Libs of TikTok, “one of the preeminent homophobic and transphobic spaces on Twitter” (Slate, 4/27/22),
has been permanently kicked off of TikTok.
Last summer, while waiting for coffee at a diner in what I’ll just call a small town, I overheard three older men complaining about how schools are forcing children to swap genders. A server responded, “You’re not even allowed to talk about this anymore.” I thought to myself, “A, you’re talking about it right now, and B, where’s my coffee?”
The exchange has stayed on my mind: How on earth are so many people convinced that children’s lives are being turned upside down by the acceptance of LGBTQ rights in America? And why do they believe they are the ones being silenced, when they clearly aren’t?
The main reason is that hostility against LGBTQ “grooming”—the false idea that schoolteachers and drag queen story hours at libraries are attempting to train children to be gay and trans, rather than simply acknowledging the existence of gay and trans people, and discouraging hatred and bigoted violence against them—has become a big feature of the social conservative movement. One notable player in that is Chaya Raichik, who runs an anti-trans Twitter account called “Libs of TikTok,” which boasts 1.7 million followers.
Fox News—arguably the most influential purveyor of the “grooming” narrative—has shown Libs of TikTok consistent support in the past (e.g., 4/20/22, 6/9/22, 6/27/22, 11/21/22), frequently airing clips from the account (Media Matters, 4/1/22). While Raichik’s identity had been revealed by the Washington Post (4/19/22) months ago, she has recently chosen to come out from behind her self-imposed Twitter anonymity—and Fox was happy to offer a platform.
‘Risk of ostracism’
Libs of TikTok‘s Chaya Raichik on Tucker Carlson Tonight (12/27/22): “I know that I’ve helped create legislation to tackle some of these issues.”
Raichik recently appeared on Fox News‘ Tucker Carlson Tonight (12/27/22). using her face and name for the first time, to crank up hateful rhetoric that the LGBTQ community was “evil” and a “cult.” (Video of the interview was made available on the subscription-only Fox Nation streaming service—12/28/22.)
Raichik is clear about spreading a message designed to stir fear about LGBTQ people coming for your children. Her goal, she told the New York Post (12/31/22), is “dismantling and destroying gender ideology [sic] in America.”
The Murdoch-owned Post, which at this point is sort of the print subsidiary of Fox, doubled down on Raichik’s appearance on Carlson’s show, making her out to be a David taking on the LGBTQ Goliath. “Sometimes in life, you’re called to do something that isn’t in your nature, compelled nevertheless because you believe it’s the right thing to do,” a Post op-ed (12/29/22) declared of Raichik, because “the risk of ostracism, threats of physical harm and attacks on your character don’t measure up to the guilt you’d feel by ignoring your instinct to act.”
Laser-focused on trans issues
In the past few years, the right-wing media have become laser-focused on transgender issues, not always attacking trans people individually, but instead claiming that children are being “groomed” to adopt “radical gender ideology,” and that rights for the trans community are infringing on the rights of children, women and Christians.
The Wall Street Journal (3/26/19) accuses Democrats of “redefining the category of ‘women’ to include…people who aren’t women at all.”
For example, the Wall Street Journal (also owned by the Murdoch family) has run numerous pieces worrying about “the wildfire spread of transgender identity” (8/17/22) and how transgender patient rights could infringe on the rights of conservative Christians who wish to discriminate against them (8/25/22), as well as invoking anti-trans positions as a purported defense of women’s rights (3/26/19). The Journal also ran multiple opinion articles defending Yeshiva University’s resistance to allowing an LGBTQ club on its campus (8/29/22, 10/2/22).
The New York Post has painted a picture of parents who fight to protect their children from a supposed trans “gender cult” (12/22/21, 5/11/22), as well as blasting the use of public money for drag queen story hours (6/11/22).
Raichik is far from the only one in right-wing media hawking the myth that LGBTQ people are using public resources to push a sinister agenda on children. There’s Matt Walsh of the Daily Wire and Christopher Rufo at City Journal (9/29/22, 10/12/22). And, to a certain extent, Raichik’s comments aren’t new. Anita Bryant fought against gay rights in the 1970s under the banner of “Save Our Children,” and the right has even resurrected that slogan (NBC, 4/13/22; New York Post, 12/22/22). Or consider the long list of anti-gay and anti-trans comments made by Pat Robertson over the years on the Christian Broadcasting Network.
