For writer Parker Molloy, Tucker Carlson’s obsession with constantly depicting transgender people as weirdos, or worse, on his show is extremely dangerous.
“Tucker Carlson was covering some story of a Canadian teacher a couple of weeks ago who apparently came out as trans and wears these big goofy prosthetic breasts. Totally an inappropriate way to dress for school or anything else, and obviously there is a way to argue that that shouldn’t be allowed at the school based on dress codes or what should be appropriate in a school. Instead, it was used to be like, ‘Look, these are what these trans weirdos are like, and they shouldn’t have non-discrimination protections,’” says Molloy, author of The Present Age newsletter, on this bonus episode of The New Abnormal podcast.
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“It’s so frustrating to watch because that is the only perspective that a lot of people are going to get. The only trans person they’re gonna hear from is—well, they’re not even gonna hear from that trans person—they’re gonna hear from Tucker Carlson screaming about how this is leading to the end of society.”
This is particularly troubling to host Andy Levy as he points out that attacks on trans rights—and LGBTQ rights more generally—seem to be increasing and becoming bolder, from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “Don’t Say Gay Bill” to bathroom and sports legislation all across the country.
“It’s a recipe for discrimination and it’s gonna hurt a lot of people. That’s something that I’m really worried about, especially as it concerns these attacks on what people can learn in school, because this kind of echoes the 2013 law that Russia implemented, the gay propaganda law that they put [into law] over there. It became illegal to put things out in public that exposed children to basically being gay or being trans and promoting it in any sense. And we’ve seen how that has affected them over there,” says Molloy. “These things worry me because they come with a body count. They come with some horrible, horrible things.”
Andy goes on to say that this type of LGBTQ+ discrimination now teeters very close to Nazism.
“It’s just establishing a class of people and scapegoating them for all these ills, or supposed ills, in society, and just completely basically doing everything but making them wear a gold star. You shouldn’t have to be trans and you shouldn’t have to be gay to look at this and go, ‘This is terrifying. Like, this is not what this country is supposed to be.’ It scares the shit outta me,” says Andy.
Also on this episode: Molloy and Andy discuss the GOP’s hypocrisy when it comes to anti-trans legislation, why the right’s outrage with pronouns is “fake,” and the latest in the Elon Musk Twitter saga.
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