TN: Extreme Anti-Trans Protesters’ Framing Adopted In the Mainstream Press
A story of rallies and protests in the fight to save access to gender affirming care for youth.
by Evan Urquhart
In Nashville yesterday, extreme anti-trans GOP lawmakers and activists, led by transphobic hatemonger Matt Walsh and including members of the fascist Proud Boys gang, assembled to loudly and angrily put pressure on the state government to ban all gender affirming care for trans youth in the state. This action was covered widely in local press, as well as in large national outlets including the Washington Post.
In one of the first articles we came across, from a local NBC affiliate’s local news programming, we found headline that seemed, to us, to have made some odd choices with their words:
This means that, according to the local news, the violent extremist Proud Boys, showing up to try and force a ban on care for trans youth, were rallying. But people bravely showing their in support of trans rights, despite the violent elements on the anti-trans side, and who supported the current status quo, were protesting.
It’s hard to see that framing as anything but bias, heavy and blatant bias, for the transphobes and against the trans supporting group. To see how others covered the same events, we looked at some more headlines, and found a pattern. The action by anti-trans activists pressuring the government for a change was unifnormly called a rally, not a protest, thus echoing the wording the anti-trans side preferred. Here are some examples of what we found:
The above comes from another local news source, this time connected to the local NBC affiliate, and it seems the numbers of anti-trans advocates have been combined with the number of trans-supporters, to get thousands rather than hundreds, then presented as if everyone counted was on the same, anti-trans, side. We also see that the word rally, rather than protest, is used again.
Let’s do one more:
In the above screenshot, another local TV news outlet (this time associated with the ABC affiliate), seems to have understood the bias problem, somewhat. To correct it, we get the awkward usage of “counter rallygoers” rather than the more usual counter protesters, because the language preferred by the anti-trans activists is being used.
Is a rally in this context is the same thing as a protest? We checked, and yes, this was a protest by any usual definition of the term. It was a mass gathering to oppose something the demonstrators do not like. The organizers, however, called it “The Rally to End Child Mutilation” and their media has deferred to them, despite the violent gangs in attendance and the inflammatory and incendiary rhetoric of mutilation being used by the far right. Even in the very mainstream Washington Post we found this bias in the form of a jarring and obvious deference being paid to the anti-trans side.
When the press covers the trans rights movement, they tend to frame those who support trans rights as activists, and characterize their activities as hostile, threatening, and dangerous. Here, we see the opposite is true as well. Despite bomb and death threats aimed at the very hospital anti-trans activists are targeting, we see language which legitimizes and dignifies their hateful actions in the mainstream press.