Tucker Carlson remains one of the top-viewed cable pundits in the United States (Forbes, 12/15/22); as his obsession with demonizing trans people increases, he elevates more fringe transphobes and normalizes their bald bigotry. Many transphobes try to smuggle their hatred through customs by attacking gender fluidity as a threat to women (FAIR.org, 12/16/22), a sort of pseudo-feminism for the right. But Raichik attacks all LGBTQ people in her statement—in the same forum that has invoked white supremacist ideas like the “great replacement theory” (Washington Post, 7/20/22) and “white genocide” (Hatewatch, 10/2/18), suggesting that she wants LGBTQ people to be added to the long list of very bad people.
Doing real damage
Washington Post (4/19/22): Libs of TikTok “call[ed] for any teacher who comes out as gay to their students to be ‘fired on the spot‘” and falsely claimed “schools were installing litter boxes in bathrooms for children who identify as cats.”
The influence of Raichik and other right-wing pundits on anti-trans policy is clear. The Washington Post (4/19/22) said:
By March, Libs of TikTok was directly impacting legislation. DeSantis’ press secretary Christina Pushaw credited the account with “opening her eyes” and informing her views on the state’s restrictive legislation that bans discussion of sexuality or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade, referred to by critics as the “don’t say gay” bill. She and Libs of TikTok have interacted with each other at least 138 times publicly, according to a report by Media Matters.
When asked by the Post about her relationship with the account, Pushaw wrote, “I follow, like and retweet Libs of TikTok. My interactions with that account are public,” and added that she’s a strong supporter of its mission.
And Raichik knows quite well that her rhetoric is doing real damage. Her account has reportedly encouraged the harassment of children’s hospitals, of all places (Washington Post, 9/2/22). Anti–drag queen zealots targeted the home of a gay New York City Council member (Daily News, 12/19/22), and armed protesters have targeted a drag queen story hour in Texas (Advocate, 12/14/22).
The dangers of dehumanizing LGBTQ people go beyond threats and intimidation. Human Rights Campaign documents crimes directly against trans people, noting that “at least 32 transgender and gender-nonconforming people have been killed in the United States in 2022” (PBS, 11/16/22). The group has “documented at least 302 violent deaths of transgender and gender-nonconforming people since the LGBTQ advocacy organization began tracking such fatalities in 2013.”
Carlson and the Murdoch media empire are clearly cheering this on, in a cynical ploy to rile up social conservatives to get them to the polls on Election Day. These types of media appearances are meant to create a culture of fear for all LGBTQ people and their allies, a clear attempt to force them back into the shadows and further out of public life. The campaign is meant to intimidate not just those being demonized, but any politician who contemplates defending LGBTQ rights.
Fueling tension
NBC News (12/30/22), citing GLAAD, reported that some anti-drag protests “had been organized by white nationalist groups, including the Proud Boys, who, in some cases, have shown up to Drag Story Hour events armed.”
It’s become tired and predictable to hear defenses of these media campaigns as free speech. The relentless transphobia and homophobia being cross-promoted by Fox News and people like Raichik is just as culpable for this anti-trans atmosphere as the nuts who actually go out and terrorize children going to story time.
At a drag queen story hour at a public library in New York City, more than 30 protesters, including members of the far-right Proud Boys, heckled families on their way inside, calling them “pedophiles,” while several times that many pro-LGBTQ counter-protesters defended the event (Gothamist, 12/29/22). Police broke up fist fights, and one person was arrested after knocking over a barricade. The protesters eventually dispersed on their own, but the tension and anger, fueled by a small group of right-wingers outnumbered by cops and counter-protesters, was palpable.
As long as Fox News uses the likes of Raichik to spew hate, this tension is only going to grow. And that’s the goal.
I Wanted to hate this woman. But, i feel that she’s just being used by these RW millionaires who are using this as a divide and conquer method. I Hope; and pray that those in the LGBTQ community Are smart enough to not fall for the nonsense.
hmmmm, and that Jesus person was always hanging out with men and never got married—and lions and tigers and bears oh my!
