A Disparity In Reporting

[AutumnParticipant]

Let’s compare two headlines:

Student arrested for trespassing at St. Joe’s following “non-disciplinary exclusion”

vs.

LILLEY: High school student suspended, arrested for saying only 2 genders

Both cover the same story, but they give rather different impressions. The second would be alarming if it were true… but it’s almost certainly not.

The student was neither arrested nor suspended for saying there are two genders. He was suspended, and he was arrested, but not for that reason, and the distinction matters. While it is still possible the school handled his case improperly, misrepresenting the story fuels the persecution complex many are already building. Being arrested for trespassing after ignoring an exclusion issued by the school is very different than the thought police hate-criming your religious views.

This isn’t exclusively an issue of one political extreme. Click bait headlines and marketing to anger is likely effective on most people regardless of political stripes. But it’s frustrating how many media outlets foster not just political illiteracy in the general population, but rather promote outright paranoid delusion.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Autumn wrote:

But it’s frustrating how many media outlets foster not just political illiteracy in the general population, but rather promote outright paranoid delusion.

In the UK we would call this shit-stirring.  Shit-stirring seems to make a lot of money for the media.  It’s not helpful for the overall debate, and focuses on the wrong issues.  Anyway, gender is different from biological sex.  It seems to me people can be whatever gender they like.  When this bumps up against the rest of the world, it can lead to problems however – basically because of the violent and sexually predatory nature of the male sex (in the abstract).

[AutumnParticipant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

In the UK we would call this shit-stirring. Shit-stirring seems to make a lot of money for the media. It’s not helpful for the overall debate, and focuses on the wrong issues.

<snip>

When this bumps up against the rest of the world, it can lead to problems however – basically because of the violent and sexually predatory nature of the male sex (in the abstract).

That’s a popular narrative, and one that’s often raised in the media, but it’s not that well supported. Anecdotally, I am confident we can find isolated cases, but if we extended that treatment to all demographics, no one would be allowed in washrooms with one another, we’d make all change rooms private, and prisons would segregate all inmates from one another and from staff.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Autumn wrote:

if we extended that treatment to all demographics, no one would be allowed in washrooms with one another, we’d make all change rooms private, and prisons would segregate all inmates from one another and from staff.

But that is the case right now – males and females are segregated in close quarters.

[AutumnParticipant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

But that is the case right now – males and females are segregated in close quarters.

That’s not what I wrote, now is it? If we treated all people with the same hysteria we treated transgender people we just wouldn’t be comfortable letting people near other people period.

But it’s not just transgender people of course. We’ve done similar with black people, immigrants, refugees, gay people, indigenous peoples, muslims… we create narratives that people are afraid of them or that they are of significantly elevated concern to the public, or that we have to protect the women and children from them then use that to frustrate human rights issues related to these demographics.

The point isn’t that rational criticism or inquiry can’t be raised. It’s that one has to be careful about crossing the line into fear-mongering and hypocrisy.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Autumn wrote:

The point isn’t that rational criticism or inquiry can’t be raised. It’s that one has to be careful about crossing the line into fear-mongering and hypocrisy.

People might think, if someone is prepared to break norms to the extent that they will dress and act like someone of another gender, then what else might they do?

The only way round this is to “normalise” and understand trans people.  Then, existing norms are not broken by them, because those norms don’t exist any more.

[AutumnParticipant]

It’s possible people think that way. Or rather, I am sure many do. In practical, short-term solutions, normalization tends to go a long way to change; however, there was an uptick in acceptance in many parts of the world that over the course of the last decade has been partially derailed by fairly active propaganda campaigns. The subject of this thread is more the latter, not with specific regard to transgender people, but rather the efficacy of false narratives in general.

In the example I cited, many news outlets (especially those with Catholic affiliation) will report that the student was arrested for saying there are only two genders. Let’s set aside whether the claim there are only two gender is true or not. Are people being arrested for saying it? Many have a very real concern that they are. That puts them in a place where they can easily justify antipathy toward transgender or people or toward progressives because it’s not that they are transphobic; they’re pro-free speech and they now think things have gone too far. Except the thing they are upset about? Well, in this case it’s not real.

So why do they accept that it is real? Are they too trusting of certain media sources? Are they not able to assess the credibility of claims and sources? Did they accept the story too readily because it confirms to their biases or because they have a lot of ambiguous stress and they need a tangible target to unload on?

I used this story as an example because I come across it all the time with regard to trans issues. That’s because I frequently search the news for stories on the subject matter, and often I find it’s extreme right-leaning publications that are more fixated on transgender people than any other publications. However, like I said, it’s not about left-vs-right specifically. It’s about generating outrage over things that aren’t really happening. I’m aware that’s a topic that’s been discussed on the forums before, but periodically, it’s worth revisiting.

[UnseenParticipant]

Here’s the thing: Your average Ontarian, I bet, doesn’t want to have to think about or be forced to take a stand on this sort of stuff (trans issues, ungendered toilet facilities, trans athletes, among other things).

