KRXQ Sacramento transgender apology moment: Rob and Arnie; their Mea Culpa, and mine…

Rob and Arnie of KRXQ may have been dissembling to save their skins on today’s show, an olive branch held out to the GLBTQ activists who cost the station 11 sponsors and counting, but if they were faking it, the fake was perfect. (More on faking it, and making it, below.)

You can listen to the broadcast here.

I would like to apologize for my own tone in some of my posts; I said I’d put aside my hate when I started this site, and at times, I haven’t.

In the end, we have to accept what people say—and then hold them to their statements. It is impossible know without doubt the content of another’s heart. We trust transgender people when they tell us what it is like to be inside their skin.

In the end, we have to listen to those who have made bigoted, homophobic and transphobic comments as well. If they tell us their statements were borne of ignorance, if they claim to be willing to learn, we have no choice but to hold our skepticism in abeyance long enough to see if having talked the talk, then can now walk the walk.

Many supportive families go through this experience; of faking it until they make it. After some research, intellectually they know that accepting transgender is the best course  of action, but their hearts lag behing their heads, and there is a grieving process for some that can take months or years.

If Rob and Arnie fake it until they make it, they will be no worse than many of us who are now accepting and supportive. If they slip back into old patterns of scapegoating and name calling, then it would seem, that the talk was just that. Talk.

The community of supportive parents and families needs to confer on what the proper response to Rob and Arnie is now. As a white met man who at one time might have snickered at the show, I may not be the best person to decide their fate. And of course, I won’t. I will share my opinion, as I urge all others to share theirs, in the marketplace of ideas.

For the record, it was abolitionist and Unitarian minister Theodore

Parker who first said, The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends

toward justice.1

It was abolitionist and Unitarian minister Theodore Parker who first said:

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

These are the words painted on the mural of my son’s accepting public school.

It’s a statement that helps me sleep at night.

Thanks to everyone who participated in this site.

Filed under: Calls to Action

The KRXQ mea culpa / we want our sponsors back Thursday Line-Up: Kim Pearson of TYFA, Autumn Sandeen of Pam’s House Blend

From Pam’s House Blend:

On Thursday (June 11 at 7:30 AM PST), Trans Youth Family Allies Executive Director Kim Pearson and Blend barista Autumn Sandeen, who was leading the charge on this story (along with HuffPost’s blogger Michael Rowe), are going on air, at the invitation of the station,  to discuss the issue. GLAAD has been on top of this and helped facilitate (with your help via calls to advertisers and the station) this development. (GLAADBlog):

KRXQ has assured us that the June 11th follow-up show will be conducted in a “frank and positive manner.” It was explicitly stated to us that we will hear an apology from the radio hosts and listeners will be able to call in. As always, we remind everyone to be respectful and civil when calling into the show.GLAAD has additionally suggested a transgender media training with our community partners. KRXQ was receptive to the suggestion and we will further discuss this following Thursday’s radio broadcast.

Media have been continuing to follow the story, garnering national coverage. Local media outlets in Sacramento have been especially helpful in covering this story – including The Sacramento Press,FOX40 and The Sacramento Bee. Community blogs have also been extremely effective in sharing updates on this issue and mobilizing readers to take action.

I spoke with Autumn today while she was on the road. She noted that this quick response by KRXQ to the situation is due to the power of the Internet – this was a story not covered by our orgs, most LGBT blogs or major media until activism caught fire — and yet advertisers were still contacted by enough of you to make this station buckle. Rob Williams and Arnie States might have thought they were having a grand old time on the air, but they realized you all meant business once their paychecks were on the line.

Filed under: Calls to Action , KRXQ Thursday show "Mea culpa" "lost sponsors"

The KRXQ Nice Sponsors List: companies taking a stand against violence against children

The following companies have pulled their support from KRXQ, not wanting to be associated with two men who laugh about children being abused. These companies listened to the show, and decided it was indefensible.

Please send a hearty thank-you to these companies:

AT&T: mcoe@attnews.us

Bank of America: scott.silvestri@bankofamerica.com

Carl’s Jr (CKE Restaurants): Guest Response Line: (877) 799-7827

Chipotle:mediarelations@chipotle.com

Guitar Center: http://www.guitarcenter.com/GC—Contact-Us-Landing-g10075t0.gc

McDonald’s: walt.riker@us.mcd.com

Nissan North America: 800-647-7261

Sleep Train: dale@sleeptrain.com

Snapple: Jenni.Ottum@jda.com

Sonic: chris_taylor@sonic.com

Verizon: robert.a.varettoni@verizon.com

Wells Fargo: corpcsf@wellsfargo.com

Filed under: Calls to Action

KRXQ Sacramento Remaining Sponsors List: The Not-Yet-Nice list

Originally titled “the Naughtly List,” this list has bee changed to the “not  yet nice” list. Though we suspect we’ll have an apology before we get every sponsor to see reason.