Yes strange humans—–anything can be turned into silliness, but it’s the lying and meanness which kills. : (
The push to ram LGBT lifestyles down the throats every citizen on earth is evil and disgusting. There should be immense shame associated with such lifestyles as they are unhealthy and destructive to body, mind soul. Such behaviors should never be normalized.
“From Gay Marriage to Castrating Children: The Slippery Slope Was Real”
https://blog.canberradeclaration.org.au/2022/08/24/slippery-slope-real-for-children/
Are you promoting this hate-riddled nonsense, or simply drawing attention to its repulsive existence?
fuck off, bigot
I used to think Fair was a pretty good news source. Boy, was I wrong.
I’d love to sign this comment with my real name. Thing is, I’d risk a whole world of trouble if I did, up to and including losing my job. I’m not even right wing: I just put women’s rights ahead of trans rights. I don’t want men in women’s spaces, political, social, or physical,—and transwomen are men. Humans are sexually dimorphic, and gender is a social construct used to oppress women above all; it’s not a psychological, still less a biological state.
Some aspects of it are obviously repugant—to more and more women who have realised that “Just be kind” is eroding their hard-won rights. Autogynephilia is real and it is a selfish, narcissistic condition, like all paraphilias. It destroys marriages and humiliates and alienates children.
As for drag, it creates monstrous parodies of women, just as black face, which no-one thinks it’s OK nowadays, used to mock the black performers who tried to made a living out of white audiences. Some gay men are amongst the last to see this because they don’t feel threatened by it. Fortunately, women also have gay allies who don’t want to be called “queer” and don’t want to live under the trans umbrella. C
hildren shouldn’t be told they have a gender when gender ideology is just that—an ideology, viz. a system of values masquerading as common sense. Let them wear what they like. Just don’t tell them boys can be girls and girls can be boys. The goal is to convince people that gender identity is innate, because Look! kids have one too. No. No, they don’t. Trans people’s rights stop where women’s and children’s rights start.
“I just put women’s rights ahead of trans rights.” Why would anyone do that? You’ll need to explain why it is a zero-sum world in which women (Which women? Rich women, poor women?) lose out by the advent of protections for trans people against harm. Your hatred for the reality of transgender people, who have existed for as long as there have been humans, causes nothing but further harm. You peddle the lie that it is adults imposing gender ideology on children, when in fact it is children desperately asking for help in living their true gender that is the truth.
Trans rights are human rights. You will simply have to understand this and get used to it, in exactly the same way that narcissistic men-children like Andrew Tate will have to get used to women having the same rights as men, or homophobic religious bigots will have to understand and accept that gay people have the same rights as the rest of the population.
I agree. It’s bizarre that somehow trans women and men are not considered to be so unsafe and fragile that if you even suggest that only women have periods and give birth or only biological women should play on women’s sports teams that you are somehow saying that trans have no right to exist. You can’t even question the potential dangers in puberty blockers and life long hormones or you are accused of being a transphobe and bigot. The more this continued the more I align with the so called TERFS.
I meant to say that they’re NOW considered so fragile. I wish we could edit our comments.
“You can’t even question the potential dangers in puberty blockers” yet here you are on FAIR’s comments section doing just that. Along with the rest of the far Right, religious fundamentalists and – yes – other transphobes like the millionairess JK Rowling, all of whom have immediate and untrammelled access to global media outlets to air your vicious hatred of transgender people, especially children.
Look in the mirror if you want to see someone who is full of hatred and ignorance. Anyone who dares to say a word that you disagree with you lash out at, make accusations about and call names. OMG, I dared to post a comment that puberty blockers and life long hormone use can cause long term side affects and in your eyes I’m a rightwing bigot. Nothing in my comment was hateful except to you. This site does not belong to you. People who don’t agree with your hateful tirades also have a right to post.
Miriam,
Where do you get your news? Can anyone be a feminist?
Do you believe every person has an intrinsic right to self determination?
>The dangers of dehumanizing LGBTQ people go beyond threats and intimidation. Human Rights Campaign documents crimes directly against trans people, noting that “at least 32 transgender and gender-nonconforming people have been killed in the United States in 2022” (PBS, 11/16/22).
