In an alarming and disturbing diatribe, conservative pundit Laura Ingraham yesterday spent over eight minutes berating parents, state, and local school boards and officials for being supportive of transgender youth.
Referring to an AP story on Ryan, a transgender 10-year-old who was born physically male but identifies as female, Ingraham attacked and lamented what she referred to as the “new gender-bending phenomenon.”
“Now why would they [transgender youth] be doing this on their own, if mommy wasn’t going out and buying dresses for, in this case, Brian, or Ryan?,” the 48-year old Fox News TV guest host asked on her radio show.
Ingraham called it “crazy,” as she mocked parents for “validating” their children’s choices, and added her friends with large families would say, “Take the dress off. We’re going to go out and play some football… You’re not wearing the dress.”
Media Matters’ Carlos Maza offers a list of five reasons why Ingraham’s “rant” is “dead wrong,” noting:
This isn’t the first time Ingraham has attempted to shame parents for supporting their transgender children, so it’s naturally not the first time she’s been dead wrong about the best way to treat gender variant youth. But her ideas aren’t just “throwback,” as she puts it. They’re dangerous, and they’re totally inconsistent with the views of experts who’ve studied gender identity in children.
Ingraham, who reportedly has a gay brother, has continued to be hostile to the LGBT community.
In March, Ingraham moderated a dishonest and one-sided segment that actually used NAMBLA in an attempt to paint the venerable Southern Poverty Law Center as dangerous and un-American. last year, Ingraham made a seemingly transphobic attack on love and marriage, via Twitter.
Laura Ingraham is also the author of five books, including Of Thee I Zing: America’s Cultural Decline from Muffin Tops to Body Shots.
http://mediamatters.org/embed/static/clips/2013/05/30/30391/ceg-ingraham-20130530-ingrahamtransgender1
Audio via Media Matters
Image via Twitter
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