A Sense of Doubt blog post #4113 - The FCC Wants to Rate LBGTQ as Obscene!
Just this today.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/158807062
The FCC Wants to Rate LGBTQ as Obscene
This is going to be shocking to anyone born in the past decade, but back in the 2010s, one of the rightwing’s favorite things to complain about was “trigger warnings”--simple statements at the top of a piece of media that warns people about upsetting topics within that might cause psychological harm to those with problems like post-traumatic stress disorder. As I pointed out in 2015, many of the same people who were furious about trigger warnings were equally furious at anyone who failed to use “spoiler warnings” before discussing the plot of popular television shows.
The right doesn’t discuss trigger warnings anymore, because ten years later, they’ve essentially won: they no longer need to try to police blog posts written by those who care about victims of violence and other disadvantaged people, because now they are happily, legally perpetrating violence upon disadvantaged people. Who cares if a YouTuber warns her audience that she’s going to discuss rape, when actual rapists are serving on the Supreme Court, running the Department of Defense (sorry, I mean “War”), and tottering around the Oval Office like an overgrown toddler? Trigger warning/spoiler alert: the worst fucking people on the planet won. For now.
The rightwing chuds have won so completely that not only do they no longer bother complaining about private individuals using trigger warnings, but they have moved on to demanding the federal government itself institute trigger warnings–not for depictions of graphic violence, but for depictions of trans and nonbinary people just, like, existing. I know. Terrifying.
This issue involves a committee called the TV Oversight Management Board, or TVOMB. Back in 1996, Congress decided that they needed to set up some regulations to try to control and censor “obscenity” on the newly emerging internet, as well as help parents protect kids from indecent things on network television. They made a deal with the major broadcasters, promising to not actually pass any regulations against them if they would form their own board to voluntarily label tv shows and movies with, well, trigger warnings: a rating that recommends content for all children, children over the age of 7, suitable for all ages, inappropriate for younger children, inappropriate for kids under 14, or mature audiences only. That rating is then further described with a sub-rating that indicates that the content contains “suggestive dialogue,” adult language, sexual situations, or violence/fantasy violence.
That system has been in place for the past three decades with no change or complaint. Parents who worry about what TV shows and movies their kids are watching have a quick and easy way to see what might be appropriate and the rest of us don’t give a shit and unlike rightwing pussies of the 2010s, we don’t complain about being forced to see a little warning before It’s Always Sunny comes on.
But Trump’s FCC has decided that this system is no longer working for them. Last month, they released a public notice announcing that they would like to force the TVOMB to change their ratings. Why?
“Recently, parents have raised concerns that controversial gender identity issues are being included or promoted in children’s programs without providing any disclosure or transparency to parents. Specifically, the industry guidelines that parents rely on are rating shows with transgender and gender non-binary programming as appropriate for children and young children, and doing so without providing this information to parents, thereby undermining the ability of parents to make informed choices for their families.”
That’s right: parents somewhere are scared of their children simply seeing TV shows with transgender and nonbinary people or characters, and so now the federal government is stepping in to protect them by forcing the industry to adopt trigger warnings.
Now, you may wonder, what’s the big deal? Didn’t I just finish saying that trigger warnings and content warnings are fine and people can just choose to ignore them? Yes, when they are being put on content by private companies and individuals who want to put them there. I have absolutely no problem with Fox News adding a warning on an interview with Caitlin Jenner so their braindead viewers can steel themselves before they are forced to gaze upon an actual transgender woman, even if she is “one of the good ones” who can maybe have a private cell in the concentration camp when next they come for her.
But this is the federal government pressuring those private companies for the first time in their existence to specifically label a PERSON EXISTING as being equally offensive as graphic violence. And as you already know by now, even if you don’t care about transgender and nonbinary people, it’s not going to stop there. They’ll move on to the other things extreme rightwing fascists find offensive, like gay people, immigrants, people who aren’t White, and women with opinions. NCs, for those who have read Bitch Planet. By the way, you can read the first issue of Bitch Planet for free on Image Comics’ website but first you have to see a warning that it contains “mature content” and say you’re 18 or over, or else you have to “go back to Bitch Planet.” I thought that was funny. Anyway.
The other issue with the federal government categorizing a human being as “obscene” is a little thing known as the V-chip. The same Congressional bill that led to the creation of the TVOMB also demanded that all televisions produced after January of the year 2000 have a chip installed that allows the user of the TV to block content based upon its rating system, with the primary intended use to be for parents to automatically filter out content rated as more mature than they’d like their kids to see.
So far, so not a big deal: broadcasters have a board that applies ratings to shows, and consumers can choose whether or not they want to filter out certain ratings.
But what Trump’s FCC is now doing is putting the government’s finger on the scale, which means that in the near future, people who do use V-chip may unwittingly prevent their kids from seeing shows and movies that happen to have transgender or nonbinary characters, and in the slightly more distant future, gay or otherwise diverse characters.
Right now, surveys suggest that most parents don’t use the V-chip, possibly because they don’t even know it exists, but the FCC notice indicates a desire to change that: “Is the general public aware of the ratings system and how to provide feedback to the TVOMB? Is the general public aware that the V-chip can be used with the ratings system to block unwanted video programming from reaching children? Do descriptions of the content provide a sufficient basis for parents to make informed decisions concerning viewing decisions for their family, including when gender identity themes are discussed or displayed?”
It’s yet another way that Republicans are attempting to erase LGBTQ people from public life–to declare them obscene, and to drive them back underground.
If you’re watching this video when it comes out, you can do something small to help. GLAAD is asking concerned Americans to submit comments to the FCC expressing their disapproval, and that form is open until May 22nd of 2026. Will they listen? Who knows, but it takes only a minute and will probably annoy them, so I suppose it’s worth doing. Just note that the FCC does retain the right to make the information you include in that form public, so please be cautious with what information you share. That’s something I would say regardless of who is in charge of the FCC, but with vicious transphobic fascist bigots in charge, it’s doubly important to take precautions. Stay safe, and be sure to keep fighting for our marginalized friends and family.
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