Gender Panic: How the Mainstream News Media Legitimizes Anti-Transgender Political Rhetoric

This essay won or received an honorable mention for The Boothe Prize for excellence in first-year writing. The Boothe Prize recognizes and rewards outstanding expository and argumentative writing by undergraduate students in first-year classes that satisfy the WR 1 requirement. In each award-winning essay, student writers demonstrate clarity of argument, excellent integration of research-based evidence, and compelling prose style.
This essay offers a critical analysis of the recent boom in media coverage of transgender identity. Miriam argues that the public has been poorly served by media coverage as journalists and media institutions have not only covered, but also “reaffirmed” a rising “transgender panic.” Using the concept of “moral panics” as a critical lens, the author identifies the crucial roles of “over-reporting” and frames mainstream news organizations as a “passive vehicle” for the claims of “moral entrepreneurs” seeking to create fear.