Eric’s unhealthy obsession with trans kids

Sexualizing children is cruel. Mocking children is cruel. Promoting hoaxes that demonizes children is cruel. Let’s be clear: Eric Owens gets paid to be cruel to children because they’re trans. Unlike dupes who are tricked into spreading anti-trans hoaxes, I’ve personally told him that bullied trans children overwhelmingly respond to cruelty by taking their own lives.

In Owens’ newest attack, he sexualizes trans children with imagery and innuendo and even promotes known hoaxes in his effort to target trans children.

2014.02
Daily Caller, 2/1/2014

The cinematic trope of a nude woman screaming in terror as a (usually male) predator attacks her is how Owens represents the supposed menace of trans children. This isn’t the first time Owens used this trope to characterize trans children.

Owens’ pieces are generally equal parts pop-journalism and sensationalism. He generally produces a mashup of what journalists have to say about a trans story and then window dresses the mashup with his own brand of bigotry: a mocking image, connecting his story to sexual hoaxes, titles designed to berate and belittle, etc.

For example, what makes page one of Owens’ article about trans children problematic is the context added to the story by the denigrating image and the title of page two:

Page 1...
End of Page 1…
The Evergreen Hoax
Start of Page 2… The Evergreen Hoax

Whereas the story on page one is a mashup of what other journalists published, the sexualization and lies on page two is all Owens. In this way his story draws false similarities between trans children and a fake sexual predator portrayed in the Evergreen College hoax

Note the way Owens handles this same story last year when a lower Main court ruled against the trans student in the above story. Gone are any mocking images or degrading innuendos. Apparently there’s no need to oppress trans children when they’re being oppressed by the court system.

Let’s see how Owens handles a story where the court system supports a trans kid:

2013.02
Daily Caller, 2/25/2013

Here’s a few other gems:

I’m going to go ahead as say it: I think Eric Owens is a bigot.

e2
Email exchange between Owens and me

(Hrm… Where have I encountered this type of behavior before?)

Owens likes to focus on trans kids. I reviewed 24 trans stories and 16 of them were about the various ways trans kids supposedly pose a problem.  The fact that the very kids he denigrates – trans children – are dealing with hate by taking their own lives never seems to make its was into one of Owens’ pieces. The contextual narrative Owens creates preserves a culture of hate and death and his readers seem to get the message he’s sending.
 


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Cristan Williams is a trans historian and pioneer in addressing the practical needs of underserved communities. She started the first trans homeless shelter in Texas and co-founded the first federally funded housing-first homeless program, pioneered affordable health care for trans people in the Houston area, won the right for trans people to change their gender on Texas ID prior to surgery, started numerous trans social service programs and founded the Transgender Center as well as the Transgender Archives. She has published short stories, academic chapters and papers, and numerous articles for both print and digital magazines. She received numerous awards for her advocacy and has presented at universities throughout the nation, served on several governmental committees and CBO boards, is the Editor of the TransAdvocate, and is a founding board member of the Transgender Foundation of America and the Bee Busy Wellness Center.