Even as Fox News's gay marriage coverage appears to be shifting away from shrill opposition to more neutral territory, the cable channel and its hosts haven't given up on ragging on transgender people, a group Fox News hosts and their guests have consistently and gleefully mocked over the years.
In case you missed any of these offensive moments, Media Matters put together a compilation of greatest hits that opens by pointing out that the one time occasionally open-minded host Megyn Kelly tried to defend transgender people, she was herself mocked: "Fox News 'Medical A-Team' member Dr. Keith Ablow... argued that supporting transgender people was "insane" and "psychologically destructive."
Odious enough as isolated incidents, the entire package of anti-trans commentary regularly delivered on and by Fox News is enough to warrant serious examination, say activists. "Hate violence is reinforced by vitriolic hate speech, where public figures accuse transgender people of being degenerates or freaks and mock and dehumanize them by calling them names such as "tranny" or "man in a dress" and suggest that sexual assault against transgender people is anything other than violence," said Sharon Stapel of New York's Anti-Violence Project. Michael B. Keegan from the People for the American Way agreed, telling Equality Matters, "Fox hosts and contributors push damaging myths about transgender Americans that do real harm to real people."
