Fox News Attacks Rabbi Who Spoke Up About Fears For His Family
A hateful article accused him of transitioning his child, and scoffed at fears he’d have to flee persecution by state authorities as his ancestors once did.
by Evan Urquhart
A lovely profile of religious leaders whose children are trans, which appeared in the Washington Post this morning, has been followed by an ugly attack on one father whose story, and family, were the primary focus of the piece. Rabbi Daniel Bogard, whose nine year old son is transgender, spoke of his fears of being forced to leave, and the parallels he feels between conversations about the safety of his family now and the conversations of Jews in the 1920s and 30s.
This effort to humanize a family with a trans child seems to have enraged Kristine Parks of Fox News. Referring to the Rabbi derisively as a “transgender rights activist” she accused him baselessly of having “transitioned” his child, by not forcing the boy to conform as a girl. (At 9, the child is still years away from any medical interventions, if the family decides those will be helpful.)
screenshot from Fox News
The seething anger and dehumanization of Bogard in the article, which includes pictures from the Holocaust to mock the concerns of a father considering fleeing his home, feels like an escalation from Fox. It suggests, as much as anything, that the dark comparisons to times of great persecution and violence against minority groups are not inapt. The analogy to the Holocaust is made even more pointed when we remember that Nazi ideology targeted one of the first clinics for transgender people as one of its first targets, before the Holocaust, a portent of what was to come. Conservatives have truly stepped over the brink if the story of a loving family with a happy, healthy child who happens to be trans can inspire such rage.
