Under the direction of total bullying/chairman Brendan Carr, the FCC is taking steps to curb children’s entertainment that explores in any way the complexities of gender identity.
On Wednesday, the FCC’s Media Bureau announced that it is seeking public comment on whether the TV ratings system has made sound decisions about children’s programming featuring transgender or non-binary characters. In a statement about the comment period, the FCC said it was requesting a response because of “serious concerns” about whether “controversial gender identity issues are being included or promoted in children’s programming without providing any disclosure or transparency to parents.”
“Specifically, industry guidelines that parents rely on are rating shows with transgender and gender non-binary programming as appropriate for children and young children, and doing so without providing this information to parents, thereby undermining parents’ ability to make informed decisions for their families,” explained the FCC.
At X, Carr echoed the general sentiment of his organization and said parents are concerned that “programmers in New York and Hollywood” are pushing some kind of pro-transgender agenda. Carr also emphasized that these shady programmers are undermining both the law and the rating system that was established to protect children from inappropriate content.
Every cryptic noise made by Carr’s FCC here is clearly being read as an attempt to arm the entertainment industry’s (voluntary) ratings system to shut out transgender and non-binary people from the media. As Variety notes, the FCC does not directly regulate the ratings system, but it does have the power to make decisions about whether the ratings board is working properly.
The way Carr describes it, you can get the picture that the FCC is inundated with complaints from parents about programs full of messages and images that are inappropriate for younger viewers. But in the comments on Varietythe only Democratic Commissioner Anna Gomez said, according to the FCC’s latest annual report, “there are only 11 letters of public correspondence concerning the FCC. [TV ratings] board work, and spot checks have been just two instances where a measure had to be changed.”
“American families are concerned about affordability, access and rising costs, not that the TV rating system has enough warnings about gender identity,” Gomez said.
The baselessness of these concerns becomes even more apparent when you look at some of the questions the FCC is asking people to consider, such as whether the ratings board should include “more religious organizations” and “more stakeholders outside the entertainment industry.” Each of the FCC’s questions is asked in a way that suggests the current ratings board is not working in the best interest of children. And while the FCC hasn’t said outright that it doesn’t want trans and non-binary people on screen at all, it’s easy to see how the agency might want to use this process to launch a massive campaign designed to reverse queer representation.
The important thing to remember here is that, no matter what kind of television shows or movies they watch, transgender, non-binary, and delinquent children will always be there. Those children and their cisgender peers deserve to be exposed to stories about different forms of gender expression because they reflect the realities of how people live and move in the world. Parents owe it to themselves and their children to realize that the Trump administration’s FCC is trying to play on people’s fears about children’s safety in order to push their agenda. With any luck, this will all blow over until Carr decides to pick another target.
