Fox News host Greg Gutfeld continued the network's dishonest attempts to portray a California bill to grant transgender students equal access to school facilities and activities as a “bathroom bill,” dismissing the legislation as a bill for “gender-confused students.”
Filling in for host Bill O'Reilly on the August 9 edition of The O'Reilly Factor, Gutfeld ignored the substance of the legislation, which would allow transgender students to use facilities and play on sports teams that correspond to their gender identities. Instead, Gutfeld framed the legislation - which has passed both houses of the legislature and awaits Gov. Jerry Brown's signature - as a “bathroom bill.” To back up the right-wing myth that the legislation would lead to inappropriate bathroom behavior, Gutfeld joked that he has long claimed to be gender-confused so he could “sneak into the girls' bathroom”:
GUTFELD: As a devious teen growing up, I would tell girls that I'm a girl trapped in a boy's body, just so I could sneak into the girls' bathroom. In fact, I do that now at Fox News. ... Gretchen Carlson threw me out of the bathroom just last week.
Gutfeld's insensitivity toward transgender students is typical of Fox's coverage of transgender issues.The network routinely mocks, demeans, and dismisses transgender individuals, who face disproportionate rates of bullying and harassment. Instead of addressing such problems, however, Fox prefers to peddle baseless myths about bathroom creeps.