Please correct me if my numbers are wrong. The article cites that there are 1.6 million Americans who identify as transgender. The HRC reports that in 2021 they recorded 57 deaths of trans and gender-nonconforming people (the highest year they have recorded). That would mean the homicide rate for trans and gender-nonconforming people is about 3.6 per 100k. According to [data from the cdc](https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/saved/D76/D318F995) the murder rate for the general population in 2020 was 7.8; the rate for women was 2.9, for Native American women it was 3.7, for Asian or Pacific Islander Women it was 1.0, for black women it was 7.6, for white women it was 2.1; for men it was 12.6, for Native American men it was 13.6, for Asian or Pacific Islander men it was 2.6, for black men it was an astonishing 50.5, and for white men it was 6.1. I understand that the HRC report claims the number of deaths is likely underreported, but they don’t provide any evidence to suggest just how underreported the deaths might be. According to the number provided, the only groups experiencing homicide rates lower that trans and gender non-conforming people are women, asian women, white women, and asian men. Groups experience similar rates of homicide are Native American Women. Groups experiencing higher rates are white men. And groups experience greater than twice the rates are the general population, black women, men, native american men, and black men. By comparison, black males living in St. Louis in 2020 experienced homicide rates of 243 (a total of 149 deaths), a homicide rate 67 times greater than that experienced by trans and gender non-conforming people.
Putting these numbers in context, I’m honestly not sure what I’m suppose to conclude about the relative risk of being trans or how greatly the comments of people cited in the article provoke dangers “beyond threats and intimidation.” I do know this is the second time I have caught FAIR using skewed or misrepresented data to make a point about the trans issue. The first was the inflated number of intersex people cited in the [Pamella Paul article](https://fair.org/home/pamela-pauls-gender-agenda/). At the end of the day, this is just bad reporting.
To Critical Reader, is there a reason none of your “facts” were referenced from a reputable source? Where do you get your news? Why are sex and gender identity articles the only ones you opinion bomb?
These numbers are taken from the cdc wonder database. I attempted to post the links with my comment but the moderation system kept rejecting my post (presumably from a spam filter). The data about trans people was taken from the articles cited. Is there any number in particular you are having issues with?
https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/datarequest/D76;jsessionid=CD0D7EC4EA8FC8C3E72085CB04FC
Wait, I guess the moderation system let my comment through. Now I am even more confused, my citations are clearly marked in my comment. Are you disputing the CDC data?
Critical Reader,
What point were you trying yo make with that long-ass screed? Why do you find it productive to convert people into abstract numbers?
Were you saying that the CDC’s death tally did not include transgender people? Really? Can you point me to the part of the CDC data where it mentioned excluding transgender folk?
Do you seriously believe that the CDC’s data on “white males” does not include transgender males too?
This is what I meant when I was asking you about your sources.
>Were you saying that the CDC’s death tally did not include transgender people? Really? Can you point me to the part of the CDC data where it mentioned excluding transgender folk?
I don’t understand your point. We are trying to find out the homicide rate for gender non-conforming and trans people. The only data that I have seen comes from the HRC. I cannot surmise the number of trans people killed from the CDC data. My point is we need better data to be able to figure out the relative risk of being trans.
>Do you seriously believe that the CDC’s data on “white males” does not include transgender males too?
I’m not sure what you are accusing me of. Are you saying I should extrapolate the number of transgender murders from the number of murders in general? I have no idea how representative trans people are in the number of murder victims. The HRC data suggests its relatively low, but it’s paltry.
>This is what I meant when I was asking you about your sources.
I clearly cited my sources as the CDC, sorry.
To critical reader,
Why do you only opinion bomb the FAIR articles that are about sex and gender identity? Why are sex and gender identity so important to you?
Where do you get your news?
One more question….do you think the mainstream media is (a) doing just fine, (b) is biased or (c) is not biased in terms of its reporting on LGBTQ rights?
Thanks
>Why do you only opinion bomb the FAIR articles that are about sex and gender identity? Why are sex and gender identity so important to you?
I find the topic interesting and I find FAIR’s coverage to be unusually weak on the subject.
>Where do you get your news?
I don’t follow a lot of traditional news sources, I like to read watchdog groups and polling data. Usually FAIR, Gallup, Pew, Snopes, things like that.
>One more question….do you think the mainstream media is (a) doing just fine, (b) is biased or (c) is not biased in terms of its reporting on LGBTQ rights?
