The right’s relentless attacks on trans people are part of a political strategy to inflame “culture war” topics — including trans issues and “critical race theory” — ahead of midterm elections. This dangerous campaign, which is being waged through conservative news outlets and on social media, has created an environment in which educators and school officials are now being threatened for passing pro-LGBTQ policies or working to advance racial equity in schools, placing kids, families, and educators at risk.

During this same time period, a record number of states have introduced and passed legislation targeting the trans community, particularly trans youth, by restricting their access to lifesaving health care and their ability to participate in school sports teams that align with their gender identity. These topics have also been common obsessions on Fox News, which aired 54 segments mentioning trans athletes and 15 mentioning health care for trans people in less than two months after President Joe Biden took office.

The spread of bigoted content and misinformation on Facebook has been a key component of the right’s efforts to promote these bills. And the measures address problems that don’t actually exist -- trans athletes are not dominating girls and women’s sports, for instance, and trans children are not undergoing surgery. Yet posts from right-leaning pages about both topics thrive on Facebook; our review found that 43% of posts about trans issues that earned at least 50,000 interactions were about trans athletes, and 11% were about health care for trans youth.

• From October 2020 through September 2021, right-leaning Facebook pages related to news and politics posted about trans issues more often, earned more total interactions, and earned more average interactions than either nonaligned or left-leaning pages.
  • Right-leaning Facebook pages earned 60.1 million interactions (63%) across more than 16,000 posts.
  • Ideologically nonaligned pages earned 18.6 million interactions (20%) across more than 12,000 posts.
  • Left-leaning pages earned 16.1 million interactions (17%) across nearly 6,000 posts.
• Media Matters identified 235 posts about trans issues that earned at least 50,000 interactions apiece to analyze which topics were most common among top content.
  • We found that right-leaning pages accounted for 39 out of the top 40 posts.
  • Right-leaning pages accounted for 77% of the top 235 posts and 82% of the 26.5 million total interactions earned on these top posts.
  • Of those 235 top posts, 101 (43%) were about trans athletes, earning 12.8 million interactions (48%). Additionally, 58 of the posts were about state legislation (25%), with Florida (20) and Arkansas (11) the most common states discussed. These posts earned 8.7 million interactions -- one-third of the total for all posts with more than 50,000 interactions. 
  • Other topics frequently mentioned in the top posts were students and schools, including pronoun and bathroom use, health care for trans youth, Biden’s policies, Assistant Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine, and the Equality Act.
• The top 8 news and politics pages earning the most Facebook interactions on trans-related posts were all right-leaning.
  • The top page was Ben Shapiro’s, which earned 11.7 million interactions on its related posts. Other top pages included those for Franklin Graham, Breitbart, Fox News, and Dan Bongino. 
  • CNN and NPR, the only ideologically nonaligned outlets in the top 10 pages, earned 1.3 and 1.2 million interactions, respectively.
  • Right-wing media outlet The Daily Wire was the most frequently shared domain in trans-related posts, with 3,204 posts linking to the outlet and earning over 13.6 million interactions. The Daily Wire’s network of Facebook pages helped amplify the domain.

Right-leaning Facebook pages related to news and politics posted about trans issues more often, earned more total interactions, and earned more average interactions than either nonaligned or left-leaning pages. Right-leaning pages earned 60.1 million interactions on trans-related posts, or 63% of all interactions, while nonaligned pages earned 18.6 million interactions (20%) and left-leaning pages earned 16.1 million interactions (17%). This means that posts on right-leaning pages earned nearly twice as many interactions as nonaligned and left-leaning pages combined.

Right-leaning Facebook pages made more than 16,000 posts about trans issues, compared to over 12,000 from nonaligned pages and nearly 6,000 from left-leaning pages. All in all, right-leaning pages made 47% of Facebook posts about trans issues but earned nearly two-thirds of all interactions.

On average, posts about trans issues on right-leaning pages earned roughly 3,700 interactions each; posts on nonaligned pages earned over 1,500 interactions each; and posts on left-leaning pages earned about 2,700 interactions each.

Media Matters compiled all Facebook posts about trans issues that earned 50,000 interactions or more and found 235, which earned 26.5 million combined interactions. Right-leaning pages posted 180 (77%) of those posts and earned 28.1 million interactions (82%) on them -- meaning they were even more overrepresented among top-performing content than among the total examined posts. In fact, content from right-leaning pages made up 39 of the top 40 posts overall

Ideologically nonaligned pages made 17 (7%) of the posts, earning 1.4 million interactions (5%), and left-leaning pages made 38 (16%) of the posts and earned 3.4 million interactions (13%). 

Topic
Total posts
Percent of posts
Total interactions
Percent of total interactions

Trans athletes
101
43%
12.8 million
48%

Students and schools
28
12%
3.6 million
14%

Health care
25
11%
3.3 million
12%

State legislation
58
25%
8.6 million
33%

Biden policies
39
17%
4.4 million
17%

Dr. Rachel Levine
17
7%
1.2 million
5%

Equality Act
7
3%
1 million
4%

Of the top 235 posts relating to trans issues, 101 (43%) were about trans athletes, earning 12.8 million interactions (48%); 28 (12%) were about students and schools, including posts about pronoun and bathroom use but excluding those exclusively about trans athletes (which are counted in the trans-athletes category), earning 3.6 million interactions (14%); and 25 (11%) were about health care for trans people, earning 3.3 million interactions (12%) .

