washington Post reported that anti-trans attacks by Libs of TikTok are resulting in threats against hospitals, a Sept. 5 post by Clay Waters attacked not Libs of TikTok but, rather, Post reporter Taylor Lorenz, who the MRC has previously attacked for engaging in the journalistic duty of following a trail of public information to identify Chaya Raichik as the homophobe behind the Libs of TikTok account:

Inflammatory, self-pitying Washington Post online media reporter Taylor Lorenz, who claims to fight (conservative) misinformation online, pushed her own line of intimidation and misinformation against one of her conservative targets, posted Friday: “Twitter account Libs of TikTok blamed for harassment of children’s hospitals -- Employees are warning colleagues to take action against the anti-LGBTQ account, saying it’s ‘only a matter of time’ before its posts lead to violence.”

So what awful deeds does the Libs of TikTok account actually commit? It reposts unedited videos previously posted by lefties (often of the gender-radical variety) on social media channels, sometimes with brief commentary. Liberals who don’t like their own idiocies exposed to the wider public react hysterically.

Lorenz had previously doxxed the woman behind the account, revealing her name and address in the Post.

Undaunted, Libs of TikTok is now publicizing video clips produced by hospitals, including Boston Children’s Hospital, promoting “gender-affirming” hysterectomies -- surgeries for the removal of sexual organs -- for young people, though whether the hospital offered the surgeries to actual minors has not been confirmed.

That triggered Lorenz to try and do (along with co-authors Elizabeth Dwoskin and Peter Jamison) what she loves most: Try and drive Libs of TikTok off the internet.

Waters didn't explain why an account that incites threats of violence should not be policed, or why it "inflammatory" for Lorenz to research the woman behind that incitement.

This was followed by a Sept. 13 attack on Lorenz by Nicholas Fondacaro, claiming that she was "threatening to run a story falsely claiming the account 'helped to foster violence,' generate 'death threats,' and 'intend[ed] to continue to target hospitals' with bomb threats. All of which are untrue and not supported with evidence." Fondacaro offered no evidence this was the case -- even though, despite Fondacaro's denial, it's indisputably true that the threats against the hospitals came after Libs of TikTok targeted them.

Funny how quickly the MRC moved from "threats are bad" to "you can't directly blame us so it didn't happen."

Meanwhile -- despite having been burned by Raichik -- Mandelburg was eager to spread more hate from Libs of TikTok against another children's hospital in a Sept. 19 post:

If you’d like to suppress the normal functions of your child's body or medically delay natural gender differentiations, head on over to Ohio.

Akron Children’s Hospital in Ohio reportedly opened a “Gender Affirming Center” to shift the focus from actual children’s health to progressive child abuse, Libs of TikTok pointed out.

“Our goals are to help gender-diverse youth feel comfortable exploring their gender identity and improve their overall health,” the webpage, which has since been removed, said.

[...]

What’s sad is that Akron Children’s isn’t alone in its progressive madness. Even though kids can’t get a tattoo as they’re “permanent,” kids are not only able to, but encouraged to take life changing medicine to affirm an identity that is false.

This is the terrifying reality of our 21st century society.

Actually, what's sad is that haters like Mandelburg has a platform to spread and amplify that hate. Again, the predictable consequences happened: The hospital similarly received threats, and a woman was arrested for calling in a fake bomb threat. We assume Mandelburg approves, and the MRC will never admit that the deliberately inflammatory content of Libs of TikTok had anything to do with it.

Anti-trans rage

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 absolutely 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 explained 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 (again, based on a falsehood from 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.

What Mandelburg won't tell you is that she is among those "unscrupulous people" exploiting transgender 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.

More dishonesty

Mandelburg hyped in a Feb. 10 post:

The left needs to consider this a warning.

In an op-ed for The Free Press, Jamie Reed, a queer woman with a trans husband, explained her deep regret and guilt after treating transgender kids with life altering medicines and procedures. Her piece titled, “I Thought I Was Saving Trans Kids. Now I’m Blowing the Whistle,” should serve as a wake-up-call to the left that thinks gender-affirming procedures aren’t harmful.

