Opinion :: Editorial
Local media swallows ’bathroom bill’ rhetoric by Ethan Jacobs
associate editorThursday Jul 23, 2009 On July 14, the day of a legislative hearing on the transgender rights bill currently on Beacon Hill, WCVB’s NewsCenter 5 ran a story about the bill on its evening newscast. Anchor Liz Brunner introduced the story by saying, "It’s being called the bathroom bill, [and it] is essentially meant to end discrimination based on transgender status." Behind Brunner was an image of the traditional male and female stick figures found on restroom doors, positioned next to the State House dome and above the tagline, "Bathroom Bill." Yet the only people calling the trans rights bill, House Bill 1728, a "bathroom bill" are its opponents, and the label is a misnomer by any objective criteria.
H.B. 1728 adds trans-inclusive language to the state’s non-discrimination laws in the areas of employment, public accommodations, credit, housing, and education, as well as to the state’s hate-crimes laws, going far beyond simply allowing transgender people to use bathrooms that match their gender identity or expression. Opponents of the legislation, led by the Massachusetts Family Institute (MFI), claim that the bill will allow male sexual predators to masquerade as women and sneak into women’s restrooms and locker rooms. WCVB’s coverage of the transgender rights bill, as well as the coverage by some other local media outlets, suggests that the work of the bill’s opponents to label the legislation a bathroom bill in public discourse has been at least somewhat successful.
MFI, an offshoot of the national Christian right advocacy group Focus on the Family, has spent the past year working to re-brand H.B. 1728 as the "bathroom bill." In April, around the time when both supporters and opponents of the bill held back-to-back lobby days on Beacon Hill, the group created a Web site, NoBathroomBill.com, to provide supporters with talking points against the bill and to direct them to contact their lawmakers. MFI began running ads on WBZ NewsRadio this summer referring to the legislation as the bathroom bill and featuring a conversation between two mothers who believe that their children will not be safe in pubic bathrooms if the bill passes. Activists in other states, including New Hampshire and Colorado, have used similar tactics to advocate against state and local transgender rights bills.
Gunner Scott, executive director of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC), which is leading the effort to pass the transgender rights bill, said he was disappointed by the media coverage of the hearing. He said even in outlets that did not refer to the bill as a bathroom bill, the issue of bathrooms dominated the coverage.
"I think that the media outlets continued to buy into the bathroom rhetoric. ... It’s disappointing that the media outlets didn’t necessarily pick up on the actual stories of discrimination people talked about, particularly in the hearing, and continued to focus on bathrooms," said Scott.
Several local media outlets began adopting the bathroom bill language in their own coverage of the trans rights bill around time of the April lobby days and in coverage of the July 14 hearing. WCVB referred to H.B. 1728 as the bathroom bill on two successive newscasts, the July 14 report mentioned above and another story on the bill the day before.
The July 13 story led off with the same bathroom bill graphic described above. NewsCenter 5’s Lynn Jolicoeur’s story focused almost entirely on the issue of bathrooms, despite attempts by bill supporters like Scott, who was interviewed for the story, to discuss the broader impact of the bill. At the start of the story, during an on-camera interview, Scott says, "The message really is about civil rights." A voiceover by Jolicoeur immediately following Scott’s comment says, "Scott came out about his transition from female to male 10 years ago. He’s been using men’s bathrooms for much of that time."
Even when Jolicoeur’s story describes the bill’s true scope, the bathroom imagery persists. During a voiceover segment where Jolicoeur explains the different areas of non-discrimination law covered by H.B. 1728, the camera pans across images of bathroom stalls and men’s and women’s restroom signs. Jolicoeur discusses the support for the bill from women’s and children’s advocacy groups, but she does so while standing inside a women’s bathroom.
NewsCenter 5’s July 14 story takes a more nuanced look at the issue, despite opening with Brunner’s remarks about the bathroom bill. Reporter Janet Wu’s story features brief footage of transgender activist Ethan St. Pierre talking about the impact of job discrimination on his life, and it includes a short interview with Marcia Garber talking about the discrimination faced by her son, a 20-year-old transman named CJ who died of a drug overdose in January. The discussion about bathrooms comes at the tail end of the story, after a discussion of some of the broader transgender rights issues covered by the bill. Yet despite the more balanced presentation, WCVB chose to label the legislation as a "bathroom bill" at the top of the story.
Andrew Vree, news director for WCVB, declined to comment for this story through his spokesperson, Erin Duggan.
