Media Hides Gender Identity and Skews Data in Cases Involving Trans Perpetrators
The Washington Examiner highlighted this double standard, noting that “The media have bent over backward to downplay, or even refuse to report entirely, the fact that the shooter had been ‘identifying’ as a gender not actually her own” and that “The message is clear: The media will bend over backward to kowtow to transgender ideology when it benefits the gender bender yet will also do backflips to hide a transgender status if somebody might draw negative inferences.”
This bias is reinforced by the way data is collected. There are extensive official and NGO databases tracking violence against transgender people, such as Human Rights Campaign reports, FBI hate crime statistics, and other NGO monitoring systems, but there is no comparable official system tracking cases where transgender individuals are perpetrators. Instead, information relies on “networked agencies and journalists to correctly identify victims’ gender identities,” leaving systematic gaps whenever the offender is transgender.