In a free society, people need to be allowed to have and express opinions. Wrong opinions, unpleasant, offensive, and even hateful opinions included. That’s democracy.

Here in Oregon, a relatively minor school district decided to ban tangible political expressions (pins, pennants, flags, T-shirts, etc.). This is something many people would think to be reasonable. After all, schools are for teaching “The 3 R’s.” The kids went to court and a judge told the district that even students have free speech in that broad sense which includes free expression. I’m sure the court meant in the right time, place, and way, however. So, standing up and yelling political slogans in a class on algebra or staging a sit-in in the cafeteria lunch line would be a no-go.

So, to know if this nonsuspension suspension was justified, I’d want to know to what extent it disrupted the regular activities of the school. If his views upset some people, it probably also made many students think, which isn’t a bad thing.

(BTW, that he based his views on The Bible is beside the point. I’m sure there are atheists who believe that there are—at least basically—but two genders at least viewed as opposing poles on a continuum.)

Also, there are feminists who feel that some spaces need to be for just one gender, as defined by gender assigned at birth, if only for women recovering from severe abuse, esp. rape, for whom any reminder of a male makes their living space feel unsafe.

[AutumnParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

Here’s the thing: Your average Ontarian, I bet, doesn’t want to have to think about or be forced to take a stand on this sort of stuff (trans issues, ungendered toilet facilities, trans athletes, among other things). In a free society, people need to be allowed to have and express opinions. Wrong opinions, unpleasant, offensive, and even hateful opinions included. That’s democracy.

If you want to express opinions without thinking about things, thats still your right. But the story lied about why he was arrested, and most likely about why he was suspended, and that’s the topic of this thread. Academic exclusions have an appeals process which the student chose to ignore (and it wasn’t his right to do so). The student is in the process of filing a human rights complaint, which is his right. Who knows how that will go. It will come down to the facts of the case. None of that changes the fact that he wasn’t arrested for saying there are only two genders, and he very likely was not suspended for that reason either.

[_Robert_Participant]

I bought my first synthesizer when I was 17 years old while studying piano. Wendy Carlos was such a big influence on me and many other synth players. I remember thinking it was somewhat interesting that she was trans. Never imagined it would upset many people.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Autumn wrote:

None of that changes the fact that he wasn’t arrested for saying there are only two genders, and he very likely was not suspended for that reason either.

I suspect a lot of it comes down to manufacturing ammunition for an us-versus-them, we-good, you-evil culture war.  It’s like Putin says “the Ukrainians did this [manufactured outrage], so I have to bomb them”.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

Autumn wrote:

None of that changes the fact that he wasn’t arrested for saying there are only two genders, and he very likely was not suspended for that reason either.

I suspect a lot of it comes down to manufacturing ammunition for an us-versus-them, we-good, you-evil culture war. It’s like Putin says “the Ukrainians did this [manufactured outrage], so I have to bomb them”.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Sorry for that second comment, I was trying to edit the first, and screwed up.

[UnseenParticipant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

Sorry for that second comment, I was trying to edit the first, and screwed up.

Well, I put up the same video twice elsewhere, so it happens.

[AutumnParticipant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

Autumn wrote:

None of that changes the fact that he wasn’t arrested for saying there are only two genders, and he very likely was not suspended for that reason either.

I suspect a lot of it comes down to manufacturing ammunition for an us-versus-them, we-good, you-evil culture war. It’s like Putin says “the Ukrainians did this [manufactured outrage], so I have to bomb them”.

It’s also likely a means of redirecting stress. If you look at the MAGA movement, some of the issues raised were valid at the most fundamental level—in particular, issues of political corruption and a system that doesn’t serve the public anywhere near as well as it should. ‘Drain the swamp’, while vapid, is all good and fine, but not if you have zero clue what you need to filter out in the process. Rather than take those high level concerns over dysfunctional politics and turn them into rational inquiry, the energy was channeled into bullshit like ‘build the wall’. Now, I understand ‘build the wall’ was rationalized concerns that illegal immigration was contributing to crime and taking away employment opportunities, but their energy had to be redirected because the very same people encouraging them to chant ‘drain the swamp’ were swamp-dwellers and their beneficiaries.

There are plenty of reasons people rightly feel anxious or unsettled, but often the causes are either vague/ nebulous, or they stem from things we’re either afraid to change or afraid we can’t change. When there’s no outlet for that anxiety, it has to go somewhere, and propagandists are happy to give those feelings a more manageable target whether it makes sense or not.

In many major cities in Canada, housing affordability is a major concern (not an issue unique to Canada, of course). In Vancouver, in particular, much of the blame was placed on Chinese nationals inflating prices by snatching up property. While that may have been a contributing factor, it actually did far less to explain the issue than many thought. There are likely quite a few complex variables involved and it would take a lot of effort to fully understand the problem—that alone is mildly anxiety inducing because we end up pitted against our own staggering ignorance and impotence. Blaming Chinese people was a lot simpler and more tangible, so naturally it became the goto explanation for many. It’s much easier than considering the possibility that the way we manage housing just doesn’t work well enough.

[Author]

Posts