The Boston Herald has also adopted MFI’s bathroom bill rhetoric in some of its coverage. On April 8, around the time of the dueling lobby days by MFI and MTPC, reporter Laurel Sweet wrote a story headlined, "Critic: Flush Bathroom Bill." The story opens with the salacious lead, "Dude looks like a lady, but legislation allowing males and females to share public restrooms in deference to transgender persons’ rights has some arguing equality in Massachusetts has gone too far." Sweet refers to the legislation as the "bathroom bill" throughout the story, and she focuses largely on the issues of bathrooms rather than on issues of the discrimination experienced by transgender people. The Herald also ran a short story on July 13 about the hearing in its "News in Brief" section headlined, "’Bathroom Bill’ Hearing Tomorrow."
The Boston Metro headlined its coverage of the July 14 hearing, "’Bathroom bill’ heads busy State House day." Metro reporter Tony Lee refers to H.B. 1728 as the "bathroom bill" during the story as well, without explaining that that is a label given to the bill by its opponents. He reports that transgender people who testified at the hearing described the discrimination they faced due to their gender identity and expression, but the only example of such discrimination he provides is bathroom discrimination. In fact several transgender people who testified talked about being fired, denied housing, harassed by the police, and denied credit because they were transgender.
Neither Kevin Convey, editor of the Herald, nor Matthew Killorin, editor of the Metro, returned calls to comment for this story.
Dan Kennedy, a professor at the Northeastern University School of Journalism and a regular panelist on WGBH’s "Beat the Press," as well as the author of the Media Nation blog, said that given the larger scope of the transgender rights bill, media outlets were wrong to refer to it as a "bathroom bill" in their reporting. Kennedy explained that while he has followed the progress of the bill through the media, he has not closely examined the media coverage to assess its accuracy.
"To call that a bathroom bill is irresponsible. It wouldn’t be if it were a bathroom bill. ... Why would you describe it that way unless you’re trying to snicker and be demeaning about it?" said Kennedy.
He said there are many instances when the media struggles to reconcile conflicting rhetoric promoted by different sides involved in debates on contentious issues. In the debate around abortion he said the terms "pro-life" and "pro-choice" function more as euphemisms than as terms that provide substantive descriptions of people’s positions. In his own writing, Kennedy describes people as either supporting or opposing abortion rights.
Kennedy said that in recent years the media as a whole has worked to find an objective way to discuss immigration issues. "The people who are opposed to illegal immigration want you to call people illegal aliens, which makes people sound like invading aliens, and on the other side people want you to call them undocumented workers. And most outlets have settled on illegal immigrants," said Kennedy, who said that term may not satisfy either side of the debate, but it is an accurate and fair way to describe people who enter the country illegally.
Yet Kennedy said on some issues, like the transgender rights bill, efforts by the media to be even-handed are misguided. He said he saw similar flaws in much of the local coverage around same-sex marriage in the last several years.
"I have a real problem with trying to be strictly even-handed in situations where one side is denying the essential humanity of the other side. And this came up all the time in the same-sex marriage debate. I’m not really sure how to play that except I think there are a lot of circumstances where objectivity is not that useful a concept. ... [Media coverage around same-sex marriage] would be a perfect example. You say, ’One side is saying gay people are human and one side is saying they’re not, and we’re going to report both sides.’ Well, God damn it, sometimes you’ve got to make a judgment," said Kennedy.
Scott said he saw the media’s embrace of the bathroom bill rhetoric and its focus on the issue of bathrooms as an effort to draw in an audience by sensationalizing the story. He said that when some television stations contacted MTPC to request an interview they asked if Scott could provide them with a transgender woman as a spokesperson, rather than going on camera himself. He said he believes they wanted to find an interview subject who fit audience stereotypes of how transgender people look.
"Instead of reporting on actual incidents that occur, we’ve got a whole bunch of sensationalistic, not actual news pieces but inflammatory, screaming headlines," said Scott. "I’ve always felt that the news media was biased. ... Having dealt with them now, particularly in the last few months, I’m appalled by the lack of integrity and the lack of humanity."
He said only one mainstream media story about H.B. 1728 stood out in his mind as a fair presentation of the issues. The day of the hearing the Boston Globe ran a story by Bella English profiling Dana Zircher, a transwoman who successfully transitioned on the job while working as a software engineer for Microsoft. The story featured quotes from Zircher’s coworkers describing the ease with which they were able to adjust to the transition and comments from Zircher and Scott explaining that such acceptance was not typical for many transgender people. The story noted that Zircher would be testifying that day in support of the transgender rights bill. English noted the efforts by MFI to label the legislation a "bathroom bill," but the issue of bathrooms was a relatively minor part of her article.
"I think that reporter did an amazing job on that piece. I talked to her as well, and she had several interviews with Dana, and she did research," said Scott. "She asked really smart questions, and even though she wasn’t up on trans 101, she was open to the conversation and asked appropriate questions."
Ethan Jacobs can be reached at ejacobs@baywindows.com
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