To the Editor,

In a stunning display of ineptitude or malevolence, the Cranston Herald (CH) (TRANSITION? Should Cranston public schools alter supportive transgender policy? 7.25.24) juxtaposes some of the finest residents of Cranston with a bigoted, anti-trans carpetbagger who is a well-known Moms for Liberty apparatchik.

In a reprise of the “good people on both sides” trope, the CH takes an excellent opportunity to stand with the families and vulnerable trans students of Cranston against the hateful invective and confabulates some moral equivalence between the two positions.  Further, CH chooses to amplify his spurious and malicious language.

I was at the meeting in Cranston, as I have been at almost every other school committee meeting he attends.  I have rigorously fact-checked his contentions, from the clown-show medical society he quotes (and which I joined, BTW, as part of my fact checking) to his fictional tale about a trans personal involved in a sexual assault in a high school in VA.  It is a horrible story, perpetrated by a boy who is apparently a serial predator. But not trans. It was in a school bathroom, where the pair had agreed to meet, as they had several times previously.  I simply read the public grand jury transcript.

Apparently, CH now eschews facts for more profitable, I assume, shameless fearmongering.  This specific argument, that white men need to rally to protect the innocence of women, has a very long and tragic history. Rather than condemn this specious trope, CH chooses to elevate it.

It is very clear that the Cranston Herald has a new publisher.  Squandering long-standing social capital for short-term profits, substituting sensationalism for civil discourse, is currently in favor as a business model.  But it is not one that serves any community and certainly not Cranston.

Sean Hagberg, PhD
Cranston