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Twitter “Libs of TikTok” amplified anti-LGBTQ hate; attacks exploding online

Since March 1, millions of Facebook posts and tweets have pushed similar anti-LGBTQ hate and earned millions of interactions

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Graphic by Andrea Austria for Media Matters

By Kayla Gogarty | WASHINGTON – Through their coverage and on social media, right-wing media have ramped up attacks accusing LGBTQ people and opponents of Florida’s latest anti-LGBTQ legislation of “grooming” children.

In a new study, Media Matters analyzed millions of Facebook and Twitter posts that push related anti-LGBTQ language and found this narrative initially spiked in March with anti-LGBTQ Twitter account “Libs of TikTok” at the helm, and the attacks further ramped up in April as right-wing outlets and figures with large followings further amplified the language. 

Key findings include:

  • News and politics Facebook pages posted at least 1,100 times mentioning “groomer,” “grooming,” or other related language between March 1 and April 18. These posts earned over 1.7 million interactions.
  • Right-leaning pages dominated “groomer”-related discussion on Facebook, posting over 78% of related posts — a majority of which were posted in April.
  • There were over 1.4 million tweets and retweets with “groomer”-related language between March 1 and April 18. Related hashtags, including #grooming, #groomer, #groomers, and #savethechildren, were used nearly 30,000 times.
  • Anti-LGBTQ account Libs of TikTok influenced “groomer”-related discussion on Facebook and Twitter.
    • In March, the most-retweeted and most-mentioned Twitter account using “groomer” language was anti-LGBTQ account Libs of TikTok. Its tweets with “groomer”-related language were retweeted over 14,600 times, and the account was mentioned in over 17,800 tweets with similar language. 
    • Libs of TikTok has continued to tweet “groomer”-related language in April; the account has been mentioned in over 21,000 related tweets and has been retweeted over 13,000 times.
  • In April, the most-retweeted and most-mentioned Twitter account so far in related tweets was conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec, whose tweets with anti-LGBTQ language were retweeted over 68,000 times, and whose account was mentioned in nearly 79,000 tweets with similar language. 
  • On Twitter, the number of tweets with “groomer”-related language increased by over 60% in April, with over 870,000 tweets and retweets, compared to nearly 545,000 tweets in March. 

On March 28, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the “Parental Rights in Education” bill, also known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, into law. This anti-LGBTQ legislation bans discussion of sexuality or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade, though its vague wording could be used to prevent such discussions — however broadly defined — at any grade level.

Following DeSantis’ signature and Disney’s announcement that it opposed the bill, right-wing media ramped up attacks through their coverage and on social media, accusing LGBTQ people and opponents of the bill of “grooming.”

In the week after the bill was signed, Fox News spent over 3 hours melting down about Disney’s response and the attacks on LGBTQ people were echoed and amplified on Facebook, with right-leaning pages earning over 6.5 million interactions on related posts during the same time frame.

The attacks echoed messaging advice from DeSantis press secretary Christina Pushaw, who described the legislation as an “Anti-Grooming Bill” after repeatedly interacting with Libs of TikTok — an anti-LGBTQ Twitter account that she claims “truly opened my eyes” on LGBTQ education in schools. The account has frequently singled out individual TikTok users, including teachers, for ridicule and harassment, while also repeatedly misgendering public figures and content creators and using “groomer”-related language in dozens of tweets.

Throughout March and April, Libs of TikTok also influenced Fox News prime-time coverage, as the network used the account like a wire service to source anti-trans and homophobic content related to teachers and youth and interviewed the then-anonymous account owner. Now, Media Matters has found that Libs of TikTok also influenced related discussion on Facebook and Twitter.

Since March 1, Facebook pages and Twitter accounts have mentioned “groomer”-related language millions of times and earned millions of interactions

Using Facebook data from CrowdTangle and Twitter data from the Dewey Square Group (sourced via the Twitter API), Media Matters found that news and politics Facebook pages posted at least 1,100 times mentioning “groomer,” “grooming,” or other related language between March 1 and April 18, earning over 1.7 million interactions. During the same time frame, Twitter accounts tweeted (or retweeted) at least 1.4 million times with similar language.

Right-leaning Facebook pages have dominated “groomer”-related discussion, posting 868 times — or over 78% of related posts from news and politics pages — and earning over 90% of interactions. Posts from right-leaning pages also account for 46 of the top 50 posts with such language in our data. Notably, several of the top 10 related posts were made by right-wing personalities and accuse the left, Disney, or teachers of “grooming” children:

On Twitter, right-wing media figures also posted several of the top 10 related tweets (by number of retweets), including Jack Posobiec, as well as The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles and Candace Owens:

  • During the same time frame, related hashtags on Twitter, including #grooming, #groomer, #groomers, and #savethechildren, were used nearly 30,000 times.
  • Libs of TikTok was the most-retweeted and most-mentioned user in tweets with “groomer”-related language in March
  • Media Matters previously reported that anti-LGBTQ Twitter account Libs of TikTok had specifically used “groomer”-related language in 46 tweets since November 2021, with the tweets earning over ​​220,000 total interactions (replies, retweets, likes, and quote tweets). Using new Twitter data from the Dewey Square Group, sourced via the Twitter API, Media Matters has now found that the Libs of TikTok account earned at least 14,600 retweets in March alone on tweets that used the related anti-LGBTQ language — making it the account with the most retweets of tweets containing such language. Libs of TikTok’s most retweeted March tweets containing this specific anti-LGBTQ language are one claiming Illinois education standards are “literal grooming” and one accusing the husband of U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg of “grooming kids.” These tweets earned roughly 2,500 retweets each.
  • Libs of TikTok was also the most mentioned user in tweets with “groomer”-related language, mentioned at least 17,800 times in March. Verified users with tens of thousands of followers responded to the account’s tweets and increased the account’s visibility, including Chris Rufo, a primary driver of right-wing fearmongering over “critical race theory.”Libs of TikTok continued to tweet “groomer”-related language in April, with related tweets retweeted nearly 14,000 times, and the account mentioned in over 21,000 related tweets. But as right-wing media echoed similar language, the anti-LGBTQ attacks exploded across Facebook and Twitter.
  • So far in April, right-wing media outlets and figures have earned more engagement on Facebook posts and tweets with “groomer”-related language than in March
  • Right-leaning Facebook pages mentioned “groomer”-related language in at least 868 posts between March 1 and April 18. The majority of these posts — nearly 600 — were made in April, earning nearly 1.2 million interactions or an average of over 2,000 interactions per post. This engagement far surpassed the interactions these pages earned on its related posts in March — roughly 1,300 average interactions per post. 

The 10 news and politics pages that earned the most interactions on posts with related language in April so far are all right-leaning pages, mostly of right-wing outlets and personalities:

  • Fox News: 3 posts that earned a total of over 260,000 interactions.
  • Michael Knowles: 9 posts that earned a total of nearly 70,000 interactions.
  • Chicks On The Right: 18 posts that earned a total of nearly 60,000 interactions.
  • Young Conservatives: 15 posts that earned a total of over 55,000 interactions.
  • Mark Dice: 1 post that earned a total of over 50,000 interactions.
  • Trump & The Great America: 15 posts that earned a total of nearly 50,000 interactions.
  • Ben Ferguson: 2 posts that earned a total of nearly 50,000 interactions.
  • Trump 2020: 15 posts that earned a total of over 45,000 interactions. 
  • Steven Crowder: 13 posts that earned a total of over 40,000 interactions.
  • Dan Bongino: 4 posts that earned a total of over 40,000 interactions.

On Twitter, tweets with “groomer”-related language have increased by over 60% in April, with over 870,000 tweets and retweets, compared to nearly 545,000 tweets in March. Notably, the most retweeted and most mentioned user in April so far is pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec. Posobiec’s tweets with anti-LGBTQ language were retweeted over 68,000 times and he was mentioned in nearly 79,000 tweets with similar language. 

One of Posobiec’s tweets was even among the top 10 related tweets in April that had the most retweets.

  • Other top users in terms of retweets or mentions in related posts in April include:
    • The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles: over 26,000 retweets and nearly 27,000 mentions.
    • Chris Rufo: over 25,000 retweets and over 26,000 mentions.
    • The Daily Wire’s Candace Owens: over 18,000 retweets and over 18,000 mentions.

Facebook analysis

Using CrowdTangle, Media Matters compiled a list of 1,773 Facebook pages that frequently posted about U.S. politics from January 1 to August 25, 2020.

For an explanation of how we compiled pages and identified them as right-leaning, left-leaning, or ideologically nonaligned, see the methodology here.

The resulting list consisted of 771 right-leaning pages, 497 ideologically nonaligned pages, and 505 left-leaning pages.

Every day, Media Matters also uses Facebook’s CrowdTangle tool and this methodology to identify and share the 10 posts with the most interactions from top political and news-related Facebook pages.

Using CrowdTangle, Media Matters compiled all posts for the pages on this list that were posted from March 1 through April 18, and were related to the myth that LGBTQ people are “grooming” children to be LGBTQ or to engage in sexual activity. We reviewed data for these posts, including total interactions (reactions, comments, and shares). 

We defined posts as related to the myth that LGBTQ people are “grooming” children if they had any of the following terms in the message or in the included link, article headline, or article description: “groomer,” “anti-groomer,” “grooming,” “groomers.”

We excluded any posts related to human or pet hygiene.

Twitter analysis

Dewey Square Group compiled and analyzed tweets containing “groomer”-related keywords, via the Twitter API. We reviewed data for these tweets, including total interactions (replies, retweets, likes, and quote tweets), total retweets, and total mentions (when a user replied to an account, tagged it in a tweet, or replied to another tweet which had tagged that account). “Groomer”-related keywords were defined as any of the following: “groomer,” “groomers,” or “grooming.”

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Kayla Gogarty is an Associate Research Director at Media Matters focusing on disinformation.

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The preceding article was previously published by Media Matters for America and is republished by permission.

