"Fair & Balanced"

You all heard that motto from Fox which is something of a joke coming from Fox, but there are many other news sources that are fair and balanced.

Fair and accurate media coverage really could improve the lives of transgender people like me
A recent report by Kings College London found that negative representations of trans people in the media can worsen dysphoria causing feelings of shame
The Independent
By Owl Fisher
February 20, 2018

Yes — this is yet another piece about transgender people. You’d be forgiven for thinking that we make up 90 per cent of the population (the reality is between 1-2 per cent). We are everywhere in the media, and not in a terribly good way lately.

Ever since the Government announced they’re considering reforming the Gender Recognition Act (2004) about six months ago a very corrosive and heated public debate in the UK about trans rights and the reality of trans people is being played out in the media, and we are the fodder. Under the act trans people will no longer need a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria from a health care professional to receive their gender recognition certificate. This means that trans people can get a new birth certificate without having to jump through hoops to prove who they are. We have seen many trans voices being heard in positive ways amidst the chaos, however much media coverage has shown trans people in an extremely negative light.
[…]
What is the impact of these attacks on us? How is this affecting our mental health? Can fair and accurate media coverage improve the lives of trans people, making our children safer and happier? Happily, the answer to the last question is yes, as a new study shows.

News coverage can make or break a trans bill. In New Hampshire when a trans rights bill was introduced the Union Leader relentlessly attacked the trans bill calling it the “Bathroom Bill” and the articles created such a backlash to the bill that even the bill sponsors didn’t vote for the bill.

The research, carried out by King’s College London in partnership with All About Trans, looked at how media representation of trans people affects trans people themselves. 78 per cent thought that coverage about trans people was inaccurate and when seeing negative media coverage, 69 per cent felt unhappy, 78 per cent felt angry, 69 per cent felt bad about society, 49 per cent felt excluded and 41 per cent felt frightened.

It found that negative representations can worsen the dysphoria of trans people causing feelings of shame, making one respondent feel “like I will never be accepted in society as my true self and this hurts deeply”.

The study also found that,

Where there is fear and misinformation, there is hate. Research published by Stonewall in January 2018 showed that two fifths of trans people (41 per cent) experienced a hate crime in the last 12 months, nearly half of trans people (48 per cent) avoid using public bathrooms, one in four (25 per cent) have experienced homelessness, two in five (40 per cent) have adjusted the way they dress out of fear of harassment or discrimination and one in eight (12 per cent) have been physically assaulted by colleagues or customers in the last year, simply for being trans.

We are seeing that now in the U.S. the number of hate crimes directed against LGBT people has risen, we now see many more hate comments on websites.

As Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said,

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

But when politicians advocate violence the heartless are no longer restrained.