In its attacks on the transgender community, the Family Research Council is getting sloppy And by sloppy, I mean telling easily refuted lies and boldly showcasing its own hypocrisy.
First, let's talk about the lie. In blog posts on its site, FRC spins conspiracy theories about transgender people. This particular post, To Counter The Transgender Lie, We Must Speak Truth, is a yawner much akin to what the group used to say about gays. But to me, one part stood out:
A 2011 U.S. study found that 41 percent of transgender participants reported attempting suicide in comparison to 1.6 percent of the general population. Is this because people aren’t accepting of them or because they have mental health problems the rest of the population does not? The Centre for Suicide Prevention says on its website that transgender people experience mental illness at a much higher rate than the general population. While 6.7 percent of the U.S. general population suffers from depression and 18 percent grapple with some form of anxiety, nearly half of all people who identify as transgender experience one or both of these issues. Telling these people that they should try to change every single part of their physical bodies in order to feel better is abhorrent. Their problem is not in the body, it’s in the mind.
FRC is implying that trans people have a high rate of suicide and mental illness not because of non-acceptance, but because supposedly trans people have mental health problems in general. There is just one problem with FRC's inference. Or in this case, three. All three of the links FRC supplies specifically say that problems regarding suicide and mental illness when it comes to trans people is because of the non-acceptance of society.
The first link is the results of a
survey by the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.
In other words, FRC cherry-picked information from these sources to make a negative point about trans people while omitting that the sources in general refutes the negative point the group is attempting to make. Now that's just sloppy.
But if you think that's brazen of FRC, then check out the following tweet the group sent out today:
Keep in mind that the Family Research Council has given full support to state legislation across the country which would ban trans kids from receiving suitable and affirming healthcare even though said legislation has been opposed by a myriad of
medical professionals and . . . wait for it . . .
parents.
Texas is even considering a
bill which would label parents who support gender affirming care for their children as "child abusers." They would jailed and their children could be taken from them. No doubt
false horror stories about affirming care for trans children (including a lie by FRC that affirming care
included chemical castration) led the state to consider such a travesty of a bill.
Maybe the Family Research Council doesn't think that parents who support their trans children qualify as "real parents."