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Research/Study

New GLAAD report details Meta’s failure to stop anti-trans hate

GLAAD reported these posts but Meta either deemed to be not in violation of its policies or did not take action on

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Entrance to Meta Headquarters Corporate campus in Menlo Park, California. (Los Angeles Blade file photo)

NEW YORK – GLAAD released a damning new report on Wednesday that showcases dozens of examples of extreme and disturbing anti-trans content targeting transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming people across all of parent company Meta’s social media platforms, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

GLAAD reported these posts but Meta either deemed to be not in violation of its policies or did not take action on. The posts, most by high-follower anti-LGBTQ hate accounts, target trans, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming people with slurs and false dehumanizing tropes (including describing trans people as “satanic,” “sexual predators,” “terrorists,” “mentally ill,” “perverts,” and “trannies”).

Other content features instances of violent speech; targeted harassment of individuals and violent incitement; targeted misgendering; content promoting so-called “conversion therapy;” and intentional coded, genocidal calls for “eradication.” All of these things are expressly prohibited in Meta’s Community Standards

The report is a follow up to a June 2023 LGBTQ Celebrities & Allies open letter facilitated by GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign, which called on social media platforms, including Meta, to address the epidemic of anti-trans hate on its platforms — citing harmful lies about transgender healthcare, malicious anti-LGBTQ “groomer” narratives, and relentless bullying and harassment of trans public figures. The 250+ signatories of the letter, which received extensive national media coverage, included such high-profile names as Elliot Page, Laverne Cox, Jamie Lee Curtis, Shawn Mendes, Janelle Monáe, Gabrielle Union, Judd Apatow, Ariana Grande, and Jonathan Van Ness.

“GLAAD, HRC, and 250+ LGBTQ celebrities and allies urged Meta nine months ago to create and share a plan to address the epidemic of anti-trans hate on their platforms,” said GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis. “The company’s ongoing failure to enforce its own policies against anti-LGBTQ, and especially anti-trans hate is simply unacceptable. The ongoing inaction and silence is an active choice, showing that Meta is not living up to its company values and most importantly, is not protecting its trans and gender nonconforming users.”

Screenshot of Instagram post that calls trans people “devils” and depicts mob violence against them (March 30, 2023)

Disturbing and Violent Posts Permitted 

Among the disturbing, and often violent, posts are memes depicting mob violence against trans people while referring to them as “devils;” right-wing media pundits saying trans people are “disgusting perverts;” posts selling services claiming to be able to change people’s sexual orientation and gender identity (“conversion therapy”); and targeted harassment of healthcare providers featuring their names and photos with the ominous prompt “What do you think should be done to doctors that perform ‘gender affirming care’ surgeries on minors?” 

Alongside the posts, the report also includes excerpts from the policies they appear to violate (including Meta’s hate speechviolence and incitementbullying and harassment, and suicide and self-injury policies). All posts were reported by GLAAD via Meta’s standard platform reporting systems from June 2023 – March 2024. Meta determined that none are in violation of its policies or did not take action on them. 

The report comes on the heels of the January 2024 Oversight Board ruling in the “Post in Polish Targeting Trans People” case (which involved an anti-trans Facebook post that Meta content moderators repeatedly determined was not in violation of its policies, despite multiple reports from users).

In its ruling, the Oversight Board (the body that makes non-binding but precedent-setting rulings about Meta content moderation cases) cited “Meta’s repeated failure to take the correct enforcement action” on the extreme anti-trans hate post, which clearly violated Meta’s own policies

Meta’s enforcement failures have prompted repeated rebukes and concern from the Oversight Board. As Axios and The Verge have documented, some users find that their reports on harmful content are not reviewed at all. 

GLAAD Reiterates Demands for Action

Calling for urgent action from Meta, the report notes that: “LGBTQ people and other targeted groups experience an increasing number of well-documented real-world harms stemming from these long-term anti-LGBTQ propaganda campaigns, driven by the anti-LGBTQ extremists that Meta allows to flourish on its platforms.

Meta itself acknowledges in its public statements and in its own policies that hate speech ‘creates an environment of intimidation and exclusion, and in some cases may promote offline violence.’ Such acknowledgements of its own culpability make Meta’s negligence and refusal to protect people from such hate (not only trans, nonbinary, and LGBTQ people — but countless other historically marginalized groups) all the more shocking.”

The report concludes by reiterating the demands of the June 2023 LGBTQ Celebrities & Allies open letter: Meta (and other platforms) must urgently create and share plans for addressing: Content that spreads malicious lies and disinformation about healthcare for transgender youth; accounts and postings that perpetuate anti-LGBTQ extremist hate and disinformation (including the anti-LGBTQ “groomer” trope), in violation of platform policies; dehumanizing, hateful attacks on prominent transgender public figures and influencers; and anti-transgender hate speech, including targeted misgendering, deadnaming, and hate-driven tropes.

As highlighted in GLAAD’s 2023 Social Media Safety Index (SMSI) report, Meta is largely failing to mitigate dangerous anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ hate and disinformation, despite such content violating their own policies. The SMSI also recommends to Meta and others that they must better train moderators on the needs of LGBTQ users, and enforce policies around anti-LGBTQ content across all languages, cultural contexts, and regions. The 2024 edition of the SMSI is forthcoming this summer.

Additional Background on the Oversight Board Case:

On March 15, 2024, in response to the Oversight Board ruling, Meta’s Transparency Center issued an update that the company is “assessing feasibility” of ensuring that “flag-based visual depictions of gender identity … are understood as representations of a group defined by the gender identity of its members.” Read GLAAD’s full statement here.

The post was an egregious example of anti-trans hate advocating for transgender people to commit suicide, featuring an image of a striped curtain in the blue, pink, and white colors of the transgender flag with a text overlay in Polish saying: ‘New technology. Curtains that hang themselves.’ The post was repeatedly flagged by users, but Meta’s content moderators allowed the post to remain. The post was only removed after the Oversight Board alerted Meta. The case illuminates systemic failures with the company’s moderation practices — including widespread failure to enforce their own policies, as noted by the Oversight Board and in GLAAD’s September 2023 public comment to the Oversight Board for the adjudication of the case. 

In 2023 GLAAD Social Media Safety Index All Major Social Media Platforms Fail on LGBTQ Safety

The third annual GLAAD Social Media Safety Index (SMSI) & Platform Scorecard was released in June 2023. After reviewing the platforms on 12 LGBTQ-specific indicators, all platforms received low and failing scores:

  • Instagram: 63%
  • Facebook: 61%
  • TikTok: 57%
  • YouTube: 54%
  • Twitter: 33%

Key findings of the 2023 SMSI included:

  • Anti-LGBTQ rhetoric on social media translates to real-world offline harms.
  • Social media platforms are largely failing to mitigate this dangerous hate and disinformation and inadequately enforce their own policies. 
  • There is a lack of true transparency reporting from the platforms.

The 2024 GLAAD Social Media Safety Index is forthcoming in Summer 2024.

Read the full report hereUnsafe: Meta Fails to Moderate Extreme Anti-trans Hate Across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

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Research/Study

NY Times: Trans voices in stories about anti-trans legislation left out

The Times continued to exclude perspectives of trans people from its stories about anti-trans legislation after criticism of its coverage

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Los Angeles Blade graphic

WASHINGTON – One year after The New York Times faced public criticism for its handling of coverage of transgender people and dismissed two separate open letters as merely “protests organized by advocacy groups,” a new study from Media Matters for America and GLAAD found that the newspaper failed to quote a trans person in 66% of its stories about anti-trans legislation from February 15, 2023, through February 15, 2024.

“The paper of record has an obligation to present its readers with the full human toll of the anti-trans legislative assault,” said Ari Drennen, LGBTQ Program Director at Media Matters. “Trans people are more than theoretical curiosities to be debated from afar. Each and every anti-trans bill affects living, breathing people whose voices deserve to be heard and whose stories deserve to be told.” 

18% of Times articles quoted anti-trans misinformation without pushback

In February 2023, The New York Times received two separate open letters: one from a coalition of 150+ organizations and leaders, including GLAAD, and a separate letter signed by hundreds of Times contributors that criticized the outlet’s contributions to a deadly anti-LGBTQ culture war. 

This study reviewed coverage for a full year starting on February 15, 2023, when both letters were separately delivered, until February 15, 2024, The New York Times published at least 65 articles that mentioned U.S. anti-trans legislation in either their headline or lead paragraphs.

“The New York Times did not quote any transgender people in a majority of their articles about anti-trans legislation in the past year,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, President & CEO of GLAAD. “One of the first recommendations we make during the hundreds of LGBTQ education briefings we hold with national and local newsrooms is to include LGBTQ voices in LGBTQ stories: interview the people impacted by your coverage and include their perspectives. The New York Times failed that basic reporting lesson 101, and replaced it with a pattern of obfuscating sources’ anti-trans affiliations and allowing their misinformation to go unchecked. Our coalition of more than 150 organizations, community leaders, and notable LGBTQ people and allies remains steadfast in our calls for the Times to improve their coverage of transgender people.”

KEY FINDINGS:

  • Two-thirds – 66% — of the articles did not quote even one trans or gender-nonconforming person. 
    • Only 1 of 19 articles covering anti-trans legislation from July through September quoted a single member of the community.
  • 18% of the articles included anti-trans misinformation in quotes without adequate fact-checking or additional context.
    • One example of this comes from The New York Times’ coverage of a Florida law banning gender-affirming care for minors that repeatedly quoted DeSantis spreading anti-trans misinformation. In one instance, the Times quoted the governor’s false claim that  “gender-affirming care” is a euphemism for “sex-change operations.” Two other articles quoted DeSantis’ claim that offering gender-affirming care to children amounts to “sexualizing” them.
  • 6 of the articles identified obscured the anti-trans background of sources, erasing histories of extremist rhetoric or actions.
    • One example of this comes from an April 12 story about a North Dakota law banning trans girls and women from participating in women’s sports. In the story, The New York Times quoted a member of North Dakota Can, an organization that has called LGBTQ pride “predatory” and has ranted about “child predator apologists” in “Big Education.” Despite the organization’s radical record, The New York Times merely identified it merely as a “conservative advocacy group.” 

With more than 470 bills targeting LGBTQ people having already been introduced by state legislatures around the country in 2024, The New York Times has a responsibility to not feed a moral panic that is being seeded by right-wing media about trans identity and instead should focus on improving its coverage by centering the voices of those being impacted by these harmful bills. 

