Garrison Davis

Earlier this week, I released an episode and an accompanying article online on what I've dubbed the trans panic clickbait economy.

My reporting goes through a series of misleading vital claims about the attacks on trans people from the Trump administration and red states that have been recently flooding the zone and overwhelming the census with an endless stream of forecasted doom.

These viral claims are usually based on some irresponsible reporting designed to drive internet engagement rather than inform about the very real dangers trans people are facing.

This kind of clickbait treats every horrific potentiality as an inevitable eventuality, undermining our capacity to accurately assess risk and effectively dedicate resources to oppose pressing threats.

One of the key outlets profiting from the panic clickbait economy right now has been Pink News, an LGBTQ news outlet which we learned last month is pivoting to a quote-unquote reporter-free newsroom.

Incredible.

One of the most Aurelian things I've ever heard.

Holy fuck.

Just on a base level of just, oh my, reporter-free newsroom.

Because of this change, one of the journalists there have already quit, with four others possibly being laid off shortly.

The sort of editorial department of Pink News is now being taken over by their social media content creation wing and some of the editorial staff, which are repackaging press releases and stealing the work of other journalists, including some other journalists who may be engaging in this sort of misleading reporting, attempting to drive their own engagement.

Then Pink News is using that framing to drive their own engagement.

That's why this sort of panic economy is a whole economy.

It feeds on itself.

Now, on March 30th, Pink News published an article that went viral online that claimed Kentucky was, quote, to pass a bill that would declare trans people mentally ill, unquote, as well as prohibiting trans people from teaching in schools.

But a report from an actual Kentucky-based journalist named Olivia Croth

for the outlet Queer Kentucky, clarified that no such bill was going to pass.

The push for a bill declaring trans people as mentally ill was by a single Republican state senator named Gex Williams.

Jesus Christ.

So yeah, pause there.