I don’t consume enough mainstream media to really be able to say. I would imagine it varies widely depending on the channel and show. In general, I think a lot of this bias/non-bias talk is just code words for enemy/not-enemy. It’s an easy way to dismiss people out of hand. Sources should be evaluated based on the strength of their arguments.
I also think the whole concept of a unified LGBTQ rights is flawed. The concerns of gay people vs the concerns of transgender people are so radically different. They are really only grouped together out of a historical precedent.
“Tired and predictable” is absolutely right — in FAIR’s relentless campaign to associate progressive policy with latter-day gender dogmatism.
Amazing that this tiny cult, with zero public support, is tyrannizing whole organizations. “Deviance” is apparently a forbidden notion now.
Meanwhile, the earth warms, the bombing campaigns continue, a billion people earn less than a dollar a day and what is FAIR most exercised about?
Why, Drag Queen Story Hour … the deathless right to expose children to grotesque or hilarious (take your choice) caricatures of women, so as to make their parents feel virtuous.
Jake,
I see both sides of this debate. I don’t think all of what trans rights activists fight for is legitimate, but I can see the clear & present danger of anti-trans folks.
FAIR’s job is to point out bad actors in media, not fix global warming, or bombing campaigns or what have you. They are doing their job in calling out a bad actor here, who is pushing an extreme agenda and is happy when people get hurt because of her lies.
They are doing their job.
Whether I think women and transwomen in sports is “fair competition” [I don’t, in some circumstances], I will never be okay with people weaponizing lies to actually hurt other people, all while crying that they are the “true victims”.
“this tiny cult, with zero public support, is tyrannizing whole organizations” for which, like FAIR itself, you need to provide evidence. There is nothing in your angry rant. As for ‘zero public support’, trans people have a substantial amount of public sympathy and support here in the UK – despite the ongoing campaigns by the far Right, corporate media, political parties, the Tory government and you to misrepresent their and your anti-trans hatred as popular and scientific.
“The BSA data suggests that although attitudes vary across groups in society,
public attitudes to transgender people are broadly positive. The public sees
transphobia as wrong and is more likely to have positive rather than negative
feelings about transgender people.”
https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/publication-download/attitudes-transgender-people
You’re absolutely right: “trans people have a substantial amount of public sympathy and support.” Believe it or not, that includes me.
What does not have a substantial amount of public support is the dogmatic assertion that “trans women are women”. Or that persons with penises have an inviolable right to compete in women’s sports. Or that poorly understood medical procedures should be performed on children. Or that rejecting language prohibitions and substitutions (“chest feeders”, anyone?) is a crime against trans persons. Or that introducing current trans dogma into grade school curricula is essential to preserving civilization and you’re murderer if you say otherwise.
Did gay rights, which was notably successful — look at the support for same-sex marriage — take this doctrinal route? Did it demand that the world deny the truth of its lying eyes? “Trans” is what you say it is? Period?
To jake,
Being kind to others costs you nothing.
>The dangers of dehumanizing LGBTQ people go beyond threats and intimidation. Human Rights Campaign documents crimes directly against trans people, noting that “at least 32 transgender and gender-nonconforming people have been killed in the United States in 2022” (PBS, 11/16/22).
Please correct me if my numbers are wrong. The article cites that there are 1.6 million Americans who identify as transgender. The HRC reports that in 2021 they recorded 57 deaths of trans and gender-nonconforming people (the highest year they have recorded). That would mean the homicide rate for trans and gender-nonconforming people is about 3.6 per 100k. According to data from the cdc the murder rate for the general population in 2020 was 7.8; the rate for women was 2.9, for Native American women it was 3.7, for Asian or Pacific Islander Women it was 1.0, for black women it was 7.6, for white women it was 2.1; for men it was 12.6, for Native American men it was 13.6, for Asian or Pacific Islander men it was 2.6, for black men it was an astonishing 50.5, and for white men it was 6.1. I understand that the HRC report claims the number of deaths is likely under reported, but they don’t provide any evidence to suggest just how under reported the deaths might be. According to the number provided, the only groups experiencing homicide rates lower that trans and gender non-conforming people are women, asian women, white women, and asian men. Groups experience similar rates of homicide are Native American Women. Groups experiencing higher rates are white men. And groups experience greater than twice the rates are the general population, black women, men, native american men, and black men. By comparison, black males living in St. Louis in 2020 experienced homicide rates of 243 (a total of 149 deaths), a homicide rate 67 times greater than that experienced by trans and gender non-conforming people.
