The Federal Communications Commission, the agency responsible for overseeing ratings on television and movies, is seeking comment on whether to place warning labels on media showing "the discussion or promotion of gender identity themes". If accepted, media containing such themes would have to be rated more highly, similar to media containing, sex, violence, or the discussion of these things.
This would hide the very existence of trans people from younger audiences. It would define cisness as the only way a person can be shown, leading to worse treatment towards real people.
According to LGBT Tech, a group that works with experts, the community, and policymakers in the adoption of new technologies, this proposal “singles out LGBTQ+ representation as inherently suspect, and invites a new form of government-backed censorship around who deserves to be visible in mainstream media. This kind of ideological suppression risks reviving a long and damaging tradition of treating LGBTQ+ existence as something inappropriate for ordinary public life.”
The public comment period on this devastating proposal to censor trans people out of media ends in two days. If you want to make your voice heard and oppose this, you have to submit a public comment by the end of Friday, May 22nd.
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This proposal is being floated by the head of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, as part of a broader push against trans presence in public life.
This is in line with broader right-wing plans concerning trans people. In Project 2025, the initial blueprint for the second Trump Administration’s policy agenda, the authors define “transgender ideology” as a form of pornography in the same paragraph that they call for pornography to be banned.
According to Lilliana Young, a former candidate for the Indiana State House of Representatives, this kind of maneuvering is common to conservative politics.
"Conservatives have long since tried to use every cultural and legal mechanism possible to keep queer people out of sight. We're the dirty little secret that's good enough to be in your search history and hookup apps, but not good enough to be part of your families and communities."
Tellingly, the FCC oversees the boards which define what forms of expression are considered pornography.
This is notable, as Carr is a Trump appointee and loyalist.
Unlike petitions to federal agencies, this proposal is being pushed by the head of the agency itself. As a result, Carr almost certainly believes that this proposal should be enacted, and will do so if there is not sufficient pushback against his proposal.
This is where the public could come in. Anyone reading this within the United States can write in to oppose this discriminatory plan.
For those who feel that such comments may not matter, Emma Matthies of the Trans Resilience Project made the stakes and potential impact very clear:
"The small action matters more than people expect. The records being built right now, through public comments and testimony and letters that often go unanswered, are what agencies and legislatures cite the next time they act on trans lives. Five minutes of original writing in your own words weighs more than a thousand-word form letter. Every protection that exists today started as a record filed by someone who didn't know it would matter. You don't have to fix all of this alone. You are not alone. We all show up where we can. What is a record but a multitude of voices? Yours is one of them."
The Trans Resilience Project and GLAAD have guides on how to submit your opposition. If you are not sure what to write, you can read them first.
When ready, you or anyone interested in leaving a comment would go to the FCC’s website and write. The whole process only takes a few minutes, and all comments must be entered into the public record.
Click below for the direct page to add a comment.
Editor's Note: This article was updated shortly after it was first published to add additional quotes from Emma Matthies of Trans Resilience Project and Lilliana Young, a former candidate for state legislature in Indiana. These quotes were added to better explain the stakes of the story.
To stay up to date on proposals affecting trans people, you can follow the Trans Resilience Project, which flags issues which the public can comment on.