If people could leave comments here on this post we will move sponsors from this list to the nice list as they retract their support. If people were to post any changes of status as comments on this post, we’ll roll the changes into the lists, saving everyone lots of time and effort.

For every sponsor on the not-yet-nice list, please remember to thank a sponsor from the nice list.

KRXQ Remaining Sponsors List (not yet nice)

The short URL For this page is: http://alturl.com/uomj

Feel free to cut and paste the URL above anywhere you want; it will stay fresher than any other list you might cut and paste around.

JARED JEWELERS (of Sterling Jewelers Inc., of Signet Jewelers)
David Bouffard, Consumer and trade media 1 330 668 5369
dbouffard@jewels.com

PURINA
Keith Schopp, Public Relations 314-982-2577
kschopp@purina.com

Patrick Dugan, McNeil Wilson Communications (808) 539-3411
pdugan@mcneilwilson.com

FLEX YOUR POWER
info@fypower.org

PEP BOYS
Alexandra Spooner, Communications Manager
mediarelations@pepboys.comRay Arthur, Chief Financial Officer
investorrelations@pepboys.com
GRIFFIN & REED EYECARE:
nfo@LASIKworld.comi

PRO CITY MORTGAGE:
procity@procitymortgage.com

Here are some sample letters to advertisers that you can personalize:

Institution sample:

Please pull your advertising from KRXQ Radio in Sacramento.

I listened to KRXQ Radio’s segment about trans-gender boys.  I can’t imagine anything more cowardly than two grown men advocating violence against children.

Obviously the disk jockeys have the right to their opinions, and the right to voice them.  But framing Rob and Arnie’s rant as a First Amendment issue is disingenuous.  As a station they are responsible for the ignorance and hatred they promote.  People–children–get killed over these issues.  There’s more to free speech than the right to mouth off, and more to life than ratings.

Intentionally or otherwise, your continuing advertisements on KRXQ Radio indicate your support of Rob and Arnie’s positions.  I find this totally inconsistent with your mission as a hospital, and ask you to rethink your sponsorship of KRXQ.

Sincerely,

Armando Wilson

Retailer Sample:

Please pull your advertising from KRXQ Radio in Sacramento.

I listened to KRXQ Radio’s segment about trans-gender boys.  I can’t imagine anything more cowardly than two grown men advocating violence against children.

Obviously the disk jockeys have the right to their opinions, and the right to voice them.  But framing Rob and Arnie’s rant as a First Amendment issue is disingenuous.  As a station they are responsible for the ignorance and hatred they promote.  People–children–get killed over these issues.  There’s more to free speech than the right to mouth off, and more to life than ratings.

Intentionally or otherwise, your continuing advertisements on KRXQ Radio indicate your support of Rob and Arnie’s positions.  I will purchase none of your products until such time as you pull your advertising, or the radio station makes a public apology for their comments.

Which is really too bad, as Dr. Pepper has always been my favorite soda.

Sincerely,

Armando Wilson

Filed under: Calls to Action

Listen to the KRXQ Sacramento Radio show which advocates child abuse, then contact a sponsor and tell them you don’t

So the KRXQ and Rob and Arnie while bravely refusing to apologize for offending the two thirds of the country not waiting for the rapture, have removed both the sponsor list and the offending broadcast from their site.

The net being what it is, the MP3 cat is out of the bag, and the audio is everywhere, including here.

Listen to as much of as you need to; I had to listen to most of it before deciding that these guys weren’t just being ignorant, they were being both willfully stupid and, though it pains this agnostic relativist to say the word, evil. They were being evil. They now act like they don’t even know it. So maybe some instruction is needed.

The transcripts don’t capture the glee with which these men describe a child being hurt by parents, peers, and a huge cruel world, of which they are a happy and active part.

As the members of the Free Republic web site said, when they posted my personal address and phone information to their site after I protested Bush’s appointment in 2000—you know what to do.

Listen to Audio of the KRXQ Broadcast advocating for beating gender non-conforming children by clicking player below:

Filed under: Calls to Action , "KRXQ MP3" KRXQ transgender kid controversy trans kid abuse

How to File an FCC complaint against KRXQ Sacramento

The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) has a wizard to walk consumers through filing a FCC complaint. A wizard is a step by step form which asks you questions to help you do the paperwork.) You will need all the Ws–who, what, where, when. This information is available I believe in the Michael Rowe Huffington Post article. Here is the excerpt from the Rowe piece:

Even by the flexible moral, ethical, and professional standards of American talk radio, the May 28th segment of KRXQ 98.5 FM Sacramento’s Rob, Arnie, & Dawn in the Morning radio talk show makes for a sickening half-hour of ugliness and cruelty.