Putting these numbers in context, I’m honestly not sure what I’m suppose to conclude about the relative risk of being trans or how greatly the comments of people cited in the article provoke dangers “beyond threats and intimidation.” I do know this is the second time I have caught FAIR using skewed or misrepresented data to make a point about the trans issue. The first was the inflated number of intersex people cited in the Pamella Paul article. At the end of the day, this is just bad reporting.
Critical,
I agree with you that the narrative of “anti-trans violence” is overstated, and FAIR is making a mistake to use HRCs numbers without context and comparison to other demographics.
However, the lies the FAIR is calling out in this article have led directly to bad legislation, and to demonizing both trans people and diverting actual progress on real issues of concern in our country. It has been turned into a hate agenda, and the history of those agendas “not turning violent” is zero. So, I think you are splitting hairs here: sure they should have used better data, but there is plenty of historical data that says that the violence from this kind of demonization won’t always = murder, so dead people won’t be the only metric here, and the other metrics won’t always yield a scientific data set.
Thank you for your response. Whatever the intentions of the article, I don’t think it’s “splitting hairs” to point out that a citation fails to support a claim. FAIR is after all an organization dedicated to *accuracy* in reporting. The problem here is an assumption that facts ought naturally to support the presumed narrative, ie that transgender people are an obviously oppressed group. The HRC report makes no claims that the recorded deaths are hate crimes, and while any murder is obviously a violation of human rights, the HRC seems to presume these murders are evidence of a greater violation than others. The problem is that the data seems to point to a paradoxical conclusion that transitioning may in fact *lower* a male’s chance of being a victim of homicide. If this is not the case, it needs to be borne out in the data and not simply asserted in the narrative. Perhaps there is something there, greater rates of partner victimization, greater rates of FTM victimization, greater rates relative to income, etc. but we are not reaching those deeper levels of analysis because the data is being used in service of the narrative. If, as you claim, “plenty of historical data” points towards victimization other than murder, I would be interested in seeing such data, but the data cited in the article simply does not support the claim. Long story short, FAIR is reaching conclusions with incomplete data and trying to pass it off as legitimate. This is a really bad look for a media watchdog.
Critical Reader,
You said this –
“The HRC report makes no claims that the recorded deaths are hate crimes.”
and no one in the article said that it did, that is something only you seem to have magically thought up. No one said anything about a so-called “HRC report made claims, blah blah blah.” HRC, or Human Rights Campaign is an organization that keeps track of all violence against the LGBTQ community, whether deemed a hate crime or not. What don’t you get about that?
Bottom line is that no one said that HRC was only about LGBTQ violence only if it constitutes a hate crime…that is your piss-poor reading comprehension seemingly projecting a straw man into the mix, you are are now on record having literally pulled this out of your ass. I mean you can try to put words into others’ mouth, but why do that ? Do you like the words “hate crime” or something?
The point the article was making about HRC was simple and nuanced, here it is again for your reading pleasure; a direct copy-pasta below –
“Human Rights Campaign documents crimes directly against trans people, noting that “at least 32 transgender and gender-nonconforming people have been killed in the United States in 2022” (PBS, 11/16/22). The group has “documented at least 302 violent deaths of transgender and gender-nonconforming people since the LGBTQ advocacy organization began tracking such fatalities in 2013.”
You realize this entire article is about right-wing hate media right? Also, after insulting my reading comprehension, you managed to misquote the article. The lead sentence to the HRC data is… “the dangers of dehumanizing LGBTQ people go beyond threats and intimidation.” Why connect the dangers dehumanizing speech with the murder of trans people if the data you are citing has nothing to do with dehumanizing speech? If the HRC data isn’t about hate crimes, FAIR may as well be citing the rate of cancer deaths because it’s meaningless to the topic at hand. Every population experiences murder. The trans population, apparently, experience murder at lower rates than other populations.
It’s basically a Trump tactic. It’s like when he use to cite people murdered by immigrants as evidence for why immigration was evil. And then you would look at the data and find out that immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than the native population. Examining the larger context helps to put anecdotal evidence into perspective, it’s a critical feature of good journalism. This is not good journalism.