Reed worked as a case manager at The Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. She claimed that the center’s “working assumption” was that the sooner you treat kids' gender dysphoria with life altering measures, the better. Reed’s specific role at the clinic was patient intake and oversight and she saw around 1,000 confused kids during her four year employment at the center.

After seeing the kids leave with “life-altering consequences — including sterility,” Reed quit. “I could no longer participate in what was happening there. By the time I departed, I was certain that the way the American medical system is treating these patients is the opposite of the promise we make to ‘do no harm.’ Instead, we are permanently harming the vulnerable patients in our care,” she said.

Reed claimed her testimony puts her at personal and professional risk but noted that what’s happening to kids is “morally and medically appalling” and is “far more important than” her “comfort.”

As it turns out, Reed is also at "personal and professional risk" because her story appears not to be true. As Erin Reed wrote in a detailed debunking of Jamie Reed's claims:

Delving into Jamie Reed’s allegations and story makes it clear that she is not an ideologically neutral individual on the care and respect of transgender people. Her statements and omissions reveal a clear ideological bias, and the organizations and representation she has chosen to work with contradict her claim that she “supports transgender people.”

Throughout her story, she frequently misgenders her patients. In fact, I am not aware of a single case where she genders her trans patients correctly. Out of the thousand or so patients she has seen, she only references a half dozen specific anecdotes of what she relays as poor experiences for transgender youth patients - anecdotes I will cover in detail. Even in these anecdotes, she often omits long term net harm. She leaves out the stories of what must be the rest of the thousand patients who, as we have seen in numerous testimony in hearings this year, saw their mental and physical health improve dramatically. Ultimately, she calls for stopping gender affirming care for trans youth - something that would result in actual harm and death to this patient population.

She is not a doctor, a psychologist, a psychiatrist, and does not have direct medical diagnostic experience with patients. She is a case worker, someone who navigates insurance claims and takes intake calls. Throughout her story, she places her own interpretations of events above those of medically educated providers, therapists, and the families and patients that work with them. She claims to know better for these patients, and has acted to sabotage their care.

Mandelburg hyped Jamie Reed claiming that "many of the patients were on the autism spectrum or claimed that they had other disorders like Tourette syndrome, tic disorders or multiple personalities, all of which she said they didn’t." Erin Reed responded:

Here Jamie repeats anti-trans talking points here blaming gender dysphoria on all other things than being trans. Bizarrely, she includes obesity here. While many transgender people have concurrent disorders, there is no established research showing being “trans” is caused by anything else. Furthermore, research into autistic transgender individuals has stated that being prevented from transitioning due to an autism diagnosis could “cause increased levels of depression and anxiety.” The idea that autistic individuals cannot be LGBT+ unfairly targets autistic people who have pushed back hard against the idea that their diagnosis means they cannot experience genuine gender identities or sexual orientations.

Mandelburg repeated Jamie Reed's claim that "The center literally prescribed a cancer drug as a puberty blocker for boys who wanted to be girls"; Erin Reed responded by pointing out that the drug in question, bicalutamide, "is also used to treat hair loss and excessive facial hair in cisgender females."

Mandelburg also repeated Jamie Reed's claim that "She encountered a situation where a mother convinced her daughter that she was trans when the child's father protested, the woman went to court in a custody battle over the 11-year-old after . A doctor [sic] at the center sided with the mother and so did the court." Erin Reed responded that "Jamie is upset that the doctors testified on a patient’s behalf that the best medical practices were followed. An entire court case happened around this proceeding where a judge weighed all of the evidence and statements and came to a verdict. We are supposed to put all of that aside because of a vendetta that Jamie has with her own place of employment."

Even the parents of children who attended the clinic have debunked Jamie Reed's claims.

Mandelburg concluded by claiming: "At the end of the op-ed, Reed pointed out that this isn’t a political matter. This shouldn’t be a divisive issue. This deals with the safety of our children and shouldn’t result in culture wars." In fact, as Erin Reed pointed out, Jamie's testimony was withheld in order to have maximum impact on anti-trans bills in the Missouri legislature, meaning that Jamie is totally cool with playing politics with this issue -- just as Mandelburg is.

Mandelburg has not updated her post to reflect how Jamie Reed's claims have been discredited, nor has she written a new one retracting her earlier post. Remember, narratives are more important than facts.