On Wednesday, PolitiFact beclowned itself as it claimed it is “mostly-false” for Republicans to say Vice President Kamala Harris was appointed “border czar.” However, that was not all. Also on Wednesday, PolitiFact tried to attack the party for condemning Democrats for not knowing what a woman is and other “LGBTQ+ talking points” from the Republican National Convention.
The first claim that LGBTQ issues writer Grace Abels tried to discredit was Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s claim that “[Democrats] promised normalcy and gave us Transgender Visibility Day on Easter Sunday."
Abels labeled that “misleading” because it was just a coincidence that the two happened to fall on the same day, but that does not explain why President Joe Biden felt the need to issue a proclamation acknowledging it.
Further down, under a “LGBTQ+ ‘ideology’ in schools” subheading, Abels cites former Donald Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro, declaring, "They're indoctrinating them with poisonous attitudes on race and gender."
After some more quotations, Abels twisted herself into a logic pretzel, “In 2022, we looked into what research says about gender and sexuality in schools. There is no evidence that increased exposure to LGBTQ+ people or topics makes children more likely to join the LGBTQ+ community, experts in psychology and child development told PolitiFact. Rather, an environment of increased acceptance allows people to more openly consider whether they might be part of the LGBTQ+ community, experts said.”
Even further along, Abels takes on the issue of “Transgender athletes in school sports.” She cites Sen. Steve Daines remarking, “These liberal senators want boys in girls sports. "They want men in your daughter’s and my daughter's locker room."
Abels tried to discredit the idea, “There is no official count, but estimates show the population of transgender athletes participating in school sports is very small. So few that lawmakers supporting restrictions have previously struggled to cite examples of trans athletes competing in school sports.”
Struggled? It was only two months ago that a biological male from Washington won the state’s 2A 400 meter championship. There are several other examples if only Abels would take the time to find them.
Finally, Abels sought to take on the idea that “Democrats can’t ‘define what a woman is.’”
While Republicans ridiculed Democrats for being unable to answer such a simple question, Abels wrote, “Today, medical experts and most major medical organizations agree that sex and gender are different.”
For Abels, being a woman is just a feeling, “Gender identity refers to someone’s internal sense of being a man, woman or nonbinary.”
The word “gender” was always another choice for people who were squeamish about the word “sex,” at least, until political activists decided to rewrite the English language to fit their political agenda.
Speaking of political agendas, Wednesday made it clear that PolitiFact has one. For them, it is a fact to say Harris was not the “border czar,” but not to say that whether one is a man or a woman is objective. This is who PBS teamed up with to save democracy.
