Op-ed: Can Media Please Stop Focusing on Trans People's Bodies?
In interviews with Carmen Carrera and Laverne Cox, Katie Couric displayed a lack of understanding of trans issues that is too common in media.
BY Parker Marie Molloy
January 09 2014 5:00 AM ET
http://www.advocate.com/commentary/2014/01/09/op-ed-can-media-please-stop-focusing-trans-peoples-bodies (http://www.advocate.com/commentary/2014/01/09/op-ed-can-media-please-stop-focusing-trans-peoples-bodies)
Monday's episode of Katie was billed as an opportunity to discuss trans-specific sociopolitical issues, but it quickly took an all-too-familiar detour toward a singular, overplayed topic: genitals.
Katie Couric is a celebrated journalist whose previous accomplishments include time as evening news anchor at CBS and cohosting the Today show on NBC for 15 years, but the world of daytime television has a reputation for sensationalism in pursuit of an audience. Monday's episode rode the line between being objective and exploitative.
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That's when Cox uttered a line so concise and pointed that it was absolutely perfect: "By focusing on bodies, we don't focus on the lived realities of that oppression and that discrimination."
This quote speaks to the heart of so many issues trans people face on a regular basis. So often, we're treated as nothing more than body parts. Our lives are ignored, our accomplishments diminished, and we're left being seen as "the freak" someone can book on a struggling daytime talk show in an effort to boost ratings. (It was announced last month that Couric's show will not return for a third season.)
Unless you are the doctor or a lover of a trans person, the state of their genitals is of no consequence to you. In my everyday life, as a transgender woman, exactly zero people see my genitals. I can't speak to whether cisgender people tend to go through their days showing each other their downstairs business, but in my life, no, that's not part of my day-to-day.