The show airs Monday to Friday from 5:00 AM to 10:00 AM in Sacramento, California.

The wizard seems to walk you through to this form 2000. For details of the complaint, you should use  this transcript from GLAAD.

ROB WILLIAMS [11:12]: This is a weird person who is demanding attention. And when it’s a child, all it takes is a hug, maybe some tough love or anything in between. When your little boy said, ‘Mommy, I want to walk around in a dress.’ You tell them no cause that’s not what boys do. But that’s not what we’re doing in this culture.

ARNIE STATES [13:27]: If my son, God forbid, if my son put on a pair of high heels, I would probably hit him with one of my shoes. I would throw a shoe at him. Because you know what? Boys don’t wear high heels. And in my house, they definitely don’t wear high heels.

ROB WILLIAMS [17:45]: Dawn, they are freaks. They are abnormal. Not because they’re girls trapped in boys bodies but because they have a mental disorder that needs to be somehow gotten out of them. That’s where therapy could help them.

ROB WILLIAMS [18:15]: Or because they were molested. You know a lot of times these transgenders were molested. And you need to work with them on that. The point is you don’t allow the behavior. You cure the cause!

ARNIE STATES [21:30]: You got a boy saying, ‘I wanna wear dresses.’ I’m going to look at him and go, ‘You know what? You’re a little idiot! You little dumbass! Look, you are a boy! Boys don’t wear dresses.’

ARNIE STATES [29:22]: You know, my favorite part about hearing these stories about the kids in high school, who the entire high school caters around, lets the boy wear the dress. I look forward to when they go out into society and society beats them down. And they end up in therapy.

Filed under: Calls to Action

Families of Gender Non-Conforming Children Ask For Your Help

Many newspapers have reported on the recent program on KRXQ in Sacremento which concerned transgender and gender-non-conforming children. An excerpt from the Huffington Post article by Michael Rowe summarizes the statements of the radio disk jockeys, Rob Williams and Arnie State.

Even by the flexible moral, ethical, and professional standards of American talk radio, the May 28th segment of KRXQ 98.5 FM Sacramento’s Rob, Arnie, & Dawn in the Morning radio talk show makes for a sickening half-hour of ugliness and cruelty. For once, the focus was not LGBT adults, but minors. The hosts, Rob Williams and Arnie States, devoted the segment in question to a vicious diatribe against transgender children, some as young as five, focusing in particular on the case of one Omaha family raising a gender dysphoric child, and their decision to support her transition from male to female.

Williams and States took turns referring to gender dysphoric children as “idiots” and “freaks,” who were just out “for attention” and had “a mental disorder that just needs to somehow be gotten out of them,” either by verbal abuse on the part of the parents, or even shock therapy.

“Allowing transgenders to exist, pretty soon it becomes normal to fall in love with the animals,” they said.

As parents with gender non-conforming and transgender kids, we have come a long way in our understanding of this issue. Supportive parents come from all walks of life, all parts of the country, all religious traditions, all social classes. Some of us identify as conservatives, some liberal; some are hetero / gender normative themselves, some are not. Our kids come from traditional families and non-traditional families. Our kids most often (but not always) have gender normative siblings (or are only children).

Only we really know who these kids are, and who they have to be. We brought them into the world. Now we’re trying to make the world a safer place for them. None of the choices we make in raising our kids are made lightly. We know the dangers our kids face. But we also know the world is changing. And we have to be a part of that change.

“I have every right to call you a freak and judge you on that.” One of these men said. We ask that before anyone’s judgement is final, they listen to us, to the families, to the children, to the experts. Autistic kids were once thought of as freaks. As were Disabled kids. Cleft lip kids. Mixed race kids. Hyperactive kids. These kids are understood and appreciated. Someday soon, so will our kids.

Read our stories before you share any opinion based on incomplete knowledge, or on your own parenting experiences with gender normative children. These kids are different. They’re not freaks or idiots. They can change hearts and minds. They are brave, and strong, but  they cannot survive without support and understanding. They lead lives worth living, worth defending.

We love our kids. We will not let them be humiliated, denigrated, harassed or bullied without a fight.

If you’re with us, do something. Contact a sponsor on the naughty list or the nice list. Praise the nice; spank the naughty. Contact the FCC or KRXQ. Support TYFA. You can help save a kid’s life.

Filed under: Calls to Action , “Gender variant” “gender non-conforming boys” “transgender children” “transgender” “KRXQ” “Sacremento” “Hate Speech”