FOX News Distorts Trans-Inclusive Guidelines in Maine Public Schools
Over the past two days, FOX New Channel has contributed to increasing public misconceptions about the efforts of the Maine Human Rights Commission to make the state’s public schools safe and comfortable for all students. Fox aired two irresponsible segments on the commission’s proposal to issue guidelines on “Sexual Orientation in Schools and Colleges” to all Maine public schools.
The proposed guidelines direct administrators to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms and locker rooms and to participate on gender-segregated sports teams in accordance with their gender identity. These guidelines were developed in response to a case, currently before a Superior Court in Maine, of a transgender girl who was denied access to the girls’ restrooms at school.
The guidelines do not create any new legislation. They are intended to instruct public school educators and administrators on how to ensure their schools are in line with the Maine Human Rights Act, amended in 2005 to include protection from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation which the act defines as an umbrella term including gender identity or expression.
On Tuesday, April 13th, the FOX coverage of this story began with America Live anchor Megyn Kelly hosting Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, to discuss the potential impact of the proposed guidelines on Maine’s students:
Throughout the interview, the inaccurate headline “Maine Considers Ban on Gender Specific School Bathrooms” sat at the bottom of the screen, despite Keisling’s explicit comments to the contrary. Kelly’s lack of knowledge about transgender children and gender identity in general was demonstrated by her repeated reference to transgender girls using male pronouns, and her implication that these guidelines would essentially allow boys into girls’ facilities.
Keisling did an excellent job of educating Kelly and her viewers about the true reasons for, and positive impacts of these guidelines, and we thank FOX for its decision to invite such a qualified spokesperson on the air. However, the the network’s own misrepresentation of facts is highly problematic.
The irresponsible commentary and reporting then increased yesterday when Bill O’Reilly, Lis Wiehl, and Kimberly Guilfoyle discussed the proposal with shocking flippancy and disregard on The O’Reilly Factor. O’Reilly’s answer to the question of how to accommodate a transgender student was:
“Why is it bad to use the boys’ room when you were born a boy? …You were born a boy, and that [the boys’ bathroom] is where you’re going. And if you don’t like it, you can go home and go to the bathroom and come back.”
This line of commentary by O’Reilly and Guilfoyle was disturbing at best. It completely failed to address the intense discomfort and harassment that trans and gender non-conforming students endure on a daily basis when forced to use gender-segregated facilities at school.
FOX’s coverage of this story reduced and twisted the powerful and necessary guidelines for creating inclusive and respectful learning environments into a crude and biased argument about public restrooms, and misrepresented the experiences of transgender children in schools.
In contrast, local media outlets in Maine have been covering the story fairly and accurately since early March, when the commission met to pass the proposal but ultimately decided to postpone a decision until it had allowed more time for public commentary.
On Monday, unfortunately the commission cancelled the public hearing and announced that it would be postponing any further work, at least temporarily. The Bangor Daily News printed a thorough and fair story of this decision.
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The interview was irresponsible? You say that the headline is wrong because the trans-gendered "it" in the video said there isn't anyone proposing a change in the boys bathroom and girls bathroom by letting trans-gendered "its" go into the one they think they should go to.
Kelly read from the proposal directly, and the letter said exactly those things. The letter was from the state's Human Rights Commision, not from a local activist group. The "it" in the video (and you) can't have it both ways. You can't claim that no one is suggesting there be liitle boys in the little girls room, when the letter specifically states that under no circumstances is it possible to force trans-gender students to use bathrooms or locker rooms corresponding their assigned gender at birth. That's more than a suggestion, that sounds more like an order.
Despite what the "it" says, this does NOT consider anyone other than the trans-gender students.
Fine, lets make two extra bathrooms and two extra sports teams for the freaks in the world (male and female). You cannot let a male who thinks he's a girl play on the female sports teams. He may think he's a girl, but he has male parts and male athletic abilities. You cannot let a male who thinks his a girl dangle his parts in the female bathrooms.
You can sit here and deny these things are being pushed just because this "it" in the video claimed so, but the proposal was read out loud and that's exactly what it was doing.
Kong severely weakens his argument when "it" attempts to strip the humanity of individuals by use of the gender neutral inanimate pronoun. No one can read past the "it"'s it has deliberately sprinkled throughout it's post.