The following quote –
“Human Rights Campaign documents crimes directly against trans people, noting that “at least 32 transgender and gender-nonconforming people have been killed in the United States in 2022” (PBS, 11/16/22). The group has “documented at least 302 violent deaths of transgender and gender-nonconforming people since the LGBTQ advocacy organization began tracking such fatalities in 2013.”
was copied and pasted from the article as it was presented online at around 11:00 pm on January 12.
If Ari went back and revised his article to clear up the ambiguous language in the quote, I have no control over that.
Had we access to the above quote’s meta data you would see for yourself that it was indeed copied and pasted directly from the article.
All I added was a ” quotations symbol at the end of it, so now all were arguing over is Ari’s revisions it would appear.
Either way I still think you are looking through what is being said in Ari’s piece. You are hemming and hawing about nothing or you are hand-wringing unnecessarily as a reaction to your own inabilities. If course if you fail to understand the gist of what the article is saying you are going to be left feeling like you don’t understand.
I see this a lot online, people who are unable to grasp the underlying appeal of a media criticism, who overanalyze I stead of listen, or people who use logical positivist nit-picking to tear others a new asshole.
What you are doing critical reader reminds me of a person who cannot see the forest for the trees, then because they can’t see it, they whine about it, projecting their inability to see it onto others telling them it’s they who cannot see the individual trees.
Whatever.
Do you not see the line “The dangers of dehumanizing LGBTQ people go beyond threats and intimidation.”?
Look, why don’t you just tell me what I’m misunderstanding about this paragraph. Why is it in the article? What point is it trying to make? The article is titled “The Right Turns Anti-LGBTQ Hate Up to 11,” the section is title “Doing real damage”, the previous sentence implies “dangers… beyond threats and intimidation,” the citation is described as “crimes directly against trans people,” and the data is… a crude number of trans people who have been killed. OK. Perhaps the sheer number of trans people killed is so great as to imply an urgency? No. Turns out, according to the numbers, trans people are killed at a below average rate. If the citation has nothing to do with hate crimes or high murder rates, it’s completely incoherent and pointless. Why include it at all?
Critical Reader My Ass,
What kind of critic are you really? One who trolls FAIRs articles about anything to do with LGBTQ.
What kind of a reader are you really? One who “looks through” the words instead of one who listens to them.
What a damn pity.
I tried to leave a link to VAWNet (dot) org and it got culled.
VAW Net is another site like Human Rights Campaign, which tracks and documents the violence against transgender people. The thought was that it may help you to see that things are much worse than the mainstream media is willing to talk about let alone willing to admit.
I think the for profit news media is essentially null and void at this point, meaning nothing it says is very truth laden.
And while I applaud FAIR for at least trying to call out the bias and non-objectiveness of our for profit news cartels, I also think what FAIR is doing is Sisyphean or akin to whistling into the wind.
People will never agree on anything in general, but when the only mass media we have is rigged and hell bent on profit above truth, then we should not be surprised by the deluge of junk news we do get that acts to further divide us on issues.
Junk news that only seeks out clicks over truth, will never be unbiased, will never be truthful, or based on the empirical aspects of our day-to-day experiences, it will always be based on rhetorical spin, hyperbole and the ‘if it bleeds it leads’ trope.
IOW our for profit news model is doing what it was designed to do – make money money make money money money – and without a checks and balances against that or some other agency to act as a competitor to keep the for profit news honest, it is bound to always defer to profit over truthfulness.
We are seeing the results of a runaway profiteering motive right now, private media congloms are deferring to stacks of cash before it’s other ‘optional duty’ of informing the public.
For profit means to make money and models that are designed to do so will try to every damn time, right?
Thank you for the resource! I agree with your broad assessment of the mainstream media. However, I have seen the HRC report cited by several large organizations without question. At the end of the day, I’m not sure why FAIR didn’t just cite the FBI data on hate crimes which clearly shows that gender non-conforming people experience some of the highest rates of such crimes. For lots of reasons, it doesn’t translate to higher rates of murder, but it’s obviously relevant to the topic at hand.
https://www.justice.gov/crs/highlights/2020-hate-crimes-statistics