from the department of extremely not okay

[rm]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-rowe/krxq-sacramento-radio-hos_b_210637.html

Because seriously? If you think this is just about children who are trans? It's not. If you think it's just about children who are lesbian, gay or bisexual? It's not.

It's about any child, anywhere, that isn't conforming to the most traditional of gender roles. It's about kids who like to play dress-up and kids that like to write stories and kids that want to try on identities instead of just growing up into exactly who they think they should be to make everyone else happy.

It's about your little heterosexual, cis-gendered, pink-wearing girl who wants to grow up to be a pilot and your son, who is going to be a dancer, who would happily date every girl in ballet class if he could.

It is about our arts and our sciences.

And it is, of course, as ever, about women and how we culturally despise them. Because how much of this diatribe is reserved for FtM kids? Almost none. It's all about boys and dresses, or, at least, so these biggoted child-abuse advocates think.

Trans issues are the issues that seem to get shafted the most often in the battle for LGBTQ rights. They're so marginal people say. They affect so few people.

Nope. Wrong.

They're about everyone. About what they do. About what they like. And about what kids want to be when they grow up.

This shit is severely unacceptable and deeply dangerous.

(ETA: Read comments for ways to contact station, advertisers, etc.)

(ETA2: More contact info and some progress: http://virginia-fell.livejournal.com/267487.html)

Comments

[idunn.livejournal.com]

Linked to Facebook. Sending emails to those advertisers higher up the thread.

[guruwench.livejournal.com]

(Note: icon directed at the idiots in question, not at you or any commenter.)

I read about this and am disgusted by it. I'm in Canada, but there are a couple of sponsors who do business in Canada - I'm thinking a letter to them stating I'll avoid their products if they continue their sponsorship of said station is in order. Likely won't help, but it's worth writing anyway.

This shit is NOT okay!

[fragiletender.livejournal.com]

Ugh, that's so ugly. I would say it was unbelievable but sadly it's not. How did these people get to be so filled with hate and anger that they think calling for the use of violence and humiliation tactics against children is publicly acceptable?

[sociallyawkrd.livejournal.com]

WTF? I am absolutely blown away. Ignoring the fact that these attitudes are intolerable when expressed towards adults I am beyond horrified that they would speak this way about children.

[akaspeedo.livejournal.com]

That makes me so angry I can't even think.

[genmaicha.livejournal.com]

I'm still speechless.

[genmaicha.livejournal.com]

Additionally, three advertisers have now pulled ads. Chipotle, Snapple, and Sonic.

[00goddess.livejournal.com]

This fills me with rage.

[xpenclickerredx.livejournal.com]

With the fuckin town I grew up in, doesn't surprise me. That's just sick.

"Allowing transgenders to exist, pretty soon it becomes normal to fall in love with the animals," ... what makes them think that? Are they saying people not conforming to gender roles aren't human?

FUCK study other cultures, assholes, the gender roles of our culture have nothing to do with human nature.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Are they saying people not conforming to gender roles aren't human?

Sounds like they're saying that anyone who doesn't think like them isn't human.

And that is v. dangerous.

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

No words for how upsetting this is. But thank you for sharing the article.

[idunn.livejournal.com]

Update (http://glaadblog.org/2009/06/04/update-makers-of-the-best-stuff-on-earth-pull-advertising-from-krxq/). Chipotle and Snapple have already pulled advertising from the station. Probably more to come.

[coriander.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, so much what you said! Yes, yes, yes!

I'm not sure I can stomach reading the whole article.

Why do people care so much about Boys in Dresses, too??? Women can wear suits and ties, pretty comfortably. But put a man in a dress? Everyone goes berzerk!

We recently went to a club in the midwest. A gay club. People were stopping by all evening, trying to "figure out" my husband. Even a security guard made a comment about him. All because Scott had his hair in pigtails.

When will people stop criticizing and start LOVING???

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

All because Scott had his hair in pigtails.

Buh?

Sigh. (I think my reading the "Asterix" comic books must've acculturated me to men in pigtails: one of the two leads is overweight and has red hair in pigtails and yet can beat down anyone who dares go toe-to-toe with him. Then again, they did things differently in 50 B.C....)

[capulet-rose.livejournal.com]

Their response:

http://www.robarnieanddawn.com/newsite/audiofiles/tg/06.03.09%2009%20The%20Rob%20&%20Arnie%20Transgender%20Controversy.mp3

Assholes.

Still SO not okay.

[marcmagus]

Is there a transcript of this available?

[lordcamiliano.livejournal.com]

I wonder how much he'd like it if the tables were turned on his bigoted closeted ass

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I would like to have a day where I don't read the news and burst into tears. Crying so much is starting to embarrass the hell out of me.

I also loathe the response that "oh we were just joking, we totally wouldn't tell people to beat kids, we love kids!" that the hosts put forth. It smacks of the same double talk from extremists like Operation Rescue.

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

Oh my goodness. The Weasel is the least girly girl in the whole entire world, and these people think she should be beaten for it.

I am SO GLAD we don't get that show here. For that reason I don't think I can e-mail them to protest, but I want those who are in their broadcast area and who happen to be non-gender-conforming (that's what, 99% of you?) to know I stand with you on this.

[x-eleven.livejournal.com]

I didn't let that stop me from e-mailing. Put it on the 'Net and it ain't local any more.

[sillermoon.livejournal.com]

I am so angry and sad. I live in Sac and missed hearing about this somehow, so thanks for linking it.

