Trans activist and model Munroe Bergdorf has opened up about the constant transphobic debates on television.
Over the last few years, daytime talk shows have targeted the trans community with offensive and inaccurate “debates” regarding gender identity.
From prominent TV programs featuring anti-trans commentators to hosts berating their trans guests with harmful questions, hateful rhetoric towards the community has become a terrifying staple within the UK media.
Bergdorf, who has been an influential trailblazer in the LGBTQ+ community, opened up about the aforementioned debates in a new interview with Metro.co.uk.
“It hasn’t been an easy ride for me. I think we’re in this very precarious moment in time when it comes to trans rights, and I think that it’s very reminiscent of where gay men were in the 1980s and 90s with this mass hysteria over – at the time, it was gay men, now it’s trans people,” she explained.
“Like, what does that mean if we have equal rights? Should we be allowed in the spaces we want to be in? All these things are being debated about trans people were being debated about gay men.
“Even if they don’t want to say it’s transphobic, it’s transphobic.”
Elsewhere in her interview, Bergdorf discussed the importance of her MTV series Queerphiphany with Drag Race UK star Tayce.
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“This is a show that can empower all people, whether or not you’re queer,” she said.
“That feeling of being able to laugh at the moments that are difficult, it’s something that brings us together… I think that’s really what it’s about and showing that it doesn’t all need to be serious all the time.”
Bergdorf’s interview comes a few months after a GAY TIMES survey revealed that 9 in 10 people deemed the UK media’s reporting on the “trans debate” as harmful.
According to the eye-opening data, more than three-quarters (77.5 per cent) of the 996 respondents have seen trans rights described as a ‘debate’ in the UK media.
96.4 per cent said they believe this framing to be harmful, a figure which rises to 96.6 per cent when looking solely at LGBTQ+ people who took the survey.
The survey also highlighted the serious concerns regarding the reporting of trans issues in the UK media.
Almost 9 in 10 (86.4 per cent) believe trans issues were ‘somewhat’ or ‘completely’ inaccurately reported on, and just 6.5 per cent believe it to be ‘fair.’
As for the amount of transphobia displayed in the news sphere, only 2.8 per cent of respondents said they ‘never’ see transphobic reporting in the UK media – which is a stark contrast to the 44.9 per cent who said they see it ‘often’ and the 27.3 per cent who see it ‘sometimes’.
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