The Bathroom Boogeyman

In 2015, Houston, Texas voters defeated a bill that would have expanded civil rights to previously unprotected groups, including transgender people. Using a critical framing analysis, this paper investigates how the city's daily newspaper, the Houston Chronicle, covered the debate over the bill...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournalism practice Vol. 12; no. 7; p. 870
Main Author Graber, Shane M
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Taylor & Francis Ltd 01.09.2018
Subjects
Civil rights
Discourse analysis
Gays & lesbians
Media coverage
Transgender persons
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Summary:In 2015, Houston, Texas voters defeated a bill that would have expanded civil rights to previously unprotected groups, including transgender people. Using a critical framing analysis, this paper investigates how the city's daily newspaper, the Houston Chronicle, covered the debate over the bill. As such, this study found that the newspaper used almost exclusively elite sources, provided almost no in-depth context, and employed four frames-Equality, Bathroom Boogeyman, Bureaucratic Process, and Religious Freedom-in its Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) coverage. Together, these elements aligned to form a daunting challenge to an effort to protect one of society's most vulnerable groups: the transgender community.
ISSN:1751-2786
1751-2794
DOI:10.1080/17512786.2017.1358651