(New reader btw, hi!)

After Entercom axed my favorite station 2 weeks ago I'd been listening to KRXQ as a backup. Not any more. I officially have not one radio station to listen to that I enjoy. Back to CDs and mp3s.

I stopped listening to Rob, Arnie and Dawn long ago when they had a segment on called "World's Faggiest Bands." No, I'm not kidding.

[jiawen]

I already called the station manager and left a message, and tried to call the hosts' phone number and got a never-ending ring. But the station seems to be holding to the "freedom of speech, you're oppressing us, nyah nyah" line. I'm thinking that the sponsors are where we need to hit them. According to a poster at Pam's House Blend, this page gives links to their sponsors. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the ads to work in Firefox.

[capulet-rose.livejournal.com]

Lol at the big old Home Depot ad. It's ironic because about three quarters of the trans people I know work there/have worked there in the past.

Sonic Driveins are also pulling their advertising

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

From an email I just received from their PR person:


Sonic was alerted to the May 28th segment only yesterday and immediately began researching the segment, show and Sonic's planned advertising on the station. SONIC in no way condones violence toward children and does not wish to be associated with media content that condones or promotes such activity in any way. We have decided to immediately withdraw advertising from this station and have notified the station of our decision.

Re: Sonic Driveins are also pulling their advertising

[capulet-rose.livejournal.com]

I'll admit it-- I'm doing a little dance. Yay, Sonic for doing the right thing!

[bare-bear.livejournal.com]

Not cool. Not cool at all. I'm so sick of people degrading others who are different from them and laughing it off as jokes and "expressing their opinion". There's no place for that. Or there shouldn't be, anyways.

As a woman, I notice the limitations placed on me. But I never thought of the limitations boys and men have on them, the lack of freedom in how to express themselves. Now it's not really a big deal if I want to walk around in casual mens wear, baggy jeans and hoodies, t-shirts, stuff like that. Guys just can't get away with wearing girly clothing. I never really thought of that before.

[antelope-writes.livejournal.com]

Guys can't get away with wearing girly clothing, or with expression any emotion not directly related to fucking, fighting, or drinking.

The folks who spew this stuff...the answer to any problem to them is dominance. Berate and belittle and bellow to get submission of whoever is against them, and if that doesn't work, beat. The "Ay-rabs" getting in your way? Bomb the hell out of them. Your wife not doing like she "should?" Slap her around, belittle her as a human being.

We tend to call people like this abusive and sociopathic and put them in jail.

And you know, it's all well and good for them to have an opinion, but they'd better be prepared to stand by it when they're called on their shit. As in, you are saying it's a good thing to be a child abuser. You are saying it's a good thing to be so small-minded and simple that the only answer your tiny brain can come up with is violence. Your world is so monochromatic that you are incapable of seeing nuance in a situation, whether it's "the man in front of me dropped a dollar, do I give it to him" or "if I beat my child and tell her she's worthless and an abomination, why would i be surprised if she committed suicide?"

[darkrosetiger.livejournal.com]

Allowing transgenders to exist, pretty soon it becomes normal to fall in love with the animals

Have you noticed that no matter what the topic, the bigots will inevitably bring it around to bestiality? I think they're trying to tell us something about what they really want.

[gement.livejournal.com]

To take a page from Stephen Fry (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc8_lNGJ73M), in addition to all these things, it's about not. beating. five year olds. Freedom of expression is very important, and so is not. beating. five year olds.

[cozzene.livejournal.com]

btw...here's their Twitter page if anyone want to bombard them there, too...

http://twitter.com/krxq98rock

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Technically I was a little cis-gendered heterosexual girl (though not particularly prone to pink) who grew up to be a pilot AND engineer AND athlete. And I am very grateful to my mother for encouraging that. (Dad's more of a gender-role guy but luckily Mom did all the child-rearing.) I value not being stuck in a girly box so much that I can't abide the thought of limiting others inthat way.

I have a very strong hunch that I have known a lot more LGBT people (more specifically, a lot more L, G, B, qnd T) people over my life than I know about specifically because it's so often been dangerous for them to come out.

[sanginmychains.livejournal.com]

I havent' read the article because that sort of thing just seriously pisses me off, in an unproductive way. But I thought I'd share with you the pleasant tidbit that in my little tribe of parents, no boy who shows up wearing nail polish or a dress (and we've had both in the past couple months) gets any more notice than my girl does for showing up in pajamas at all times. It's all just welcomed with smiles, as some of the many things that kids do as they try out their stuff; it receives no value judgment.

The rest of the world, i dunno. I try to avoid the rest of the world.

[virginhuntress.livejournal.com]

Ok. Wow.

I think the part that gets me the most isn't that people aren't even TRYING to understand that children have no reason to lie and that they're just so damned honest about telling people who they are... it's that I'm so tired of crazy right-wingers (the normal ones are fine by me, most of time) saying that people of non-normitive lifestyles are "hurting" America.

Really? I have never once seen a campaign from gay (or transgendered, or bi, or ANYONE of this ilk) say that hurting children is OK.

(NAMBLA aside, b/c they're INSANE and need to be as far away from kids as humanly possible.)

This is truly dangerous. It's this kind of thinking that got Matthew Shepard killed and will keep making it unsafe for children/adults who are just trying to be who they truly ARE.

(I'm sorry if I didn't make any sense, it's before 8AM on a weekend and I haven't yet had my coffee.)