Kong,
The rest of your post shows your lack of awareness on the issues. Transgendered girls are girls. Gender identity is something that you are born with. Assuming you are a physically a boy , if your mother was producing too much estrogen during your first 8 weeks in her womb, I doubt you would be making the case you are now. That's because, the extra estrogen would have crossed the placenta and prevented certain cells in the brain from masculinizing. Since everyone starts with a female brain, that's what you would be left with. At that point the cells that weren't triggered for development, would die off, leaving you trapped as girl in a boy's body.
Only you wouldn't know it yet. You wouldn't hesitate from playing with girls at first, but groups of boys might bother you. You would shy away from them, and because you didn't understand their rough- housing be picked on and bullied because you were different. You wouldn't have understood at the time why they couldn't just leave you alone.
Then somewhere about 10 the magic moment comes. Your capability of reasoning about yourself and your own thinking makes you realize that you think like a girl. You may try to push it down, but you unexpectedly have breast envy. Your mind knows they're supposed to be developing, and how you handle it at that point is up to you. You can either get help because you know you're not alone, or you can suppress your thoughts a little but at a time and be the perfect gentleman while the internal pressure builds up slowly over the next 30 years behind the dam you constructed to hide your emotions which will eventually start killing you. You can live those 30 years with increasing anxiety and loneliness or you can get help.
You don't want to be seen as gay or a freak (thinking about the beatings you might get), so you ask for help and someone sends you to a therapist, where you hope they can make the girl feelings go away.
They don't go away. There's no known therapy that can restore the lost pathways of the brain to make you feel like a boy. In fact, in a couple of years, when boys start feeling their manhood, you won't feel yours. What you will feel instead is a phantom vagina and pray that God will make it go back in.
So after a lot of thought and research , you decide to just be who you are. At least that's possible. You'll give it a try, since it's your only option. You talk to your counselor, your parents, and the school administrators, because everyone realizes that if you do present as the girl you are, the mean boys WILL get you when the teachers aren't watching. They would love to get you alone in the bathroom, where one "straight" boy may decide to teach you what it's like to be a girl, or they may skip all that and beat you within an inch of your life so you know your place in the pecking order.
That leaves the only safe place for a girl like you: the girls' bathroom. It's taken a lot of courage, but you know the people behind you love you and want to help you. The girls are fine, because your dress and behavior is normal for a girl. You rapidly develop new friends and chat about the things going on.
Then you hear that some people think the best place for you is in the dreaded boys room.
Have a heart.
We are coming to a point where too many people want society to bend over backwards for them. Women having babies and pushing for their employers to get a daycare at work , extra fat people wanting airlines to still charge for one seat even if they take up two (in which case the airline loses one seat of air-fare), Mexicans demanding Spanish speaking teachers in our schools for all curriculum, Muslims demanding there be feet-washes in all the rest areas next to interstates, and on and on and on. Now this. Society can't cater to the whims of every problem that a person might have. Next thing you know, students will all have a personal tutor paid for by our government . I mean, come off it, society should not have to account for individual problems. If you have a problem it is your own responsibility manage it and to deal with it. Stop forcing society to bend for you.
I'm not fat , but the airlines have made their seats progressively smaller over the years to cram more people in like sardines. In addition, if they don't consistently overbook a flight , they'll cancel it. The result is no room to spread out, crammed in touching contact with two normal-size male strangers for an hour as a minimum. And of course, it's not just side-to-side, it's also front to back. If you've flown recently, you'll realize that the two-inches that your seat can recline is pointless, and I'm sure you can point out a ton of ways that frills have turned to graft.
While private tutors is the best educational model and therefore too expensive, it does highlight the fact that we are cramming too many children into the classrooms taught by a single teacher. In order to maintain discipline , the teachers teach to a common denominator of 40 kids , normally active boys are given ADD drugs and normally social girls can't talk to their friends during lunch.
...but as far as the crammed airlines , you have a choice. They sell a service and if the service stinks you just don't buy it. No one is forced to fly.
The example I gave with the students was just a reactionary thing. We already spend a fortune on our schools , about $16,000 per student per year (probably higher now). That's rediculous, and it dwarves any other school system in the world. Yet, we have nothing to show for it, or very little. The largest problem isn't with the schools or the teachers. It's the parenting and the community the kids grow up in. They can't teach a kid that refuses to learn, and the kid's dad is in prison and the mother couldn't give a rat's ass. The communities are creating many broken homes and detached parents. My daughter was forced, every night, to sit down and do her homework right after supper. If she had plans or a program she wanted to watch, she had to plan ahead and do her homework after school, because otherwise she missed out. It worked. She got straight 'A's and is now a Freshman in college . I'm not proclaiming to be the parent of the year, but it takes parental involvement to get their kids to do the right thing, otherwise the kids are at risk to detaching themselves from succeeding in school. If parents let their kid run wild, the kid's future suffers, not the parents'.