Media Matters looked at how often the paper quoted openly trans or gender-nonconforming sources, instances in which articles cited anti-trans misinformation or talking points without context or adequate fact-checking, and whether the paper accurately represented the records of anti-trans figures mentioned in its stories.

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Research/Study

Anti-Trans Legislative Risk Assessment Map: March 2024 

Updates come to both the transgender youth and transgender adult maps as we prepare for the 2024 election cycle

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Movement of anti-trans adult legislation in Idaho has led to an increase in its risk level towards adults. For transgender youth, Wyoming enters the “worst” category, Arizona improves, and a ballot initiative in Washington offers some level, though low, of risk.

By Erin Reed | WASHINGTON – I have tracked anti-transgender legislation for 5 years @erininthemorn on Twitter and TikTok. Every day, I’ve gotten messages from worried people wondering how they are supposed to assess their risk of staying in their home state.

The messages range from parents of trans youth wondering if their children will be taken from them to trans teachers wondering if their jobs will be safe in coming years. Sometimes people just want to know if there is a safer state they can move to nearby.

I created the legislative risk map specifically to help answer that question. Now more than ever, it is a question that needs answering for so many transgender people facing forced medical detransition, arrests for using the bathroom, bans on the use of our names, pronouns, and identification documents, and many other curtailments of our rights to exist in public life.

In previous iterations of the map, the focus was entirely on the risk to transgender youth. When the map was first developed, bills targeting transgender youth were far more common. Unfortunately over the last year, the transgender youth map has lost all granularity, largely reducing to just two colors: red and blue, a set of states criminalizing trans youth and a set of states protecting them. You can still find this map at the end of the document, and it will be continually updated. The primary map of focus, though, will be the transgender adult map, as bills targeting trans adults have become far more common.

Methodology

The methodology used is primarily qualitative, with a scoring-rubric element for the worst bills. Part of the methodology is my own expert assessment of laws, of which I am well equipped to do. I have read all 550 bills that target trans people in America in 2023 and 500 so far in 2024. I have watched hundreds of hours of hearings on anti-trans legislation and am fully aware of all of the players nationally as well as where they are making their pushes against trans rights. I have followed the vote count and talk to activists on the ground in each state. I am looking at how similar states are moving in their legislative cycles. Lastly, I watch for statements by governors and bill drafts to see if the Republican party in various states seems to be pushing anti-trans legislation heavily – you can see many examples of such legislation in this newsletter.

In terms of actual laws, I keep a rubric of the various types of laws that target transgender people. For transgender youth, the most concerning laws are those that prohibit gender-affirming care and mandate detransition. Additionally, bathroom bans, laws that rigidly define sex as binary, and restrictions on social transition are other key factors that negatively impact a state’s ranking. For transgender adults, the primary legislative concerns include adult gender affirming care bans, bathroom bans, prohibitions on drag specifically aimed at trans people and pride events, restrictions on changing birth certificates and drivers licenses, and laws that end legal recognition for trans people entirely. These factors play a significant role in how I assess and rank a state’s legislative risk.

The Adult Trans Legislative Risk Assessment Map

This updated map delineates the legislative risks concerning laws aimed at transgender adults in the United States. States like Florida have eliminated 80% of all trans adult care, adults can be thrown in jail for using the bathroom of their gender identity, and trans people with correct gender markers on their drivers licenses can be charged with fraud. Multiple states have passed laws ending all legal recognition for trans people. As such, starting this year, adult risk levels for trans people will be tracked on its own map.

Moves in this update: Idaho (Medium Risk → High Risk)

  • Summary of updates: There was only one major move this month for transgender adults: Idaho has moved from a medium risk level to a high risk level after the state passed a ban on state facilities for gender affirming care at any age. The bill has not been signed by Governor Little as of the time of making this map.

Nationwide Risk: Moderate. Although recent spending bills failed to include anti-trans provisions, the 2024 election cycle remains a great danger to transgender people nationwide.

Here are the categories:

  • Do Not Travel (FL): The only state earning a “Do Not Travel” advisory is Florida. Florida has a law that allows for the arrest of transgender people for using bathrooms according to their gender identity and another policy targets transgender people’s drivers licenses. Florida has also put into effect a policy that says trans people “misrepresenting” their gender on their drivers license could be guilty of fraud. Local LGBTQ+ orgs as well as HRC have issued travel advisories for the state. This analysis likewise concurs with such a rating.
  • The Worst States (KS, MT, OK, ND, TN, UT): These states have passed deeply troubling legislation targeting transgender adults in extremely harmful new ways. Kansas and Utah have bathroom bans for transgender adults, while Tennessee briefly enacted a law requiring signage to warn of the presence of transgender individuals in restrooms. Many, including Kansas, Montana, Oklahoma, and Tennessee, have gone so far as to legislatively erase transgender people, effectively removing any legal rights associated with their gender identities. Other states, such as Kansas, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Tennessee, prohibit any changes to birth certificates, forcing trans people to out themselves when showing their documents. In Kansas, this law could even force individuals who have updated their driver’s licenses and birth certificates to see their gender markers reverted. These states also could start targeting adult gender affirming care – Florida has already done so, banning 80% of such care.
  • High-Risk States (AL, AR, ID, IA, IN, LA, MO, MS, NE, OH, SC, TX, WV): All of these states have passed some anti-trans adult laws, but they haven’t reached the same level of severity as the worst states. Missouri and West Virginia, for example, prohibit gender-affirming care for incarcerated adults as well as transgender youth and have seen new laws proposed this cycle going even further. Nebraska’s governor has issued an executive order ending legal recognition of trans people. Additionally, some of these states, including Alabama and Arkansas, have laws that permit the refusal of medical care to LGBTQ+ individuals on religious grounds. Iowa may soon require trans people to have special markers on their birth certificates identifying them as trans. Although each of these states has laws targeting transgender adults, none have done so to the extent of the worst states.
  • Moderate-Risk States (AK, GA, KY, NC, NH, SD, WY): These states have either passed one or two laws aimed at transgender adults or have enacted multiple laws targeting transgender youth, or are advancing negative laws quickly. For states focusing on trans youth, history shows they are more likely to introduce anti-trans legislation for adults in subsequent years. All of these states are under Republican control, either through supermajorities in the legislature or Republican governorships. Many have enacted “Don’t Say Gay” provisions, which frequently result in the banning of transgender teachers – in Georgia, for instance, a teacher was fired for merely reading a book with a character that could vaguely be interpreted as transgender. Additionally, many have passed religious refusal rights bills. However, most of these states have either not yet ventured into anti-trans adult legislation or have only passed milder forms of such laws.
  • Low-Risk States (AZ, DE, ME, MI, NV, PA, RI, VA, WI): These states have largely refrained from targeting transgender adults, although they haven’t taken extraordinary steps to protect adult transgender rights either. For example, Arizona and Virginia have enacted anti-trans policies affecting youth but, due to state-specific factors, appear unlikely to extend such policies to adults. Conversely, MichiganMaine, and Nevada have enacted fairly robust non-discrimination policies but fall short in ensuring healthcare equity and providing protections for incarcerated transgender individuals. While these states generally offer a safer environment for transgender adults, they stop short of going the extra mile to make their jurisdictions unequivocally safe places to reside.
  • Most Protective States (CA, CO, CT, DC, HI, IL, MA, MD, MN, NJ, NM, NY, OR, VT, WA): These states have gone above and beyond in safeguarding the rights and well-being of transgender individuals, making them highly desirable places to live for those in search of security. States like ColoradoHawaiiMaryland, and Washington have enacted comprehensive health insurance laws that cover facial hair removal and an expanded range of medical procedures. Each of these states offers refugee protections for individuals fleeing more repressive states with anti-trans laws. Care is not only supported but also enjoys legal reinforcement from the state, ensuring accessibility as long as such treatments remain lawful at the national level. These states are the most likely to counteract federal anti-trans regulations if faced with a Republican presidency.Please support my independent reporting and advocacy on transgender legislation by subscribing. You help me keep this going and keep people informed.Subscribed

The Youth Trans Legislative Risk Assessment Map

Very few states now occupy the middle ground in the realm of anti-trans legislation for transgender youth. Those marked in dark red have enacted bans on gender-affirming care for transgender youth, with many even mandating medical detransition for these young people. Conversely, states shown in dark blue have implemented refugee protection laws for trans youth seeking to escape the harsh legal environments of more restrictive states.

Moves in this update: Washington (Safe → Low Risk), Arizona (Medium Risk → Low Risk), Wyoming (Medium Risk → “Worst”)

  • Summary of updates: A number of shifts have occurred on the recent iteration of the youth map. In Washington, a ballot initiative was passed by the legislature that could be used to target LGBTQ+ youth with forced outing of trans and LGBTQ+ youth who come out to their counselors. Though it is uncertain how this ballot initiative will actually impact things, with some LGBTQ+ leaders in Washington assuring it will have no major impact, the use of ballot initiatives remains a potential vector for anti-trans laws. Washington State will thus be given a “low risk” classification, a small downgrade to its status. California and Colorado currently have ballot initiatives moving or gathering signatures, although the risk levels for those two states will not increase unless they gather enough signatures to go on the ballot. Arizona, on the other hand, failed to pass a ballot initiative through the legislature, and therefore returns back to low risk. Meanwhile, Wyoming has entered the “worst” category after passing a trans care ban for trans youth.

Nationwide Risk: Moderate. The 2024 election cycle remains a great threat towards transgender youth.

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Erin Reed is a transgender woman (she/her pronouns) and researcher who tracks anti-LGBTQ+ legislation around the world and helps people become better advocates for their queer family, friends, colleagues, and community. Reed also is a social media consultant and public speaker.

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The preceding article was first published at Erin In The Morning and is republished with permission.

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Research/Study

Cable news coverage of anti-trans bills: No voices of trans people

Cable coverage varied widely across networks in a record year for anti-LGBTQ bills both countering & perpetuating anti-trans narratives

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Graphic by Andrea Austria for Media Matters

By Alyssa Tirrell & Ari Drennen | WASHINGTON – A record number of anti-LGBTQ bills were introduced in state legislatures across the country in 2023, including bills targeting the rights of trans people to use public bathrooms or access lifesaving gender-affirming care.

