We’ve had the same sex marriage debate, by and large, the gay rights and not mentioning racial issues. But the transgender debate appears to be the next to be debated over the legal and other rights of transgender citizens.
Piers Morgan’s interview with trans gender rights proponent Janet Mock has received widespread comment and lead to a return of the advocate to his show “Piers Morgan Live” on Wednesday where she defended tweets about the show “sensationalizing” her story.
Morgan had transphobia, some said. Like same sex marriage issues recently the issue of transgender rights has become more center-stage
Recently a Maine court ruled that school officials violated state anti-discrimination law when they prevented a transgender fifth-grader from using the girls’ bathroom, in a ruling believed to be a first of its kind.
The family of student Nicole Maines and the Maine Human Rights Commission sued in 2009 after school officials required her to use a staff restroom.
“This is a momentous decision that marks a huge breakthrough for transgender young people,” said Jennifer Levi, director of the Boston-based Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders’ Transgender Rights Project (Glad) after the Maine supreme judicial court’s ruling last week.
The court concluded that the Orono school district’s actions violated the Maine Human Rights Act, which bans discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, overturning a lower court’s ruling that the district acted within its discretion.
At the start of the contentious segment with Piers Morgan the host said that he invited Mock for her to explain why he’d had “an infuriating 24 hours” since the Tuesday interview ran.
Then, in joining Morgan, the “HuffPost Live” host provided his assessment of where he felt the host had slipped up during his first go-round with Mock:
“I wish Janet in the interview had questioned you and challenged you on your use of language around boy and manhood. I think you were wrong to do it. I think she should have challenged you on it,” he said, before attempting to explain why Mock might have waited nearly a week after the exchange initially taped before raising her concerns via social media. “I understand her point of being scared. A national interview on a major show on a major network. I could see how she was intimidated and upon watching it later had a different response.”
Meanwhile, Ben Ferguson took an entirely different and significantly more skeptical approach (who found little support from the rest of the panel), in evaluating Mock’s motives:
“This boils down to a simple issue. This is fake outrage by a woman who needs to sell books, who didn’t have the guts to say anything to Piers because there was not a bad interview,” said the conservative radio host. “You were incredibly gracious, Piers. And I don’t give you a lot of credit. On this one, I’ll give you full credit.”
