TWIBS: This One Time, at Trans Camp…
Only the most factual, unbiased news stories start with, “This is no joke.” News stories like Briana Oser’s most recent pukefest for the Washington Examiner.
by Alyssa Steinsiek
So, this is no joke: Briana Oser is absolutely, unbelievably, mind meltingly obsessed with trans people. She only started contributing to fringe right-wing tabloid Washington Examiner as a summer fellow this month, but she’s already churned up no less than eleven articles about LGBTQ+ people. Briana writes more about queer folks than most professional queer journalists!
The first article I read from Briana is the libelously titled Transgender activists now running summer indoctrination camps for children. It’s about as evenhanded as you’d expect, and it goes without saying that it’s a shining piece of literary and journalistic work… but I do have a few bones to pick, if that’s okay!
screenshot from the Washington Examiner
For a start, I’m a huge fan of the implicit suggestion that there are exactly two types of summer camp, Christian and transgender… but I have to question Briana’s framing of Christian summer camps where happy kids can make s’mores and go on hikes.
I might instead point out that not every Christian summer camp is full of happy memories; sometimes, actually, campers get sexually assaulted by their peers, and are told by the adults meant to protect them that, “Jesus forgives.”
Sometimes, it’s the adults who do the abusing.
I grew up in bible thumper country. Backwoods Appalachia. A rural town of less than 10,000 people, mostly white, mostly evangelists. I never went to Christian summer camps because my mom was areligious and liberal, but if I had, there’s reason to believe “upbeat Christian music” wouldn’t be my strongest camp memory.
By comparison, one of Briana’s foremost issues with transgender summer camps is, apparently, their guiding principle that you should “be yourself” and “love yourself.” Truly scary shit, girl.
Next up on Briana’s scary, spooky transgender agenda list is… sex education for teenagers?
screenshot from the Washington Examiner
This is no joke: Sex education scares most evangelist Christians because a young person who knows their body and has been taught to verbalize their boundaries is a lot harder to abuse. For a 16 or 17 year old, especially one who is transgender, understanding what people might want from them and how to say no is vital survival information.
A particularly galling right-wing tactic that has had a renaissance in the last few years is accusing LGBTQ+ people—but especially trans people—of being sexually inappropriate with children just by sharing our lives and experiences.
When I see trans people being visibly excellent, I think about how much that would have meant to me as a kid. How much sooner I might have understood my own identity, wants, and needs. How much pain I might have avoided by learning the language and knowledge necessary to articulate my personhood sooner.
And, this is no joke: it’s Briana’s ilk we should be concerned about. Do I even need to cite a source for that? I can: former president Trump has been accused by no less than five women of barging into their changing rooms when they were underage; former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert was accused of sexually abusing a child, then settled out of court for a staggering $1.8 million; House Republicans tried to vote down a bill proposed to address FBI mishandling of child sexual abuse.
I’m starting to think the call’s coming from inside the house.
screenshot from the Washington Examiner
It’s jaw-dropping that a woman whose journalistic work is almost entirely focused on LGBT people would accuse anybody else of being chronically online… even if I absolutely am.
But do you know what’s worse than LGBTQ+ summer camps, Briana?
Predatory Christian summer camps. Obsessive anti-transgender journalists. Right-wing hate outlets that spew so much garbage about LGBTQ+ people that they have an entire section devoted to transgender news, every last bit of it slanted and vitriolic.
That’s no joke… BRIANA.