New data from Media Matters finds that while 2023 coverage of anti-trans legislation varied widely in terms of tone and time spent across cable networks, reporting on this onslaught consistently failed to include the first-person perspectives of trans or gender-nonconforming people. 

  • Cable coverage varied widely across networks in a record year for anti-LGBTQ legislation
  • 2023 saw more than 500 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in state legislatures across the country, 75 of which became law. More than 20 states have now passed bans on gender-affirming therapy, puberty blockers, or surgeries for minors, while nine states restrict or block trans people’s access to bathrooms or other facilities consistent with their gender identity. A Media Matters study found that coverage of anti-trans legislation in 2023 — specifically, in this case, laws introduced into state legislatures that sought to ban or restrict trans people’s access to gender-affirming care or public facilities — varied widely in terms of tone and time spent across cable networks.
  • Time by network
  • Of all the cable networks that covered anti-trans legislation in 2023, MSNBC dedicated by far the greatest amount of time, with 4 hours and 27 minutes of airtime — accounting for almost half of the combined cable total of 9 hours spread over 137 segments and nearly as much as both CNN and Fox News combined. Fox News spent the least time — 2 hours and 11 minutes — covering specific bans or restrictions on health care or bathroom access for trans people, and CNN covered such legislation for 2 hours and 22 minutes. 
  • While networks across the political spectrum covered the same story, the tenor varied significantly. On MSNBC and CNN, 42% and 36% of segments, respectively, cited research to counter anti-trans narratives or misinformation, while 49% of Fox News segments argued in favor of restrictions on gender-affirming care or bathroom access for trans people. 
  • Network coverage failed to include trans and gender-nonconforming people in discussions of anti-trans legislation
  • Across MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News, the vast majority of segments covering anti-trans legislation did not include the voices of openly trans or gender-nonconforming people. MSNBC included trans or GNC guests in 22% of its segments while CNN included trans or GNC guests in 16% of its segments. Coverage was even more grim on Fox News, where no segments included a trans or GNC person — even though the network counts media personality Caitlyn Jenner, who is trans, among its employees
  • Segments and guestsEven accounting for segments which featured the parents of trans children — a total of 10 interviews on either MSNBC or CNN – only 19% of all segments analyzed in this study included a trans or GNC person or one of their parents as a guest.
  • More than a quarter of segments that featured a trans or GNC guest featured the same trans woman, Montana legislator Zooey Zephyr, who was banned from the floor of the Montana House chamber by her colleagues after she gave a passionate speech accusing them of having “blood on their hands.” 
  • Networks both countered and perpetuated anti-trans narratives and misinformation
  • The majority of segments on MSNBC and CNN placed discussions of anti-trans legislation within a broader political context, noting, for example, the uptick in anti-LGBTQ measures or the prevalence of anti-trans rhetoric and violence. No segments on either of these networks advanced common anti-trans talking points or endorsed the legislation.
  • By contrast, on Fox News nearly half of segments included anti-trans rhetoric or endorsed the legislation in question. 49% of segments on Fox News argued that bans on transition care would protect minors, while 40% of segments advanced arguments questioning either the science behind gender-affirming care or the credibility of the scientific institutions supporting access to gender-affirming medicine. All major medical associations in the U.S. support youth access to gender-affirming care. Unlike hosts and guests who claim that banning gender-affirming care will protect young people, an overwhelming number of experts agree that gender-affirming care is medically necessary and lifesaving. Experts also note that social affirmation of gender identity is key to a healthy transition.
  • Coverage favored gender-affirming care bans over legislation restricting access to bathrooms or facilities
  • Coverage of bills introduced into state legislatures largely favored discussions of gender-affirming care restrictions over public facility restrictions. While 97% of all segments discussed gender-affirming care bans, only 11% of segments discussed bathroom bans. 
  • Total segments by topic
  • CNN and Fox News watchers would have had to pay close attention to know that Florida and other states advanced legislation banning trans people from using public bathrooms or facilities: Just two segments on CNN and three on Fox News discussed the bills. MSNBC dedicated a total of 10 segments to at least some discussion of legislation restricting bathroom or facilities access at the state level.  
  • 2024 threatens to break the previous record for anti-LGBTQ legislation introduced in state legislatures
  • So far in 2024, state legislatures have already introduced at least 478 bills targeting LGBTQ people. Ninety-nine of these bills aim to restrict trans people’s access to health care in some way. Twelve of these bills aim to restrict trans people’s access to public accommodations, such as bathrooms and locker rooms, while an additional 31 bills pertain specifically to school facilities. As legislators in these states discuss an “endgame” that includes total bans on treatment for gender dysphoria and as families of trans people plead for funding to be able to flee their homes for states where they can receive care, the spotlight of media coverage will play an increasingly important role in the way that Americans understand this quiet crisis of internal displacement. The quality of this coverage and its real-world impacts depend on cable news networks including the perspectives and experiences of the trans and gender-nonconforming people most impacted by these legislative efforts. Charts by Molly Butler. 
  • Methodology
  • Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream and Kinetiq video database for all original programming on Fox News Channel, CNN, and MSNBC for any of the terms “trans,” “transgender,” “biological boy,” “biological men,” “biological male,” “biological girl,” “biological women,” “biological female,” “gender identity,” or “single sex” within close proximity of any of the terms “restroom,” “bathroom,” “locker room,” “women’s spaces,” “girls room,” “boys room,” “gender affirming,” “health,” “puberty,” “surgery,” “surgical,” “therapy,” “counsel,” “dysphoria,”  “mutilation,” “mutilate,” or “hormone” from January 1, 2023, through December 31, 2023. We included segments, which we defined as instances when gender-affirming care or bathroom bans were the topic of significant discussion or when we found significant discussion of such anti-trans bans. We defined significant discussion as instances when two or more speakers in a multitopic segment discussed such anti-trans bans with one another.
  • We did not include mentions, which we defined as instances when a single speaker in a segment on another topic mentioned such anti-trans bans without another speaker in the segment engaging with the comment, or teasers, which we defined as instances when the anchor or host promoted a segment about such anti-trans bans scheduled to air later in the broadcast.
  • We then reviewed the identified segments for whether they discussed gender-affirming care or bathroom bans; featured a trans or gender-nonconforming guest; contextualized the legislation within a larger wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation, sentiment, and violence; echoed anti-trans talking points, such as claims that trans women pose a particular danger to cis women in public facilities or that trans identity is the product of mental illness, rendering gender-affirming care unnecessary or abusive; or cited statistical or scientific evidence to rebut the aforementioned anti-trans talking points.

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The preceding article was previously published by Media Matters for America and is republished with permission.

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Libs of TikTok is going beyond anti-LGBTQ attacks

Raichik has publicly pushed the white nationalist “great replacement” conspiracy theory & posted about a so-called “planned invasion”

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Graphic by Molly Butler for Media Matters

By Camden Carter | WASHINGTON – Chaya Raichik, who started the Libs of TikTok social media accounts known for anti-LGBTQ posts with context-free clips and videos that are regularly followed by harassment and threats of violence, recently told journalist Taylor Lorenz the U.S. is “importing people who want to destroy America” and is “bringing them in to replace us.”

Raichik’s comments to Lorenz mirror a dogma that has been pushed in right-wing media over the past decade: Migrants are “invaders” who are being “imported” by Democrats to “replace” white voters — also known as the “great replacement” conspiracy theory.

As the 2024 election approaches, right-wing media have renewed their push to convince voters that an “invasion” is unfolding at the U.S. southern border and violent crime is rampant across the country. Simultaneously, Libs of TikTok has seemingly expanded its focus to include fearmongering about immigration and violent crime. In these posts, she has used context-free clips and videos, alleging migrants and Black people are committing heinous crimes in the U.S.

Libs of TikTok has a history of posting hateful anti-LGBTQ content, some of which has been linked to harassment and violent threats

