Fox News has dominated cable news coverage of the four executive orders President Donald Trump signed targeting transgender rights and people, devoting nearly as much airtime to the actions as CNN and MSNBC combined, according to a new study by liberal media watchdog Media Matters for America.
During Trump’s first 31 days in office, the study found that Fox News spent four hours and eight minutes covering the anti-trans executive orders, compared to two hours and nine minutes by CNN and the two hours and 33 minutes MSNBC devoted to the issue.
Much of this disparity is due to Fox News’ hard-right opinion shows, which accounted for 28 percent of all coverage of Trump’s executive orders against trans people. The gap widened when it came to the president’s order banning trans athletes from competing in women’s sports, with the Fox opinion programs providing 35 percent of all cable news coverage.
Additionally, while the cable news channels dedicated roughly nine hours of coverage to the White House’s anti-trans actions, only 14 percent of guest segments covering the topic featured a transgender or non-conforming guest — and Fox News only included a trans individual once.
“These discriminatory policies from the Trump administration affect the lives and livelihoods of people across the United States,” Media Matters LGBTQ Program Director Ari Drennen told The Independent. “And mainstream media networks have an obligation to make sure that their viewers are aware that these are not just theoretical debates.”
Following years of right-wing media and conservative activists sounding the alarm on gender-affirming care for trans minors and trans athletes, Trump kicked off his return to the White House with orders that restricted medical treatments for young trans individuals and threatened to withdraw federal funds to any school allowing trans women to participate in athletics.
Out of the 510,000 athletes competing in collegiate athletics, fewer than 10 publicly identify as transgender, NCAA President Charlie Baker noted in January. Additionally, recent research has shown that transgender women actually “could be at a physical disadvantage compared to their cisgender counterparts.” A Harvard study also found that despite claims that puberty blockers and gender-affirming surgeries are widespread among transgender and gender diverse children, only 0.1 percent of minors with private insurance received such treatment — and no patients under 12 were prescribed hormones.
On top of those orders, called “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation” and “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” Trump also signed EOs directing the Defense Department to discharge trans service members and to make it American policy to bar “trans people from gender-specific facilities that align with their lived gender.” The president has also signed several executive orders seeking to limit or reject diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. However, those actions were not considered for Media Matters’ study.
Across the first 31 days of Trump’s second term, the three major cable news channels spent eight hours and 50 minutes on the president’s anti-trans orders, which comprised 156 segments and 187 teasers.
Besides dominating in the total coverage time it devoted to the topic, Fox News also devoted twice as many segments as its competitors to Trump’s actions, running 85 segments on the orders compared to 39 for CNN and 32 aired by MSNBC.
Media Matters also found that Fox News personalities injected the topic more frequently into segments on different issues than their competition, seemingly in an effort to continually remind the network’s viewers about the administration’s efforts targeting the trans community. Fox News’ teasers on the orders numbered 83, while CNN teased the topic 53 times and MSNBC mentioned the actions 51 times in teasers.
“It seems very likely that Fox News will continue to cover trans athletes for as long as they can. They have a real incentive not to have any kind of real solutions here, because then there wouldn’t be this thing to scare their viewers about,” Drennen said.
Across the entire cable news landscape, the networks’ news programming covered the executive orders more than their opinion shows, with the news programs accounting for five hours and 11 minutes of coverage compared to opinion’s three hours and 39 minutes.
However, Fox News’ opinion programs not only outpaced the right-wing channel’s “straight news” programming, but they also beat out the coverage of other networks. Fox opinion shows devoted two hours and 30 minutes of airtime to the anti-trans orders, accounting for 60 percent of Fox News’ coverage and 28 percent across all three networks.
Furthermore, Trump’s February 5 order targeting trans athletes has garnered the lion’s share of cable news coverage of the president’s actions towards transgender Americans, making up 51 percent of all the networks’ segments. Fox News itself covered this particular order for two hours and 31 minutes through February 19, meaning one-third of all cable news’ coverage on Trump’s executive actions was due to Fox’s emphasis on the “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” order.
The network, meanwhile, has only ramped up its focus on trans athletes in recent weeks, even though much of the rest of the news landscape’s attention has shifted to recession fears due to Trump’s tariffs, growing anger over DOGE dismantling the federal government, and tensions surrounding ceasefire negotiations in the Ukraine war.
Of the 86 segments that featured a guest discussing Trump’s anti-trans actions, only 12 of the segments included an individual who was transgender or gender non-conforming. CNN aired seven segments including a trans guest, while MSNBC had four — two of which featured Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE), the nation’s first openly trans member of Congress. Fox News had just one such segment, which utilized Fox News contributor and trans woman Caitlyn Jenner, who has been a vocal supporter of barring trans athletes from women’s sports.
Ukraine-Russia war live: US says talks in Saudi Arabia ‘getting there’
US and Ukraine hold crunch talks about how to end Putin’s invasion in Saudi Arabia
Trump vows to double tariffs on steel, aluminum from Canada despite markets down
What protections do green card holders have in the U.S.?
Markets tumble after Trump announces new Canada tariffs fueling recession fears: Live
Vance ‘doesn’t see Musk as a threat’ despite his constant White House presence
