Fox’s Chris Wallace Debunks Anti-LGBT “Bathroom Predator” Myth Pushed By Fox News

Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, citing PolitiFact, debunked the right-wing myth that transgender nondiscrimination protections will lead to sexual predators pretending to identify as transgender in order to misuse “bathrooms to prey on others.” PolitiFact explained that “we haven’t found any instances of criminals convicted of using transgender protections as cover” for criminal acts in the United States. Fox News has repeatedly invoked fears of sexual assault and misbehavior in restrooms to attack equal access to public accommodations for transgender people, including promoting several fake stories about bathroom harassment. From the April 24 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.’s Fox News Sunday:

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CHRIS WALLACE (HOST): I want to go back, though, to this issue of the bathrooms and whether it's a good issue because we actually decided to try to find out whether it is a public safety issue. Whether it is a problem with transgender people misusing bathrooms to prey on others. And here is what the fact checking group PolitiFact found. We, that's that PolitiFact, haven't found any instance of criminals convicted of using transgender protections as cover in the United States. Neither have any left wing groups or right wing groups. Which brings me to Charles Krauthammer's comment which I was quoting to Paul Manafort earlier which is this seems to be a solution in search of a problem. 

JUAN WILLIAMS: I think that's right because, in fact, one of the police chiefs in North Carolina said that he had been in the police force 40 years, he had never dealt with this issue. So he said, you know, as if people are creating a problem in search of a solution. I think what we come back to is a wedge issue here. A wedge issue that in terms of gay rights, gay marriage as you know has been controversial, but that wedge issue, it worked in '04. If you'll recall the Bush campaign got gay marriage on the ballot, helped President Bush gain reelection in '04. This time that issue in terms of the polling just doesn't have the same power, the same strength on the electorate. And when you look at the reality of it, people say, well, gosh, you know, at home I use the same bathroom as my wife, in college they have same-sex bathrooms. This does not seem to be a crying issue, but even in terms of the evangelical community, the power of the true conservatives which is what I think Cruz is trying to do by countering Trump on this issue, it just doesn't seem to carry the weight. Does not seem to have the power, Chris.