Additionally, 58 of the top posts were about state legislation, earning 8.6 million interactions (33%). Legislation in Florida (20) and Arkansas (11) were most commonly discussed. There were 39 posts about Biden policies, earning 4.4 million interactions (17%); 17 posts about Assistant Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine, earning 1.2 million interactions (5%); and 7 posts about the Equality Act, earning 1 million interactions (4%).

The top eight news and politics-related Facebook pages earning the most interactions on all trans-related posts were all right-leaning pages, with Ben Shapiro earning the most interactions (11.7 million) and Franklin Graham earning the second most interactions (6.4 million). 

The ninth and tenth pages earning the most interactions were ideologically nonaligned outlets CNN (1.3 million interactions) and NPR (1.2 million interactions).

The following are the top 10 pages by interactions:

1. Ben Shapiro, 11.7 million interactions.
2. Franklin Graham, 6.4 million interactions.
3. Breitbart, 3.7 million interactions.
4. Fox News, 2.5 million interactions.
5. Dan Bongino, 2 million interactions.
6. Michael Knowles, 1.7 million interactions.
7. Glenn Beck, 1.3 million interactions.
8. The Western Journal, 1.3 million interactions.
9. CNN, 1.3 million interactions.
10. NPR, 1.2 million interactions.

Though the official page for The Daily Wire was 12th in our rankings, its content was the most linked to in trans-related posts. In fact, the outlet was linked to in 3,204 Facebook posts, which earned 13.6 million interactions, and its spread was aided by the pages for Daily Wire personalities Ben Shapiro, Michael Knowles, Matt Walsh, and Andrew Klavan -- all of which are part of the Daily Wire’s large network of coordinated Facebook pages that amplify its content. The network’s other pages, including Donald Trump is My President, Restless Patriot, Conservative News, and The Angry Patriot, also shared the outlet’s articles.

This is not the first time that Media Matters has found that content about trans issues from right-leaning pages is considerably more popular on Facebook than content from ideologically nonaligned or left-leaning pages. In 2020, we did a study of published online content shared on the platform -- as opposed to posts -- and found similar results:

Despite this pattern, conservatives have long lied that Facebook is biased against them, even though their posts have consistently earned more interactions than those of ideologically nonaligned and left-leaning pages on topics such as immigration, so-called “critical race theory,” and Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearing, to name a few.

Earlier this year, GLAAD released its Social Media Safety Index, “the first-ever baseline evaluation of the LGBTQ user safety experience across the social media landscape.” One of its most urgent recommendations was for platforms to “stop allowing algorithms to fuel extremism and hate” and “confront the problem of bias in AI which disproportionately impacts LGBTQ people and other marginalized communities.” GLAAD notes that “currently, social media algorithms tend to push people further into silos of experience, sending them ever deeper into echo chambers” that can amplify hateful content -- “a phenomenon that is well-documented by both researchers and journalists.”

Our latest findings only further demonstrate this pattern and reinforce the need for Facebook to take action against the intense spread of transphobia on its platform.

Media Matters searched Facebook posts using CrowdTangle from 1,773 Facebook pages that frequently posted about U.S. politics from October 1, 2020, through September 30, 2021.

Of those 1,773 pages, we identified 771 right-leaning pages, 497 ideologically nonaligned pages, and 505 left-leaning pages. For an explanation of how we compiled the pages and identified them as right-leaning, left-leaning, or ideologically nonaligned, see the methodology here.

We then compiled all posts from these 1,773 Facebook pages that we determined to be about trans issues.

We defined posts as being related to or about trans issues if a post had any of the following terms in the message, the included link, article headline, or article description: “trans kid,” “trans kids,” “trans child,” “trans children,” “trans boy,” “trans boys,” “trans girl,” “trans girls,” “trans man,” “trans men,” “trans woman,” “trans women,” “trans female,” “trans male,” “transgender,” “transgenders,” “transgenderism,” “gender transition,” “gender identity," “biological male," “biological man," “biological woman," “biological boy,” “biological girl,” “biological female," “women’s sports," “girls’ sports," “biological women," “biological men," “puberty blockers,” “chemical castration,” “irreversible procedures,” “irreversible surgery,” “irreversible surgeries,” “detransition,” “detransitioner,” “gender reassignment,” “hormone replacement,” “sex change,” “sex reassignment.”

We then reviewed the total interactions -- reactions, comments, and shares -- for the resulting 34,139 posts.

For each post with over 50,000 interactions, the subject of the post was independently coded by two researchers. When there was a discrepancy, the researchers assigned a final code by consensus. We removed one unrelated post, bringing the total to 235 posts with more than 50,000 interactions included in the final analysis. These posts were coded for whether the posts mentioned one or more of the following topics in their text, image, or headline: trans athletes; Biden policies; the Equality Act; health care for trans people or youth; Dr. Rachel Levine; legislation in the states (and which states); or students or schools, including posts about pronoun use and bathrooms but not including posts that discussed only trans athletes in schools.