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Category: Gender

Journalism: How the media reports on murders of the transgendered – and how it conflicts with the data

Journalism: How the media reports on murders of the transgendered – and how it conflicts with the data

There are many news reports about a growing “epidemic” of transgender murders in the United States. However, the data show a nearly constant trend line from 2015 to 2019. Further, the transgender murder rate, based on the data, is 1/4th to 1/2 that of the overall U.S. population. (It is possible that the underlying data is poor, which the Human Rights Campaign hypothesizes – but news reports calling out an epidemic in the absence of data to support that are not even pseudo news reporting – they are creative fiction writing.)

All murders are wrong, period. Violence and hate are wrong, period.

This post is about news reporting, not the transgender community.

Do social media algorithms favor “sexualized posts”?

Do social media algorithms favor “sexualized posts”?

Social media algorithms that select what items we see in our feeds or in our “recommended” posts or video lists, may be designed to favor content that features attractive people (usually females, usually young and fit) or which include more sexualized content (broadly defined). Content creators see in their viewership data what works to obtain views and will produce more content like that. The effect is that algorithms may be reinforcing stereotypes of women as sex objects (data suggests this has happened more so for women than men).

#Facebook admits they support age and gender discrimination in advertising

#Facebook admits they support age and gender discrimination in advertising

“Like other major ad platforms, we enable targeting based on age and gender” Because, you know, everyone discriminates based on age and gender so we do it too! They also have features to target ads based on race and ethnicity. Which also means they enable advertisers to discriminate by race and ethnicity for say, things like housing or jobs. Facebook mostly hems and haws and says its a hard problem to solve. Facebook can not prohibit racial, ethnic and gender…

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The firestorm over “transgender” bathroom access

The firestorm over “transgender” bathroom access

The past few weeks have been a media fire storm over “transgender rights” and access to public and privately owned bathroom facilities labeled “Women” or “Girls” or “Men” or “Boys”. But there is a bigger issue to address in terms of our locker room style, gender specific bathrooms. Parents with young children, and anyone assisting a disabled person  encounter the problem of gender specific bathrooms all the time.