Well now, in light of Donald Trump signing an executive order to ban biological males from participating in women’s sports, the press of course needs to be on the defensive. Or is it going on the offensive regarding this response? I am unclear, given my lack of passion for overt social activism, but whichever the case the unbiased, non-partisan, completely neutral network is here to slam Trump’s action.

It does so in a completely sane fashion – by insisting that conservatives have been targeting and attacking the trans community since The Reconstruction. If this political position is news to you, along with the reality that there was a trans community in the mid/late 1800s, well CNN is here to educate you rubes.

The entire thrust of this lesson is centered on Frances Thompson, a black resident of Memphis who had been attacked during The Memphis Race Massacre when a collection of white men stormed the house and demanded to be fed and then sexually attacked those inside. Thompson gave testimony a month later during the Congressional inquiry into that mob riot, as well as another that took place in New Orleans that same summer.

CNN credits Thompson with helping get the 14th Amendment passed, which among other details pronounced that blacks born in the country are citizens and worthy of due process. 

Thompson’s testimony in 1866 came at a critical time, as the nation weighed whether to expand equal constitutional protections to newly freed Black Americans. But it also came at a great personal cost – a decade after her landmark testimony, Thompson was cruelly outed, arrested for cross-dressing and forced to work in an all-male chain gang.

Where things delve into the TDS aspect of things is that we get told that Thompson absorbed this intolerance at the hands of conservatives. The how and the specifics are rather foggy on this inference – largely because those specifics are not exactly displayed for readers. It is more a case of insistence and take-our-word-for-it journalism.

What we get told is that years after giving that testimony, and after the passage of the 14th, Thompson was again targeted by the insensitive gentry. About a decade had passed when rumors flew that Thompson violated local laws by cross-dressing and that the involvement of the authorities had been spearheaded by right-wing entities.

She was arrested and conservative newspapers – which had been instrumental in sowing discord before the massacres – reported that Thompson had been subjected to a medical exam and was “pronounced a member of the male sex.”

If you are expecting specifics or examples of how these unnamed conservative newspapers prodded this action to take place, sorry – none are forthcoming. Also lacking are any pieces of evidence that liberal or Democratic-leaning figures were lending support for Thompson; it is all framed as if today’s social matrix was in place back then. But we have to take CNN at its word here…even as other details from that era get sidestepped in order to keep the narrative tidy.

For instance, the riots were seen as a violent reaction to the passage of the first civil rights laws in the nation, which later served as the basis of the language of the 14th Amendment. There is only a brief mention that President Johnson vetoed that civil rights law, but he is not acknowledged as a Democrat, nor is there mention that the Congress overriding his veto was primarily Lincoln’s Republican-led body.

Thus, while avoiding those inconvenient party details, we get told that today, “the country appears to be echoing the same backlash that occurred after Black Americans made modest gains towards equality following Reconstruction.” And there lies the subterfuge. They want to hold up the opposition then (by Democrats) to The Reconstruction (favored by Republicans) to establish that conservatives have always felt this way in “attacking” the trans community – a wholly separate issue in that era.

Historians and advocates tell CNN they draw parallels between all that Thompson experienced as a Black trans woman and today’s anti-transgender political climate after President Donald Trump signed numerous executive orders targeting trans American minors’ right to access medical treatment and participate in school sports teams aligned with their gender identities.

We are frequently told of how the trans community is imperiled and faces threats and violence on a regular basis. This claim does not exactly hold up well when you need to cite an example of this from over a century and a half ago.