  • The Libs of TikTok social media accounts have spread anti-immigrant bigotry
  • In the last few months, Libs of TikTok has made numerous posts pushing “invasion” rhetoric, including spreading the debunked narrative that migrants are a danger to the U.S. Many of Libs of TikTok’s posts use single incidents of crime to assert that undocumented migrants are “harming Americans” and “putting Americans’ lives in danger.”
    • Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis even criticized the account “for lying about FL law,” in regards to immigrants and drivers’ licenses. The initial post, which was viewed at least 2.9 million times, claimed that “Apparently FL also gives illegals drivers licenses! Biden’s open borders allows v*olent criminals to terrorize Americans.” In a response post on X, DeSantis emphasized that the account “got community noted for lying” and said the post is among “attempts to generate clicks and engagement farm.” Libs of TikTok also posted this claim on Instagram, earning thousands of likes. [Twitter/X, 3/13/243/12/24; Instagram, 3/13/24]
    • Libs of TikTok posted a video of a group of migrants supposedly crossing a river in Eagle Pass, Texas, and claimed that it showed “someone is giving migrants GPS coordinates to invade our country,” arguing that “the invasion at the border is a coordinated plan.” [Instagram, 11/27/23
    • In a video that supposedly showed “a group of mostly military-age Chinese nationals entering our Country illegally,” Libs of TikTok claimed that “this is a planned invasion.” Right-wing student organization Turning Point USA Events commented on the post, writing, “100% planned.” [Instagram, 12/4/23, accessed 3/7/24]
    • Libs of TikTok posted with a caption claiming that “Illegals are invading our country and harming Americans!” The caption accompanied a photo of a person whom the post referred to as an “an illegal from Haiti” who had supposedly been “arrested for r*ping a developmentally disabled person.” [Instagram, 1/22/24]
    • Libs of TikTok posted a claim that “Haitian cannibal gangs coming soon to a city near you! Joe Biden’s America.” The post, which seemingly refers to claims related to a falsely captioned video spreading on social media, also shared another post from TPUSA’s Charlie Kirk about anticipated “mass migration” of Haitians to the U.S. [Twitter/X, 3/12/24; Snopes, 3/13/24]
    • On X and Instagram, Libs of TikTok claimed that “local woke courts” released a man from El Salvador who supposedly killed a 2-year-old, asking, “How many more people need to die before Biden does something about our nonexistent border?!” [Twitter/X, 2/27/24; Instagram, 2/29/24]
    • In response to an X user claiming the Biden “administration is never going to secure the border regardless of the number of crimes they commit,” Libs of TikTok responded, “Because they need their new voters.” The X user had been commenting on Libs of TikTok’s post about the “local woke courts.” [Twitter/X, 2/27/24]
    • In another post, Libs of TikTok claimed that “Biden’s open border is leading to crimes all over the country and putting Americans’ lives in danger. We have no idea who’s in our country.” The post claimed that three men — whom Libs of TikTok referred to as “Mexicans” — had been caught “recruiting other illegals to commit theft for fake IDs.” [Instagram, 2/2/24]
    • Libs of TikTok has posted individual acts of violence and fearmongered about migrants committing crimes at least 7 other times on Instagram and X. One of those posts claimed that “Biden’s border policies allow v*olent criminals, pedos, and r*pists to put Americans’ lives in danger!” [Instagram, 1/30/242/14/2412/11/23; Twitter/X, 2/27/242/28/242/27/242/27/24
  • Libs of TikTok has also pushed anti-Black narratives and claimed that white people are being demonized in mainstream media
  • In addition to pushing anti-immigrant rhetoric, Libs of TikTok has also been posting about isolated cases of Black people allegedly committing violent crimes against white people, arguing that such cases aren’t reported by media outlets because they “don’t fit the narrative.” While no doubt tragic, these incidents are not representative of the larger reality of crime in America, and white supremacists have historically used instances of Black crime to push their bigotry.
    • In one post, Libs of TikTok claimed that a scene from a Netflix show “demonizes white people,” adding, “They’re injecting anti-white racism into movies.” [Instagram, 12/22/23]In another post, the account claimed that the gun used in the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade shooting had been “stolen” and that because the alleged shooters “weren’t white” the public “won’t hear about this story from the MSM [mainstream media] because it doesn’t fit their narrative.” In reality, mainstream outlets extensively covered the shooting, though they did not reveal certain details about the suspected shooters because they were juveniles. [Twitter, 2/21/24; NBC, 2/20/24; CNN, 2/14/24; Associated Press, 2/16/24]Libs of TikTok claimed in another post that “you won’t hear about this story” of an alleged incident of a Black person murdering a white person from the mainstream media because it “doesn’t fit the narrative.” This story was in fact reported by local media, as well as several larger outlets. [Instagram, 2/20/24; New York Post, 2/18/24; Daily Mail, 2/19/24; WISN, 2/16/24; Fox 6 Milwaukee, 2/16/24]In other posts, Libs of TikTok highlighted incidents of nonwhite suspects supposedly killing white law enforcement officers. [Twitter, 2/21/24; Instagram, 2/18/242/19/24
    Other far-right social media accounts on Instagram that similarly post about isolated incidents of crimes supposedly committed by nonwhite suspects to promote racist stereotypes have avoided moderation from social media platforms by leaving it to the audience to glean the implied racist narrative.
  • The Libs of TikTok social media accounts have historically spread vile hatred and misinformation about LGBTQ people, which has been linked to harassment and threats of violence against at least 39 institutions, events, or individuals. The account once mocked a trans murder victim, and it has repeatedly equated being LGBTQ with sexually “grooming” children. On her personal account, Raichik has also falsely claimed that there is an “epidemic” of trans people committing violence. [Media Matters, 11/2/231/23/23; Twitter/X, 2/12/24]
  • Libs of TikTok has amassed a robust social media following, with more than 2.9 million followers on X (formerly Twitter) and nearly 500,000 followers on Instagram. The account has been temporarily suspended on multiple platforms. It remains on Facebook and Instagram, even though some of its posts seemingly violate Meta’s content moderation policies. [Media Matters, 10/3/228/18/22, Twitter/X, accessed 3/7/24; Instagram, accessed 3/7/24]

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The preceding article & research study was previously published by Media Matters for America and is republished with permission.

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Research/Study

New MAP Report: The far right’s battle to control America

The far-right forces attacking diverse freedoms across the nation ultimately want to create a rigid, restrictive society

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Screenshot/YouTube

BOULDER, Colo. – Across virtually every aspect of life, people’s freedoms are under assault in the United States. The forces attacking these diverse freedoms ultimately want to create a rigid, restrictive society  according to their worldview only, with little room for  those of different beliefs, values, or expression.

Amid a continuing onslaught of political attacks on LGBTQ people, abortion access, the right to vote, and much more, the Movement Advancement Project (MAP) released a new report that describes the web of attacks on virtually every area of American’s lives, including who people can be, what they can do with their bodies, and how to live their lives.

“These varied attacks may seem disparate and disconnected, but in fact they are part of a coordinated campaign. The goal is to force all of us into lockstep with far-right extremists’ narrow and exclusionary view of the world,” said Tessa Juste, a researcher at Movement Advancement Project.

MAP’s new report, Freedom Under Fire: the Far Right’s Battle to Control Americaconnects the dots on extremist politicians’ attempts to fundamentally remake this country.  These attacks affect nearly every aspect of our lives, including the following: 

Restrictions on health care and the right to make decisions about one’s body  

  • Lawmakers want to decide what kind of health care people can receive, including limiting the ability to get an abortion, receive medical care as a transgender person, and access preventative care like contraception and PrEP.  

Restrictions on the freedom of ideas and the ability to get a comprehensive education 

  • Recently passed laws include censor what schools can teach about a range of important topics such as slavery and the Holocaust, and about the contributions of people of color and LGBTQ people. Similarly, the surge in banning books from public libraries and schools limits the ability to learn about topics the far right disagrees with.  

Restrictions on the freedom of travel and the ability to be in public places 

Restrictions on accurate legal recognition of people’s identities 

  • Attacks include making it harder, if not impossible, for people to obtain ID documents. This puts transgender people, undocumented immigrants, and others at risk and limits their ability to move through daily life.  

Restrictions on freedom of the press and freedom of expression 

  • Despite the First Amendment as a core principle, attacks in this area include policies that limit and punish free expression and that infringe on freedoms of the press, speech, and protest. Efforts to force journalists to register with the state, to restrict the right to protest, to ban drag shows, and to remove LGBTQ Pride flags from public spaces speak to the pervasiveness of these efforts. 

Restricting the right to vote and participate in free, fair elections 

  • Far-right politicians are attacking the cornerstone of our democracy with a range of restrictions on the right to vote. Targeted efforts disenfranchise younger voters and voters of color and limit people’s ability to elect leaders to represent their values. Further, even elected officials who advocate for their constituents’ freedoms have been censured, trying to silence them. 

“These attacks are a deeply connected part of a broad, coordinated effort to strip people of their basic freedoms and to enact authoritarian state control over American life. The forces behind these attacks want to create a rigid society that conforms to a Christian nationalist worldview that demands obedience and leaves no room for individuality. The reality is that this harms people across all backgrounds, religions, and political beliefs,” said Juste. 

For additional research and analysis, see the following reports from MAP: 

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MAP’s mission is to provide independent and rigorous research, insight and communications that help speed equality and opportunity for all. MAP works to ensure that all people have a fair chance to pursue health and happiness, earn a living, take care of the ones they love, be safe in their communities, and participate in civic life. 

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Gallup Poll: 7.6% of adults in the U.S. identify as LGBTQ+

Increases in LGBTQ+ identification in recent years have occurred as members of Gen Z and the millennial generation have entered adulthood

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Graphic by the Hlliburton Foundation

WASHINGTON – Researchers from the Gallup Polling organization released the results of the latest Gallup Poll that LGBTQ+ identification among adults continues to grow, with 7.6% of the population in the United States now identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or some other sexual orientation besides heterosexual.

The current figure is up from 5.6% four years ago and 3.5% in 2012, Gallup’s first year of measuring sexual orientation and transgender identity.

Graphic via Gallup Poll

According to Gallup Polling:

These results are based on aggregated data from 2023 Gallup telephone surveys, encompassing interviews with more than 12,000 Americans aged 18 and older. In each survey, Gallup asks respondents whether they identify as heterosexual, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or something else. Overall, 85.6% say they are straight or heterosexual, 7.6% identify with one or more LGBTQ+ groups, and 6.8% decline to respond.

Bisexual adults make up the largest proportion of the LGBTQ+ population — 4.4% of U.S. adults and 57.3% of LGBTQ+ adults say they are bisexual. Gay and lesbian are the next-most-common identities, each representing slightly over 1% of U.S. adults and roughly one in six LGBTQ+ adults. Slightly less than 1% of U.S. adults and about one in eight LGBTQ+ adults are transgender. The most commonly volunteered LGBTQ+ identities are pansexual and asexual, mentioned by less than 2% of LGBTQ+ adults each.

Graphic via Gallup Poll

LGBTQ+ identification higher among Gen Z

Increases in LGBTQ+ identification in recent years have occurred as members of Generation Z and the millennial generation have entered adulthood. Adults in these younger generations are far more likely than those in older generations to identify as LGBTQ+.

Researchers reported that overall, each younger generation is about twice as likely as the generation that preceded it to identify as LGBTQ+. More than one in five Gen Z adults, ranging in age from 18 to 26 in 2023, identify as LGBTQ+, as do nearly one in 10 millennials (aged 27 to 42). The percentage drops to less than 5% of Generation X, 2% of baby boomers and 1% of the Silent Generation.

Graphic via Gallup Poll

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YouTube lets right-wing creators misgender & deadname trans folks

Right-wing YouTubers & Daily Wire personalities with millions of subscribers regularly misgender and deadname trans people in content with ads

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Graphic by Molly Butler for Media Matters

By Payton Armstrong | WASHINGTON – YouTube is allowing right-wing creators with millions of subscribers to misgender and deadname trans people on its platform — and monetizing that content through advertising. 

YouTube has claimed for years to be committed to protecting trans people from hate speech and harassment on the platform while resisting advocates’ calls to explicitly prohibit intentionally deadnaming or misgendering trans people — forms of harassment that involve using a trans person’s former name or incorrect pronouns. 