As far as your situation. I am not an expert on it, and you sound like a nice person. I'll leave it at that, and I wish you luck.
I shouldn't have used the word "it" to label them, but I didn't want to have to say "transgendered girl " or every time I referred to them, plus I wasn't sure if a male that thought he was a girl was a "transgendered male" or a "transgendered female".
It's funny how about the only place you find these people are in highly populated areas....liberal areas. I'm not suggesting that all if it is fake and they're all demented, but you can't tell me that it's just a coincidence that people like this are rare outside of highly populated, liberal areas where gays and transgenders are very high in count. I think the majority of them take it on as a learned or preferred behavior.
It's not about who they think they are, anyway. Girls aren't going to be comfortable with a guy in the girl's room, especially if they don't know the guy (errr.....girl). You can't just think about the "transgendered" person. They are the oddball out, so you can't make everyone else suffer the consequences of whatever these people might feel. If they are the unusual one, they are the ones that need to learn to deal with life and reality. Don't expect the world to change for you.
Transgendered people are world-class doctors , lawyers, politicians, roofers and dump truck drivers. They invented the circuitry that makes your computer faster and keep you computer systems working, They even refinish your pianos. They'll capture your heart on stage and in print. And I have only broached the surface.
I'm a small town guy and I really don't open up to things like this too well. I would freak out in San Franciso, no doubt. A town where about any off the wall behavior is accepted and the mayor protects illegal Mexicans at taxpayer expense.
I am a believer in keeping your problems as your own. Have friends and family to help, and even get financial aid if the problem is prohibitive. But when society is asked to change the way it's set up on behalf of the person with the problem, I have to draw the line. As far as your situation, you can't claim that every woman is ok with you using the girls room. Every person is different. I know if you try that where I live you're going to wind up with a black eye and bloody lip faster than you can say "uncle". I guess my advice is to stay in neighborhoods that have accepted the behavior, or misfortune.
You're right. Transgendered people do tend to be more populous in liberal urban areas. Here's a few reasons why:
1. The incidence of transsexualism occurs fairly uniformly as 1 out of every 3000. In a small city population of 500,000, that equates to 167 people severely at odds with their gender. In a typical rural town of 10,000, that means there are probably 3.
2. The low incidence of people like yourself and the greater number of people in the urban areas means you can find support there. Transsexual people will drive hundreds of miles once a month from there towns to the nearest large city where they can be themselves. Given the danger of open hatred toward them, they remain very much in the closet at home, and may eventually relocate where they can find safety in numbers.
I (and I am a transsexual woman ) grew up in rural areas. There was no one I could turn to for help. Not having the support, and being a faithful Baptist, I hated myself, and thought that I could preoccupy my time by being totally submissive to God, nation, family & others. Over the years, my anxiety and depression worsened to the point that I had high blood pressure and thoughts of suicide . If it wasn't for the internet , I probably would have driven my car off an overpass at high speed.
There is a spectrum on the amount of gender incongruity one is born with, and there are so many facets, such as natural gender variance that is more noticeable when it crosses the gender line, that I don't have room to discuss them all. But it is not uncommon for a transsexual woman, and I know quite a few, who pass really well, to continue to live in the rural areas and blend in as the women they are.
When I first started being myself, at making a concerted effort to pass, I often risked a bladder infection to avoid making the mistake of going into a bathroom where I would not be welcomed, which was both. I sought out gender neutral/family bathrooms even in male mode.
When I presented as myself and there were only two choices available, I would ask the women where the bathroom was, and they would invariably point out the ladies' room because I dressed and behaved like any normal female. To this day, I thank God that women accept me as one of their own. Most of the time they are very polite and don't bring up my issues and we'll chat at the mirror or through the stall walls, but sometimes the curiosity is overwhelming and they do the right thing and ask me their questions in a private conversation outside the women's room.
I have never once had any cis-gender woman give any indication that I made them feel uncomfortable in the bathroom or out. And my transgender and especially my transsexual friends have the same experience.
We are not expecting the world to change for us. We only want to fit in like we are doing now, and to ensure we have those protections, because there is another minority who explodes every instance of support, because it goes against their church -taught beliefs.