Cable news coverage of 2023 anti-trans bills lacked trans voices: Media Matters

Cable news outlets couldn’t avoid covering the rash of anti-transgender bills in state legislatures in 2023, but they didn’t often feature trans people talking about the subject, according to new research from Media Matters for America.

The coverage also varied widely in terms of tone and time spent, notes the study, which looked at reporting by MSNBC, CNN, and the Fox News Channel throughout the year.

During 2023, more than 550 anti-LGBTQ+ bills were introduced in state legislatures, and more than 80 became law, by the Human Rights Campaign’s count. Many of them specifically targeted trans people — seeking to ban gender-affirming health care for youth, regulate which public restrooms trans people can use, and restrict their participation in school sports. But “reporting on this onslaught consistently failed to include the first-person perspectives of trans or gender-nonconforming people,” Media Matters reports.

MSNBC included trans or gender-nonconforming guests in 22 percent of its segments, while CNN did so in 16 percent of its reports. Fox News did not include a single trans or gender-nonconforming person, even though trans celebrity Caitlyn Jenner is among its employees. Nineteen percent of total segments on MSNBC and CNN featured a trans or gender-nonconforming person or parents of trans children.

More than a quarter of reports that included a trans or gender-nonconforming person featured the same one — Montana Rep. Zooey Zephyr, who was banned from the floor of the state legislature after saying lawmakers who supported a ban on gender-affirming care would have blood on their hands.

The time spent on coverage varied greatly among the three outlets. “MSNBC dedicated by far the greatest amount of time, with 4 hours and 27 minutes of airtime — accounting for almost half of the combined cable total of 9 hours spread over 137 segments and nearly as much as both CNN and Fox News combined,” Media Matters notes. “Fox News spent the least time — 2 hours and 11 minutes — covering specific bans or restrictions on health care or bathroom access for trans people, and CNN covered such legislation for 2 hours and 22 minutes.”

In terms of tone, “on MSNBC and CNN, 42% and 36% of segments, respectively, cited research to counter anti-trans narratives or misinformation, while 49% of Fox News segments argued in favor of restrictions on gender-affirming care or bathroom access for trans people,” according to the study.

“The majority of segments on MSNBC and CNN placed discussions of anti-trans legislation within a broader political context, noting, for example, the uptick in anti-LGBTQ measures or the prevalence of anti-trans rhetoric and violence,” the report continues. “No segments on either of these networks advanced common anti-trans talking points or endorsed the legislation. By contrast, on Fox News nearly half of segments included anti-trans rhetoric or endorsed the legislation in question.”

This year is shaping up to be just as bad or worse legislatively — close to anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced so far, Media Matters reports, with 99 of them seeking to restrict trans health care and more than 43 dealing with school or public restroom access.

“As legislators in these states discuss an ‘endgame’ that includes total bans on treatment for gender dysphoria and as families of trans people plead for funding to be able to flee their homes for states where they can receive care, the spotlight of media coverage will play an increasingly important role in the way that Americans understand this quiet crisis of internal displacement,” the study concludes. “The quality of this coverage and its real-world impacts depend on cable news networks including the perspectives and experiences of the trans and gender-nonconforming people most impacted by these legislative efforts.”