Republican Senators Want TV Ratings to Warn Viewers About ‘Disturbing’ LGBTQ Content
Five Republican senators have urged the TV Parental Guidelines Monitoring Board to update its ratings for certain children’s shows to include warnings about what they describe as “disturbing” LGBTQ content, namely “irreversible and harmful experimental treatments for mental disorders like gender dysphoria.”
Sens. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), and Mike Lee (R-Utah) all signed the letter dated May 4, which pushes for the PGMA’s rating system to incorporate warnings for LGBTQ content before lamenting how one Disney executive was recently quoted as saying she supports having “many, many many LGBTQIA+ characters in our stories.”
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“To the detriment of children, gender dysphoria has become sensationalized in the popular media and television with radical activists and entertainment companies,” the letter reads. “This radical and sexual sensation not only harms children, but also destabilizes and damages parental rights.”
The senators do not cite any problematic shows in their letter, but Marshall’s office provided the Kansas City Star with a list of four: Nickelodeon’s Danger Force and The Loud House, and Netflix’s She-Ra and the Princesses of Power and Dead End: Paranormal Park.
The letter includes multiple mentions of Disney, which has been under assault from conservatives for speaking out against Florida’s new law that prohibits teachers in kindergarten through third grade from discussing sexual orientation or gender identity. The law also allows parents to sue over alleged violations. “Sexual orientation and gender identity instruction often entails a discussion concerning an individual’s pattern of emotional, romantic, and sexual attraction,” the senators argue. “Parents all over the country have rightfully expressed outrage over its inclusion in the classroom.”
The Kansas City Star notes that Marshall specifically takes issue with a casting notice from Pixar, a subsidiary of Disney, looking for a voice actor for a transgender character, as well as how the company is airing a public service announcement about transgender children from the anti-discrimination group GLAAD. Marshall in a tweet earlier this week described “Disney’s latest campaign to embed left-wing sexual politics in its children’s programming.”
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis retaliated against the entertainment behemoth last month by signing into a law a bill stripping Disney of its ability to self-govern, a move which the company’s district says isn’t legal unless Florida taxpayers first resolve its outstanding debt. Politico reported on Friday that the Republican governor and other GOP officeholders in Florida are still hanging onto hundreds of thousands of dollars they received from the company.
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