National Attention Paid to One CA Trans Student’s Fights
The student is no longer attending Martin Luther King Jr. High School in Riverside, CA, but fearmongering right—wing coverage continues.
by Evan Urquhart
Video of fights involving a transgender highschool student garnered coverage in right wing media outlets such as the anti-woke sports blog OutKick last week, despite the fact that the student in question was no longer attending the school by the time the incident hit the press. Today, video of a high school senior complaining about the former student’s use of girls’ facilities has resulted in a fresh round of attention, and outrage, in a right wing press determined to portray trans people as dangerous.
According to stories in two seperate local press outlets Riverside, CA schools have experienced an increase in fighting and violent incidents in recent months. One incident reportedly involved an assault by a 14-year-old cisgender girl on a school resource officer, another was an altercation by two girls who had fought frequently before. But only one former student at Martin Luther King Jr. High School has attracted the condemnation of right-wing outlets including the New York Post, the National Review, Fox News, Sportskeeda, OutKick, and the Daily Mail. This student, who classmates claim is trans and used the girls’ facilities, will no longer be attending the school according to an official statement from the school itself.
One of the fight videos can be found on KTLA’s website. It shows two students pushing each other several times, with the face of the students blurred out while a voice over explains the two students in question had reportedly entered into fights before. Right-wing coverage of the fights have emphasized the height difference between the girls, and presented the trans girl as the instigator but mainstream reports have not corroborated that detail.
“Hello ladies and gentlemen and ONLY ladies and gentlemen it is and shall always be,” begins the new video, showing a high school senior addressing school administrators. “I am an 18-year-old student and I want to take this opportunity to speak to you about the current issue with biological men claiming they are women.”
The senior’s complaints center on the concept of trans girls using girls’ facilities more broadly, rather than the fights.
screenshot from the National Review
The effort on the right to paint the trans student as the aggressor, absent any clear evidence that her behavior was worse than any of the other children who have been involved in recent fights, and to further paint all transgender students as a danger to cisgender students, continues to heighten the danger to trans people in the US. The right-wing press is determined to vilify trans people in the public’s mind, and will stoop to covering fight videos involving high schoolers as long as one of the young people involved is trans.