Is Fox News 32 Chicago Fair and Balanced?

Yesterday, Larry Yellen of Fox News 32 Chicago sought a comment from IFI for a segment he was doing on Trump’s “transgender” tweet.

Here are the comments that were included in Yellen’s segment from opponents of Trump’s ban on gender-dysphoric men and women serving in the military:

• From “Danielle” Love, a cross-dressing man who works at the “LGBTQ” Center on Halsted: “It’s disheartening to the say the least. I think that transgenders of all kinds are just as equally able to provide for our country just as anyone else would be.” (30 words)

• From “Vanessa” Sheridan, a cross-dressing man who works as the director of transgender relations at the Center on Halsted: “That’s a shame. It keeps people from moving forward with their lives, from being the full contributors that they might otherwise be.” (22 words)

• Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, bristling melodramatically with unrighteous indignation: “I cannot think of a thing that is more abhorrent on the 69-year anniversary of President Truman integrating the Armed Forces racially.” (22 words)

• Senator Tammy Duckworth: “I didn’t care about the gender identity of the soldiers who were risking their lives to save me. I only cared that they were American troops and that they were there to rescue me.” (34 words)

• Colonel “Jennifer” Pritzker, the cross-dressing brother of gubernatorial candidate Jay Pritzker. Yellen reported this about Jennifer Pritzker: “While she’s [sic] a long time Republican, she [sic] has reached out to the president to express her [sic] disappointment.” (17 words)

• Ed Yohnka, ACLU Chicago spokesperson: “This is really beneath what we want America to be and certainly what we want our military to be.” (19 words)

IFI sent this statement to Yellen:

Gender dysphoric men and women who wish they were the opposite sex seek to force all citizens to pretend that subjective, internal feelings about one’s sex are more important than objective, immutable biological sex. They seek to force all of society to treat them as if they are the sex they are not. They also seek to serve openly in the military, which means impersonating and being housed with persons whose sex they do not share. That is a violation of the rights of the men and women who serve every American and every non-citizen who lives in this once-great nation. It’s outrageous that the military stood poised to force men and women who are willing to sacrifice their lives for us to suffer the indignity of showering and toileting with persons of the opposite sex.

Never in the course of human history has a society denied the reality, immutability, and meaning of the sexual binary. Subjective feelings do not trump reality. No matter how Americans feel about President Trump, his tweets, or his positions on other issues, the position he expressed this morning is something for which all Americans who care about the military should be thankful.

This is what Yellen’s segment included from IFI’s statement:

“All Americans who care about the military should be thankful.” (10 words)

144 words from “progressives,” 10 words from conservatives.

So much for fair and balanced.

IFI did not expect our entire statement to be included but maybe two sentences, one of which would have addressed the substantive privacy issue. And perhaps if IFI were to be the only conservative voice included in the segment, Fox could have included even four sentences, which would still have been only half the number of words allotted to “progressive” voices.

Here are some thoughts about the comments made by “progressives” in Yellen’s segment:

• Is it the responsibility of the military to help soldiers ‘move forward’ with their lives as Sheridan claims? And what precisely does ‘moving forward’ mean?

• Since the faux-enraged Emanuel clearly believes that pretending to be the opposite sex is analogous to race, perhaps he could enlighten everyone as to what specific ways these two conditions correspond.

• If I were lying bleeding on a battlefield, I, like Duckworth, wouldn’t care about the gender identity or anything else about those risking their lives to save me. I wouldn’t care if they were anemic, or had orthodontic braces, gout, polydactyly (an extra finger), irregular menstrual cycles, or undescended testicles, all of which are conditions that preclude military service. If I were bleeding to death on a battlefield, I wouldn’t care if the person rescuing me were an infantilist, frotteurist, voyeur, or kleptomaniac. But does the military assess fitness for service based on what criteria matter to those being rescued from imminent death? If that is how fitness should be determined than there would be virtually no criteria.

• What is beneath America and beneath the military is adopting the reality-denying view that objective, immutable biological sex has no intrinsic meaning or value, particularly with regard to modesty and privacy.

• What is beneath America and the military is forcing men and women to share barracks, restrooms, and showers with persons of the opposite sex.

• What is beneath America and the military is coercing Americans to pretend to believe that subjective, internal feelings about one’s biological sex determine maleness and femaleness.

• What is beneath America and the military is facilitating the rejection and mutilation of healthy bodies and compelling Americans to bear false witness in the service of disorders of the mind, heart, and will.

• Either the objective, immutable sex of humans matters or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t matter, then all sex-segregated spaces, contexts, and activities should be eradicated. Everything should be co-ed for everyone everywhere. If objective, immutable biological sex has no intrinsic and profound meaning, then there should exist no public recognition and accommodation of sex differences. No single-sex restrooms; locker rooms; dressing rooms; shelters; semi-private hospital rooms; nursing home rooms; athletic teams; or prisons. No more single-sex military barracks, restrooms, or showers. And this would constitute being on the most perverse side of history–a side of history no civilization has ever before witnessed.