Media Matters reviewed the YouTube channels of popular right-wing pundits including The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro, Michael Knowles, and Candace Owens and found that they have repeatedly misgendered and deadnamed high-profile trans people, including minors. What’s more, their content misidentifying trans people was frequently monetized, meaning that YouTube and the creators likely profited from this bigotry.

Though YouTube has temporarily suspended or demonetized accounts in the past for violating its hate speech and harassment policies by promoting bigotry against LGBTQ people, the platform’s lack of explicit rules around misgendering and deadnaming has left YouTube rife with monetized anti-trans vitriol.

YouTube has unevenly penalized right-wing creators for misidentifying trans people while ignoring advocates’ calls to strengthen its hate speech policies

  • YouTube’s guidelines claim to protect trans people but as Axios reported, the platform’s inconsistent moderation of anti-trans content indicates that YouTube “doesn’t view deliberately misgendering someone, even repeatedly, as a violation” of its policies. 
  • YouTube’s hate speech and harassment policies prohibit “content that promotes violence or hatred against individuals or groups” or “targets someone with prolonged insults or slurs based on their physical traits or protected group status,” including gender identity or sexual orientation. But the platform does not explicitly mention misgendering or deadnaming in its policies. In 2022, after YouTube demonetized two videos from right-wing pundit Jordan Peterson that misgendered actor Elliot Page, Axios reported that YouTube was “actively looking at this policy,” but it appears no changes were made with respect to misgendering or deadnaming. [YouTube hate speech policy, accessed 2/13/24; YouTube harassment policy, accessed 2/13/24; Axios, 8/2/22; GLAAD, 12/11/23]
  • YouTube has resisted advocates’ calls to ban targeted deadnaming and misgendering. 
  • In 2021, 20 organizations (including Media Matters) called on YouTube to ban targeted deadnaming and misgendering trans people. In December 2023, GLAAD once again called on YouTube and other social media platforms to prohibit targeted misgendering and deadnaming. As noted by GLAAD for Tech Policy Press, “the practice of targeted misgendering and deadnaming has emerged in recent years as one of the most common modalities for expressing contempt toward trans and nonbinary people across social media platforms.” [Media Matters, 8/12/218/12/21; GLAAD, 12/11/23; Tech Policy Press, 6/7/23]
  • YouTube has stated publicly that it views “deliberate misgendering as potentially violative of its monetization” guidelines. 
  • YouTube claims to set “a higher bar for monetization,” and it deems videos ineligible for ads if their content “incites hatred against, promotes discrimination, disparages, or humiliates an individual or group of people,” including attacks based on gender identity. In June 2023, Candace Owens claimed YouTube told her that instances of misgendering individuals were considered “hateful conduct,” and a Google spokesperson told NBC News that the company, which owns YouTube, had blocked ads on “several videos on Candace Owen’s channel for violating our monetization policies, including those against hateful and derogatory content.” [YouTube content monetization policies, accessed 2/13/24; YouTube advertiser-friendly content guidelines, 2/13/24; NBC News, 6/8/23]
  • Overall, YouTube’s enforcement actions against content misidentifying trans people have been uneven — particularly for creators from right-wing outlet The Daily Wire. 
  • In April 2023, YouTube stripped Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh of advertiser revenue from his channel after he repeatedly attacked TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney with anti-trans vitriol on the platform. The channel’s monetization was restored just 90 days later despite Walsh publicly vowing not to change his behavior. Additionally, Daily Wire’s Candace Owens and Michael Knowles were temporarily suspended from YouTube for directing vitriol to LGBTQ people. On her channel prior to her suspension, Owens had said “transgenderism” is “a cancer and we should fight it,” and boasted that she could “beat up” a nonbinary naval service member. However, YouTube has allowed Owens to post other anti-LGBTQ content that appears to violate its hate speech and harassment rules. [Media Matters, 6/15/234/20/238/25/233/10/239/15/23]
  • YouTube is allowing Daily Wire personalities to seemingly profit from videos that misgender and deadname trans people
  • Matt Walsh
  • Walsh is a host for The Daily Wire and has over 2.8 million subscribers on YouTube.
    • Walsh posted a video calling for Dwyane Wade to be arrested for supporting his trans daughter, Zaya Wade — who is a minor — and he also repeatedly misgendered her, including in the video title. In the video titled “Washed Up NBA Player Sells His Son To The Trans Ideology,” Walsh claimed there is no such thing as a trans child, incorrectly referred to Zaya Wade using he/him pronouns, and said it is “emphatically not true” that “transgenderism should be affirmed.” Walsh declared that Wade “is actively leading his son into self-rejection, self-loathing, deeper and deeper confusion. He has taken his son by his hand and guided him straight over the cliff, and profited from it the whole way down. It is again pure evil. He should be shamed for it and disgraced for it. Ostracized from society, arrested. This is abuse.” The video is monetized and has over 480,000 views. [YouTube, 11/4/22, accessed 3/4/24]
    • Walsh posted a video repeatedly misgendering trans MMA fighter Alana McLaughlin. 
    • In the video — which is monetized and has over 1.4 million views — Walsh declared, “Literally every part of him is male. If they dig up his remains a hundred years from now, no matter how much of him is left, they will be able to tell that he was male.” Walsh continued arguing that “your maleness or your femaleness is one of the most ingrained, most permanent, most enduring aspects of who you are. It’s so enduring that it remains even after you die. McClaughlin will be a male even when he doesn’t exist anymore. That’s how male he is.” [YouTube, 9/14/21, accessed 3/4/24]
    • Walsh posted a video misgendering trans activist Jazz Jennings and attacked her mother for supporting her transition. 
    • During the video — which is monetized and has over 1.7 million views — Walsh used he/him pronouns for Jennings and declared to her mother: “Your son is mutilated beyond recognition and he’s gone through with the whole quote-unquote ‘sex change,’ quote-unquote ‘gender affirmation,’ medical — you know, the whole catalog, he’s got.” [YouTube, 3/20/23, accessed 3/4/24]
    • Walsh posted a video repeatedly misgendering U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health Dr. Rachel Levine and suggesting her support of trans rights “should qualify you for a mental institution or prison.” 
    • Walsh called Levine a “male” and derided her for supporting health care for trans youth, saying that her support “should qualify you for a mental institution or prison, not for a position in government.” The video is monetized and has over 50,000 views. [YouTube, 2/26/21, accessed 3/4/24]
    • Walsh posted a video misgendering Dylan Mulvaney and reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner. 
    • Walsh opened the video — which is monetized with nearly 700,000 views — calling Mulvaney and Jenner “two males” and using incorrect pronouns. [YouTube, 11/3/22, accessed 3/4/24]
    • Walsh posted a video repeatedly misgendering and deadnaming trans actor Elliot Page. 
    • Walsh used female pronouns for Page throughout the 12-minute video — which is monetized and has over 1 million views. [YouTube, 12/2/20, accessed 3/4/24]
  • Ben Shapiro
  • Shapiro is the founder of The Daily Wire and has over 6.7 million subscribers on YouTube.
    • Shapiro posted a video repeatedly misgendering and deadnaming Elliot Page — including in the video’s title — declaring that “[Elliot] Page is, was, and shall remain a woman.” 
    • (In accordance with the Trans Journalists Association style guide, Media Matters has replaced Page’s deadname in brackets in the previous quote.) Shapiro complained about using the correct pronouns for trans people generally, saying that “the media have created this bizarre standard whereby if a person declares themselves a member of the opposite gender, the entire world, especially in the media, must immediately flip on a dime, stop calling them by the name everybody knew them as, and stop calling them by their biological sex.” The video is monetized and has over 2.9 million views. [YouTube, 12/2/20, accessed 3/4/24]
    • Shapiro posted a video repeatedly misgendering two trans parents. 
    • The video piled onto a right-wing harassment campaign against two trans parents who were featured in a Facebook Watch docuseries about pregnancy. Shapiro also demeaned the parents, calling the mother “a pervert.” The video is monetized and has over 2.8 million views. [YouTube, 7/13/21, accessed 3/4/24]
  • Candace Owens
  • Owens is a host for The Daily Wire and has over 2.8 million subscribers on YouTube.
    • Owens posted a video repeatedly misgendering a trans child and urged parents to reject their child if they are trans. 
    • Owens used the incorrect pronouns for a trans child, saying that “a mother posted regarding her son, who she believes is her daughter because he has begun transitioning.” Owens said that the mother had “mutilated your once perfectly healthy, growing son over a feeling that he had,” and also compared parents’ choosing to affirm their trans children to allowing them to jump out of a window. The video is monetized and has over 130,000 views. [YouTube, 4/30/22, accessed 3/4/24]
    • Owens posted a video attacking the concept of using the correct pronouns for trans people. 
    • In the video, which is monetized and has nearly 400,000 views, Owens agreed with right-wing pundit Elijah Schaffer that being trans is “all made up in their heads,” and is “state-sponsored, this is socially sponsored, tech-sponsored mental illness.” (YouTube’s hate speech policy prohibits content including statements that an individual or group with a protected attribute “is just a form of mental illness that needs to be cured.”) [YouTube, 4/16/22, accessed 3/4/24; YouTube hate speech policy, accessed 2/13/24]
  • Michael Knowles
  • Knowles is a host for The Daily Wire and has over 1.8 million subscribers on YouTube.
    • Knowles uploaded a video repeatedly misgendering Elliot Page, including in the video’s title. 
    • Knowles also repeatedly deadnamed Page in the nearly six-minute video, even acknowledging at the beginning that he was not supposed to use Page’s deadname otherwise “this podcast is going to be taken down.” The video is monetized and has over 175,000 views. [YouTube, 12/2/20, accessed 3/4/24]
    • Knowles repeatedly misgendered Caitlyn Jenner while discussing her run for California governor, declaring he would never use her correct pronouns. 
    • Knowles stated, “I’m not going to call him her. I can’t do it because he is not a woman. And so I’m not going to pretend that he is.” Knowles also urged others to misgender trans people, saying that conservatives need to be “united in fighting this very subtle linguistic strategy.” The video is monetized and has over 125,000 views. [YouTube, 4/26/21, accessed 3/4/24]
  • Brett Cooper
  • Cooper is a host for The Daily Wire, and her YouTube channel has over 4 million subscribers.
    • Cooper posted a video misgendering trans internet personality Grant Sikes. 
    • In the video — which is monetized and has over 1 million views — Cooper attacked Sikes for trying to join a sorority, declaring that “he was so sad that he didn’t get in. You’re a man! Obviously you are not going to get into a sorority. I don’t care if you put on a skirt. … There are fraternities for you.” [YouTube, 12/1/22, accessed 3/4/24; Business Insider, 11/16/22]
    • Cooper posted a video mocking, deadnaming, and repeatedly misgendering former NCAA swimmer Lia Thomas, who has been the subject of a yearslong right-wing media hate campaign. 
    • Cooper questioned, “What does Lia Thomas actually think he is when he’s calling himself a woman?” During the video — which is monetized and has over 650,000 views — Cooper described Thomas as a “man” and used the incorrect pronouns. [YouTube, 6/1/22, accessed 3/4/24; Media Matters, 2/2/22]
  • Other right-wing YouTubers with millions of subscribers have seemingly profited from monetized videos that misgender and direct vitriol toward trans people
  • Hodgetwins
  • Keith and Kevin Hodge, who go by the “Hodgetwins,” are YouTubers who have nearly 3 million subscribers.
    • The Hodgetwins posted a video mocking and referring to a trans person as “it.” 
    • The pundits rejected the notion of using a trans person’s correct pronouns, complaining, “They say that we are misgendering them when they have misgendered themselves.” They also said that LGBTQ people should not be allowed to get married or adopt children, claiming that “where it went wrong is the whole pronoun thing.” The video is monetized and has over 250,000 views. [YouTube, 12/29/23, accessed 3/4/24]
    • The Hodgetwins posted a video repeatedly misgendering a trans person and seemingly justifying violence against them. 
    • Referring to a trans woman, the Hodgetwins said that “he tricked another dude” and that, “it’s all fun and games online but can’t do that in real life, bad things happens — when you question or attack someone’s sexuality, make them confused, and you back them in a corner and you got all that cock showing? I mean, right to your instincts.” The video is monetized and has over 200,000 views. [YouTube, 12/29/23, accessed 3/4/24]
    • The Hodgetwins posted a video repeatedly misgendering Zaya Wade, who they noted was 14 at the time of the video. 
    • In the video — which has over 300,000 views and is monetized — the commentators also misgendered Zaya’s significant other and declared, “I don’t like playing that game though, with the pronouns. I ain’t playing that game.” [YouTube, 4/28/22, accessed 3/4/24]
  • Brandon Tatum
  • Tatum is a right-wing commentator with over 2.8 million subscribers on YouTube.
    • Tatum posted a video repeatedly misgendering Zaya Wade, including in the video’s title. 
    • The video titled “Dwayne Wade’s EX SPEAKS OUT After TRANSITIONING Son Zaya Wade” is monetized with over 1.4 million views. Tatum repeatedly referred to Zaya Wade as “D. Wade’s little boy,” and said that her father “should be ashamed of himself” because “what man would do his son like this?” [YouTube, 11/3/22, accessed 3/4/24]
    • Tatum posted another video misgendering Zaya Wade, disparaging her physical appearance and claiming that Dwyane Wade “pushes grooming” by affirming her gender identity. 
    • Tatum said, “We’re sick of y’all grooming these kids — you should be ashamed of yourself if you’re running around doing what D. Wade [is] about to do,” and claimed that the former NBA star “emasculated your boy.” Tatum claimed, “Zaya is going to be 6’8 with a size 40 shoe — ain’t no man is going to want you! And they know that no man is going to want their boy.” Tatum continued, “Nobody is going to want that 6’8 big old boy with shoulders this big and he trying to wear a dress.” The video is monetized and has over 400,000 views. [YouTube, 2/27/22, accessed 3/4/24]
    • Tatum posted yet another video misgendering Zaya Wade and suggested she would either end up attempting suicide or “doing pornography.” 
    • Tatum repeatedly referred to Zaya as a “boy,” and said that “I’m predicting that in the future, this boy is going to have tremendous issues. This boy is going to have a tremendous identity crisis. … It’s going to come out in oversexuality — which means he’s going to go to doing pornography and posing in nude stuff and being overly sexualized, or it’s going to come out in a huge amount of depression and suicide. I’m not saying actual suicide, but at least depression and suicide attempts or suicidal ideations.” Tatum also said that Zaya may now be able to “pass for a girl,” but “when them cheek lines start getting real strong and you look like you’ve been chewing tobacco all day, it’s not going to be cute.” The video is monetized and has over 480,000 views. [YouTube, 9/20/22, accessed 3/4/24]

