Covering the Critics of Conway, Not the Murders of Transgender Women

The New York Times presents sexist criticism of Kellyanne Conway as an instance of “persistent anger toward women who step outside conventional roles”–but there are more compelling examples.

Kellyanne Conway has been a staple in corporate media since she became Donald Trump’s campaign manager in August of last year. But coverage of Conway has shifted since she blamed Iraqi refugees for an imaginary “Bowling Green massacre” on MSNBC (2/21/17) in early February. Rather than just quoting Conway as a spokesperson for the Trump administration, media have made a story out of Conway herself.

Conway coverage reached a fever pitch on February 27, when a photo of her kneeling on an Oval Office couch spurred reports from the Washington Post (“‘I Certainly Meant No Disrespect,’ Kellyanne Conway Says of Her Pose in Oval Office Couch Photo”),  New York Times (“Kellyanne Conway Casually Sits, and Etiquette Arbiters Take a Stand”), Fox News (“Kellyanne Conway Defends Controversial Couch Photo”) and most other major news outlets.

The story got extra legs when Rep. Cedric Richmond (D.–La.) made a joke about the photo during his keynote remarks at the Washington Press Club Foundation Dinner (3/1/17). He said Conway looked “kind of familiar in that position,” a remark taken by many to be a sexual reference.

CNN anchor Jake Trapper (3/5/17) asked House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to comment on the joke, asking whether Democrats “cede the moral high ground” by failing to rebuke a party member for making these types of comments. The Washington Post and Fox News followed up with coverage of Pelosi’s “punt” and Representative Richmond’s apology.

Then came the feminist analysis. Are critiques of Kellyanne Conway sexist? Do feminists have a responsibility to defend her, regardless of her policy positions? Or, alternately, should women take every opportunity to dismantle the political machine that is attacking their fundamental rights?

“Whether the attacks come from the right or the left, they show a persistent anger toward women who step outside conventional roles,” wrote Susan Chira in the New York Times (3/5/17). “Much as latent racism surfaced during the presidency of Barack Obama, this election exposed a vitriol toward powerful women that continues to erupt, beyond the confines of Twitter or Reddit.”

While there’s a lot to be said about the sexism that professional women face in the workforce, if media are interested in “persistent anger toward women who step outside conventional roles,” more striking examples come to mind—and many involve “latent racism,” not just as a metaphor but as an inextricable ingredient.

Chyna Doll Dupree was one of three trans women of color to be murdered in New Orleans in late February. (photo via The Advocate)

For instance, two transgender women of color were murdered within two days of each other in New Orleans at the end of February—just as Conway’s couch controversy began. A third African-American trans woman had been killed in New Orleans about a week earlier, but had been initially misgendered by police.

And these weren’t isolated incidents. According to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, seven transgender women of color have been killed in 2017.

After the murders, LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD released a statement identifying the transgender women who have been killed this year, calling on the media to report on this dangerous and disturbing trend. It even reminded reporters that, by November, 2016 was the deadliest year for transgender people in the United States on record.

Still, major news outlets have largely stayed silent.

On March 2, Rep. Joe Kennedy III read out the names of the seven murdered women at a press conference, but even that wasn’t enough to attract much media attention. NBC News (3/2/17) was a notable exception, with its coverage of the relaunch of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus.

“With Jeff Sessions heading the Justice Department and Betsy DeVos helming the Department of Education, LGBTQ advocates are gearing up for a long road ahead,” the piece noted, focusing on the political battles that will be fought in the near future. It didn’t get to the transgender murder rate—presumably a pressing issue—until the last two paragraphs.

It’s not that the mainstream media aren’t interested in transgender issues. In fact, media outlets have been happy to cover the bathroom battle ad nauseam—especially with the Supreme Court sending a high-profile case back to a lower court last week.

But much of the coverage puts the focus on “public” safety, code for cisgender safety, rather than those who are most at risk.

“For Texas state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, requiring people to use the bathroom according to the gender on their birth certificate has always been about public safety,” the LA Times (2/23/17) reported. The piece followed up with a quote from Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a staunch supporter of Kolkhorst’s Texas Privacy Act: “It is a common-sense privacy and public safety policy for everyone.”

Everyone who is cisgendered, that is.

A recent Associated Press piece (2/22/17) about the Trump administration’s roll-back of transgender bathroom policies for schools towed a similar line–quoting Ryan Anderson, a senior research fellow with the conservative Heritage Foundation: ‘‘It’s understandable when a 16-year-old girl might not want an anatomical male in the shower or the locker room.’’

The issue isn’t that the LA Times or the AP reported these opinions. The issue is that neither piece noted that there is no evidence to support the claim that transgender people have a habit of attacking people in restrooms.

And, perhaps more importantly, the articles failed to outline the threats transgender people face on a daily basis—or focus on the unique risks transgender students face in school. A 2015 study by The National Center for Transgender Equality found that:

the majority of respondents who were out or perceived as transgender while in school (K–12) experienced some form of mistreatment, including being verbally harassed (54 percent), physically attacked (24 percent), and sexually assaulted (13 percent) because they were transgender. Further, 17 percent experienced such severe mistreatment that they left a school as a result.

Overall, the study found that 46 percent of transgender respondents were verbally harassed over the previous year, 9 percent were physically attacked and 10 percent were sexually assaulted. And nearly half (47 percent) had been sexually assaulted at some point in their lives.

With these dangers facing the most vulnerable women in America, perhaps it’s time for media to reallocate some of the attention they’ve been paying to the perils of Kellyanne Conway.

Tegan Jones is a writer and editor based in New Orleans. You can find her on Twitter at @60AngryInches.