This is a recording of a talk by TJ Billard followed by a Q&A session hosted by the Staff Pride Network on campus in 2023. It is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution license.

Topic: Cisinformed: Disinformation and the Media War on Transgender Rights

Misinformation is the defining feature of public discourse on transgender people and their rights in the United States and the United Kingdom today and the foremost obstacle to advancing the cause of gender equality. Drawing on a range of frameworks from the fields of sociology, political science, and media studies, this talk explores the content, contexts, and consequences of media misinformation about transgender issues and identities in both countries, explaining the individual and societal roots of misinformation belief. Moreover, it addresses disinformation’s role in anti-transgender movements’ political strategies, why these strategies work, and what can be done to curb disinformation’s influence on policy and public opinion.

Speaker: TJ Billard is an Assistant Professor in the School of Communication at Northwestern University and Executive Director of the Center for Applied Transgender Studies in Chicago, USA. They are the author of Voices for Transgender Equality: Making Change in the Networked Public Sphere (Oxford University Press, 2024) and editor-in-chief of the Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies.

Contacts:
https://x.com/thomasjbillard
billard@northwestern.edu

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