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The preceding piece was previously published by Media Matters for America, a Los Angeles Blade media partner and is republished with permission.

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Race & LGBTQ+ issues negatively impact K-12 classrooms

50% of K-12 teachers say students shouldn’t learn about gender but should learn that the legacy of slavery still impacts Black Americans

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LOS ANGELES, Calif. – As debate rages over K-12 classroom curriculum nationally over forced outing of trans students and accompanying bathroom bans, coupled with bans on books that deal with race and LGBTQ+ issues, a recent survey by Pew Research found that a sizeable share of teachers (41%) say these debates have had a negative impact on their ability to do their job.

Pew researchers found that 71% of teachers say teachers themselves don’t have enough influence over what’s taught in public schools in their area.

In turn, a majority of teachers (58%) say their state government has too much influence over this. And more say the federal government, the local school board and parents have too much influence than say they don’t have enough.

The survey of 2,531 U.S. public K-12 teachers was conducted from Oct. 17-Nov. 14, 2023, and also includes some findings from a survey of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 and a survey of U.S. adults.

Key Findings of those two groups includes:

  • 38% of teens say they feel comfortable when topics related to racism or racial inequality come up in class (among those who say these topics have come up). A smaller share (29%) say they feel comfortable when topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity come up.
  • Among the American public, more say parents should be able to opt their children out of learning about LGBTQ issues than say the same about topics related to race (54% vs. 34%).

The Pew researchers also asked public K-12 teachers what they think students should learn in school about two topics in particular:

  • Whether the legacy of slavery still affects the position of Black people in American society today.
  • Whether a person’s gender can be different from or is determined by their sex at birth.

The legacy of slavery

Most teachers (64%) say students should learn that the legacy of slavery still affects the position of Black people in American society today.

About a quarter (23%) say students should learn that slavery is part of American history but no longer affects the position of Black people in American society. Just 8% say students shouldn’t learn about this topic in school at all.

Majorities of elementary, middle and high school teachers say students should learn that the legacy of slavery still has an impact on the lives of Black Americans, the researchers found.

Gender identity

When it comes to teaching about gender identity – specifically whether a person’s gender can be different from or is determined by their sex assigned at birth – half of public K-12 teachers say students shouldn’t learn about this in school.

A third of teachers think students should learn that someone can be a boy or a girl even if that is different from the sex they were assigned at birth.

A smaller share (14%) say students should learn that whether someone is a boy or a girl is determined by their sex at birth.

Views differ among elementary, middle and high school teachers. But teachers across the three levels are more likely to say students should learn that a person’s gender can be different from their sex at birth than to say students should learn gender is determined by sex at birth.

Most elementary school teachers (62%) say students shouldn’t learn about gender identity in school. This is much larger than the shares of middle and high school teachers who say the same (45% and 35%).

How teachers’ views compare with the public’s views

Like teachers, Americans overall are more likely to say parents should be able to opt their children out of learning about sexual orientation or gender identity (54%) than to say they should be able to opt their children out of learning about racism or racial inequality (34%).

Across both issues, Americans overall are somewhat more likely than teachers to say parents should be able to opt their children out.

Researchers also found that most teachers who’ve been teaching for more than a year (68%) say the topics of sexual orientation and gender identity rarely or never came up in their classroom in the 2022-23 school year. About one-in-five (21%) say these topics came up sometimes, and 8% say they came up often or extremely often.

Topics related to racism or racial inequality come up more frequently. A majority of teachers (56%) say these topics came up at least sometimes in their classroom, with 21% saying they came up often or extremely often.

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Problematic new “Finnish study” shows trans care saves lives

The study is being used to claim that trans care is not lifesaving. Experts say this is false- the study itself shows trans care saves lives

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By Erin Reed | HELSINKI, Finland – A new study in Finland, which is garnering attention among anti-trans activists, is being used to claim that gender-affirming care “is not lifesaving.” Journalist Benjamin Ryan explicitly stated this claim when discussing his article published in The New York Post.

However, leading researchers, including Dr. Meredithe McNamara from the Yale University School of Medicine and epidemiologist Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, argue that the study’s methodology fails to support this conclusion.

They point out critical flaws, such as the study controlling for the variable it aims to measure and relying on outdated data from a time before “gender dysphoria” was even recognized as a diagnosis. Moreover, a detailed examination of the study reveals that, despite these issues, gender-affirming care likely reduces the risk of suicide—those who do not receive care face a risk three times higher than controls. Surprisingly, the study’s authors do not address this finding.

The new study examines Finnish health data from 1996 to 2022, exploring the connection between gender-affirming care and suicide. Numerous studies have demonstrated that gender-affirming care significantly reduces suicidality, with some showing a decrease in suicidality by up to 73%.

However, this study introduces an additional factor: visits to psychiatric specialists. It concludes that, after adjusting for psychiatric specialist visits, the suicide rates among those who undergo medical gender reassignment “did not statistically significantly differ from that of controls.” Therefore, the study asserts that the data “does not support the claims that [medical gender reassignment] is necessary to prevent suicide.”

Shortly after publication, nearly every organization opposed to gender affirming care publicized the findings widely. Genspect, an organization which has engaged in online teasing of transgender youth, stated the study put the “suicide myth” to rest.

Transgender Trend used the study to claim that “medical transition is ineffective in preventing suicide.” Leor Sapir of the Manhattan Institute used the study to claim “the suicide narrative is baseless.” Meanwhile, journalist Benjamin Ryan published a story in the New York Post and claimed the study showed “gender-transition treatment is not life saving.”

