Via: Transgriot and en|Gender
A GLAAD Action Alert: June 2, 2009 — In a lengthy May 28 tirade on the Rob, Arnie & Dawn in the Morning radio show heard in Sacramento, California on KRXQ 98.5 FM and Reno, Nevada on KDOT 104.5 FM, hosts Rob Williams and Arnie States verbally attacked transgender children. While discussing a recent story about a transgender child in Omaha, Nebraska and her parents’ decision to support her transition, the two hosts spent more than 30 minutes explicitly promoting child abuse of and making cruel, dehumanizing and defamatory comments toward transgender children.
You can listen to the entire segment beginning at 4:48 by clicking this link.
Among the comments made by the hosts:
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.
To her credit, co-host Dawn Rossi stood up to Williams and States during the segment. Despite her apparent lack of familiarity with transgender issues, Rossi repeatedly defended transgender people and made an on-air apology for her colleagues’ defamatory remarks.
TAKE ACTION NOW!
Please contact KRXQ management in Sacramento, California, where the show is produced and demand that radio show hosts Rob Williams and Arnie States publicly apologize. Call on KRXQ to hold Williams and States accountable for their remarks and establish clear standards to ensure their media platform will not be used to condone or promote violence against any parts of the communities they serve.
John Geary
Vice President & General Manager
KRXQ-FM
(916) 339-4209
jgeary@entercom.com
Arnie States
On Air Personality
KRXQ-FM
(916) 334-7777
rad@robarnieanddawn.com
Rob Williams
On Air Personality
KRXQ-FM
(916) 334-7777
rwilliams@entercom.com
My letter:
To whom it may concern,
The comments heard recently on the Rob, Arnie and Dawn Show targetting the young transgender child in Nebraska were truly horrific.
Rob and Arnie are clearly completely ignorant about the realities of transgender people, and to target a child this way is appalling.
In addition, the comments that they would unabashadly emotionally and physically abuse their own children (boys, notably) (said here: "I’m going to look at him and go, ‘You know what? You’re a little idiot! You little dumbass!"; and, "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.") made me physically ill. There is never an excuse for child abuse, and especially not for a well documented phenonemon such as this. Just like being gay, being transgender is something that just happens in some people as they come into being in the womb. There is nothing wrong with them, that's just the way they are. To not only fail to accept that reality but to ridicule and abuse, and advocate ridicule and abuse of CHILDREN, because of their state of being is simply shocking, and contributes to a society wherein transgender people are murdered in high numbers every year.
Your station has lost a customer.
-Good luck in your endeavours,
Lauren Smith
P.S. I do want to commend Dawn for her guts in standing up to her domineering co-workers and speaking to the humanity of transgender people. Thanks to her I didn't suffer a temporary loss of hope in humanity.
