TransGriot (via Womanist Musings, who calls this “cisgender privilege on crack”) quotes from a vicious attack on trans children, broadcast on May 28th on the “Rob, Arnie & Dawn in the Morning” show, on KRXQ in Sacramento, California and also KDOT in Reno.
ROB WILLIAMS [11:12]: This is a weird person who is demanding attention. And when it’s a child, all it takes is a hug, maybe some tough love or anything in between. When your little boy said, ‘Mommy, I want to walk around in a dress.’ You tell them no cause that’s not what boys do. But that’s not what we’re doing in this culture.
ARNIE STATES [13:27]: If my son, God forbid, if my son put on a pair of high heels, I would probably hit him with one of my shoes. I would throw a shoe at him. Because you know what? Boys don’t wear high heels. And in my house, they definitely don’t wear high heels.
ROB WILLIAMS [17:45]: Dawn, they are freaks. They are abnormal. Not because they’re girls trapped in boys bodies but because they have a mental disorder that needs to be somehow gotten out of them. That’s where therapy could help them.
ROB WILLIAMS [18:15]: Or because they were molested. You know a lot of times these transgenders were molested. And you need to work with them on that. The point is you don’t allow the behaviour. You cure the cause!
ARNIE STATES [21:30]: You got a boy saying, ‘I wanna wear dresses.’ I’m going to look at him and go, ‘You know what? You’re a little idiot! You little dumbass! Look, you are a boy! Boys don’t wear dresses.’
ARNIE STATES [29:22]: You know, my favourite part about hearing these stories about the kids in high school, who the entire high school caters around, lets the boy wear the dress. I look forward to when they go out into society and society beats them down. And they end up in therapy.
As many people have pointed out, there are countless real-life cases of transphobic violence, including murder. In schools, kids targeted for allegedly wrong gender expression have sometimes committed suicide. This sort of attack on kids would be wrong in any context, but in the context of real-life violence and bullying, it’s particularly disgusting and irresponsible and sick, sick, sick.
The radio station and hosts have refused to apologize, unless you consider “I’m sorry that you might not find it funny” an apology. (The third co-host, Dawn Rossi, has reportedly been quite decent, and apologized for her co-hosts behavior.)
Lisa at Questioning Transphobia writes:
I’m also disturbed at the commenters at HuffPo who feel it is immediately important to rush forward and defend Arnie and Rob from criticism of their words by characterizing such criticism as an attempt to rob them of their free speech. Seriously, criticism is also an exercise of free speech. Also, inciting violence is not an exercise of free speech. It’s an attempt to foster an environment in which the target group (in this case, trans people, specifically trans children) are made to feel unsafe just for existing. Apparently, it’s just fine to use public intimidation against some people, but it’s not okay to object to that intimidation.
Lisa thinks that further letter-writing to the radio station and the show hosts is probably futile. Instead, as Lisa suggests, I’ll be writing a polite email to some of the radio station’s advertisers, asking them to ask the radio station to make restitution. Snapple and Chipotle have already pulled their ads; a list of advertisers is available here.
See also: Blog of the Moderate Left (hi Jeff!), Pam’s House Blend, Andrew Sullivan, and The Huffington Post.
I don’t think “cisgender privilege,” even “on crack,” is quite the right phrase here. I accept that I have cisgender privilege, and that sometimes I’ll say something dumb and expose that privilege, but this radio show wasn’t an exhibition of privilege. It’s an exhibition of hatred. As the post title says, it is an attack on trans children.
Cisgender privilege would be saying something like, “But can’t you just pretend so there won’t be trouble at school?” These men advocate mentally and physically abusing children who have transgender tendencies. They aren’t telling trans kids just to hide in the closet to avoid problems in unwelcoming environments; they want the environments that are tolerant to stop being so.
Everything they said is a steaming pile of shit… but that right there scares the everliving fuck out of me.
Somehow when I first read about this, I assumed it was on a right wing station/program and didn’t even realize we were talking about a more mainstream morning show on a music station. Wow.
I’m also disturbed at the commenters at HuffPo who feel it is immediately important to rush forward and defend Arnie and Rob from criticism of their words by characterizing such criticism as an attempt to rob them of their free speech.
God, I hate that meme. Nobody’s advocating that these yahoos be arrested for what they said (though frankly, they got awfully damn close to inciting violence, and even an ardent First Amendment hawk like myself winces at that). We’re just saying that what they said was evil, and that maybe the large corporation that owns them might not want to pay them for it. Because everyone has the right to say whatever they want, but that doesn’t mean that they are absolved of the consequences of it.
Oh, I’ve gotten so used to people saying “Wah, First Amendment!” when it’s actually a matter of private speech and nothing to do with government censorship that I hardly notice it anymore. Odd how it seems to come up particularly when the speech is attacking women, PoC and other subordinated groups, though, isn’t it? Like, I want to defend the substance of this speech but I can’t, so I’ll defend the right to say it, which no one was criticizing in the first place.
Odd how it seems to come up particularly when the speech is attacking women, PoC and other subordinated groups, though, isn’t it? Like, I want to defend the substance of this speech but I can’t, so I’ll defend the right to say it, which no one was criticizing in the first place
Yes. This.
I agree with PG here 100%. Saying that the behavior and comments made by these people is mere cisgender privilege is saying that it is expected and that it is okay because cisgender people don’t know any better. The real issue here is hatred and bigotry and that is what we should be raising awareness and calling assholes out on.
Some other advertisers have pulled out as well.
Also, there was a MTF veteran who called it to the show. It went about as well as one would expect.
“Thank you for your service, but let me just say this right now,” quipped an angered States. “You fought (in the armed forces) for nothing! With the opinions that you have right there, you fought for absolutely nothing!”
Link
I just…what? My heart hurts.
the feministe thread on this seems to indicate that 6 more sponsors have pulled from the show.
Obviously everything these radio types said was horrendous and hateful and astoundingly offensive. But one thing shocked me because it just seemed… I don’t know, bizarre? Impossible?
Now, even if he were right and sexual abuse made people trans, what on earth is he talking about? What does he mean by “cure the cause”? Does he mean therapy? Or has Mr. Williams discovered a way to unrape people?
Holly writes:
I disagree — these people REALLY seem to believe that being sexually abused “makes” people be trans and that there is some kind of therapy that would fix it all. Yes, some of the statements, like the threats and incitement to violence, are definitely hatred.
Well, I have bad news for them — I’ve been in and out of “therapy” for over 20 years and I’m still grooving on me and my little sex change.
What they don’t understand, along with people who demonstrate male or white privilege, is that they DON’T have the answers. Therapy for being molested by a family member 35 years ago would have been nice, but I doubt it would have made a difference. Mostly it would have kept me from growing up as f*cked up in the head as I did. And the belief that ones solutions to another persons problems are superior, IS a form of privilege.
FCH,
I think there would be less outrage about this if all they had said was, “Transgenderism is caused by sexual abuse, and dealing with that root cause will cure the symptom.” It would still be ignorant, but ignorance is dealt out daily on radio stations. I’ve heard radio hosts still peddling the Freudian idea that a strong relationship with a father and not being coddled by one’s mother will prevent the “symptom” of homosexuality. Cis-privilege, hetero-privilege, etc. is just part of living among human beings who don’t know as much as we should.
It’s the hatred that makes this particular bit of radio patter stand out. These guys can be ignorant and misinformed as hell without thinking that the way to deal with what they do not understand is to hurt it and hurt it until it dies or goes away. That’s a particular kind of evil in one’s character that doesn’t get fixed with education.
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