A closer examination of the study reveals that it does not support such conclusions. Now, in a thorough and comprehensive fact-check, leading experts refute these assertions by highlighting critical flaws that directly oppose these claims.

Ultimately, despite these shortcomings, the study actually suggests that gender-affirming care is lifesaving. This is despite statistical missteps and issues with data sources which, whether intentionally or not, obscure the conclusion supported by the extensive body of research indicating that gender-affirming care saves lives and decreases suicidality.

The Study Looks At Data From Before “Gender Dysphoria” Existed As A Diagnosis And Likely Includes Many People Who Are Not Transgender

The majority of data within the Finish study does not actually look at gender dysphoria, but instead looks at gender identity clinic referrals from 1996 to today. Importantly, gender dysphoria did not exist as a diagnosis until 2013. Prior to 2013, “gender identity disorder” covered a broad range of gender-related issues and was considered pathological in nature. People referred to a gender identity clinic prior to 2013 could include, for instance, feminine boys or masculine girls whose gendered behavior did not conform to social standards of the time.

Importantly, prior to 2013, you did not need to desire “to be the other sex” in order to be diagnosed with gender identity disorder. Gender dysphoria as a diagnosis in the DSM-V, however, now requires this desire. You can see the new criteria here:

In the new Finish study, this is particularly problematic because the vast majority of people included in the study do not obtain gender affirming care – only 38% do. Though we do not know how many people referred fell under the old diagnostic criteria or the new diagnostic criteria, this suggests that many likely did not identify as transgender.

This could have been partially controlled for, according to Dr. McNamara, by including a “year of diagnosis” variable, to account for changes in diagnostic criteria, but such a variable was not included.

The Study Overcontrolled For Suicide In A Fatal Way

A central assertion of the study is that suicide rates are unaffected by gender dysphoria or gender-affirming care. To support this claim, the authors control for visits to psychological specialists. Dr. McNamara, however, identifies this as a critical flaw “amounting to a tautology.” Essentially, by adjusting for suicide in research aimed at determining the effect of gender-affirming care on suicide, the authors inadvertently controlled for the very outcome they sought to measure. This is because individuals at higher risk of suicide are more likely to have had “psychiatric contact.”

In an illustrative example, Dr. McNamara compares controlling for psychiatric contact in a study on suicide to controlling for variables such as “hours worked” in a study on the gender pay gap and using it to claim that a gender pay gap does not exist. If women work less hours due to gendered expectations, then controlling for hours worked “controls for the pay gap itself because they are so intrinsically connected.” Despite this, there have been similar attempts to over-control for the gender pay gap in order to try to erase claims that it exists.

One can imagine several more examples of controlling for variables that actually measure the outcome. If one wanted to erase the impact of CO2 on climate change, for instance, you could control for ice thickness and claim that it’s actually polar ice that determines the temperature of the earth rather than CO2 output, even though ice thickness and temperature are intrinsically connected. If you wanted to erase the impact of smoking on death, you could control for specialist doctor visits while claiming that “it’s actually visits to the doctor that predict death, not smoking.”

Therefore, it’s not surprising that the study concludes psychological specialist visits correlate with suicide deaths, causing the connection with gender-affirming care and gender dysphoria to seemingly vanish. This overlooks the evident fact that those at higher risk of suicide are indeed more likely to have interactions with psychological specialists and amounts to a critical flaw in the article’s central premise.

The Paper Still Shows Trans Care Saves Lives

While the vast majority of the article only looks at those referred to Finland’s gender identity clinic, the impact of gender affirming care is tucked away in one paragraph and is the only part of the results section where the researchers do not include a table comparing the model with and without psychological referrals.

See the following excerpt (emphasis added):

To explore the role of GR, models accounting for sex, year of birth, and psychiatric treatment were repeated by dividing the GR group into those who had and those who had not proceeded to GR. Adjusted HRs for all-cause mortality were 1.4 (95% CI 0.6 to 3.3; p=0.5) in the GR- group and 0.7 (95% CI 0.2 to 2.0; p=0.5) in the GR+ group, as compared with the controls. Adjusted HRs for suicide mortality were 3.2 (95% CI 1.0 to 10.2; p=0.05) and 0.8 (95% CI 0.2 to 4.0; p=0.8), respectively.

Essentially, the paragraph states that for suicide, those who did not receive gender affirming care saw a 3x higher suicide rate than controls – and this is with overcontrolling for psychological treatment visits. Those who did receive care had no significant difference in suicide rates from controls. Dr. Meyerowitz-Katz, epidemiologist, stated of these findings, “The authors in their discussion focus on the fact that this difference was not statistically significant (presumably the p-value was 0.051-0.054), but that’s not a useful distinction. There’s a lot of uncertainty here, but the increased risk is still remarkable!”

Notably, this is the only section where the researchers withhold the model that doesn’t include visits to psychological specialists. It’s likely that the correlation between receiving gender-affirming care and a decreased suicide risk would be even more pronounced in a model free from the issue of overcontrolling.

If the researchers had presented such a finding, it would fundamentally challenge the basis of their paper… that gender-affirming care indeed saves lives. Even in attempts to dilute this relationship with confounding variables, the signal around gender affirming care remains strong!

Additional Major Limitations And Issues

Several other shortcomings challenge anti-trans interpretations of the study. Although the study discusses adolescents, the median referral age is 19, with more than half of the participants older than this. While 19-year-olds technically fall within the “adolescent” category, the discourse around gender-affirming care predominantly centers on individuals under 18 and the importance of early intervention. For the population examined in the study, many of the critical effects of puberty and unaddressed gender dysphoria would have already manifested. Consequently, the study lacks any basis to assert the impact of gender affirming care on trans youth.

The study also asserts that “gender dysphoria does not seem to predict suicide mortality” and organizations like SEGM handwave the positive gender affirming care findings by stating that suicide is “low” for gender dysphoric trans people. On a cursory glance, one might accept this claim – only 20 suicides are recorded in the Finnish dataset. However, this claim stretches far beyond what the study can actually conclude, as it solely focuses on individuals who have been formally referred for specialized gender identity services.

This approach neglects a significant portion of the population: youths with non-affirming parents, those who haven’t disclosed their gender identity to their parents, and individuals not seeking a formal diagnosis – all groups that may be much more likely to experience suicide. Claims suggesting low suicide rates among those with gender dysphoria overlook transgender individuals in unsupportive environments, who are seldom if ever recorded as “transgender” in any official death records.

Dr. Riittakerttu Kaltiala And Her History With Anti-Trans Activism

Lastly and separately from issues with the study itself, a disclosure issue exists with at least one of the study’s authors. Dr. Riittakerttu Kaltiala is the chief psychiatrist at Finland’s Tampere University Hospital and has a long history with allegations of misconduct in her hospital’s gender clinic. She has regularly been involved with the anti-trans organization SEGM and was one of the main witnesses called to defend a gender affirming care ban proposed by the Florida Board of Medicine. Notably, the Southern Poverty Law Center has mapped out extensive ties between SEGM and anti-trans extremist groups, including shared funding streams with the Heritage Foundation and the Alliance Defending Freedom. Similarly, the Florida Board of Medicine was stacked by Governor Ron DeSantis to ban care.

Dr. Kaltiala’s patients have shared stories of conversion therapy and abusive statements. Finnish LGBTQ+ platform, Kehrääjä, has outlined many stories of trans people’s negative experiences with Dr. Kaltiala’s clinic, including accusations of transgender identity being a fetish, telling patients that bottom surgery “seldom functions correctly,” and trans men being being denied care for being too short or having hobbies that are “too girlish.” Numerous patients report being addressed by their old names in the clinic, and Dr. Kaltiala opposes allowing trans youth to change their gender markers and IDs. Her clinic even allegedly reported a patient’s parents to child protective services and filed a criminal complaint when they obtained care legally at another clinic.

Dr. Kaltiala cannot be characterized as an impartial medical researcher; she has emerged as a key figurehead for an anti-trans movement. She has been deeply involved with many of the key players in trans care bans. She’s appeared in a podcast by Genspect, an entity known for opposing gender affirming care up to the age of 25teasing transgender children on social media, and promoting Moms for Liberty—a staunchly conservative anti-LGBTQ+ “parental rights” organization in the U.S.

In her appearance on a Genspect podcast, Dr. Kaltiala was featured alongside Stella O’Malley, founder of Genspect, who has labeled trans girls as “porn induced” fetishists and stated they warrant “no empathy.” She similarly has worked with the Catholic Medical Association’s Patrick Hunter, a Desantis-handpicked Florida Board of Medicine member who was integral to the care bans in the state.

The Study Falls Far Short Of Evidence Against Trans Care

Ultimately, the study fails to demonstrate that gender-affirming care is ineffective, particularly for transgender youth, and might even contribute to the body of evidence supporting the efficacy of such care. The study contains the same deep flaws as other research that relies on outdated diagnostic criteria from a time before “gender dysphoria” was recognized as a diagnosis and transgender identities were pathologized.

Moreover, it also overcontrolled for suicide by including a variable that is implicitly highly linked to suicide—mental healthcare visits—so as to erase the impact that gender affirming care has on suicidality.

Given that the study’s cohort predominantly consists of adults, it offers little insight into the effects of gender-affirming care on transgender youth, even without these methodological flaws. Similarly, it fails to address the experiences of transgender youth with unsupportive parents who are denied a gender identity diagnosis.

Nevertheless, the study appears to be providing anti-trans activists with exactly what they need: a study that lets them make a claim, however flimsy, that “gender affirming care does not save lives.” This narrative should be approached with skepticism, especially when propagated by individuals with ties to anti-trans groups or those involved in clinics where trans patients have reported mistreatment.

Contrary to such claims, gender-affirming care is indeed life-saving and associated with reduced rates of suicidality, even in this flawed study. Assertions to the contrary are challenged by more than 50 studies that affirm the positive impact of gender-affirming care.

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Erin Reed is a transgender woman and researcher who tracks anti-LGBTQ+ legislation around the world and helps people become better advocates for their queer family, friends, colleagues, and community. Reed also is a social media consultant and public speaker.

The preceding post was previously published at Erin in the Morning and is republished with permission.

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