Nyla Rose says a lot of the hostility surrounding transgender people starts before some people ever actually meet someone who is trans — because their first exposure may already be loaded with misinformation.
While speaking to Denise Salcedo, Rose was discussing how people can become products of their environment, especially when they have little or no real-life interaction with people from different backgrounds. Salcedo suggested that actually meeting someone outside of those circles can sometimes completely change a person’s perspective, and Rose strongly agreed.
Rose said the problem is that gender and sexuality have become heavily politicized and distorted, leaving some people with a false picture before they ever have a real conversation with somebody.
“A thousand%. I not not what you want from interview not what you want from an interview but I really have nothing to add like you hit the nail on the head there. Um a lot of people just don’t have those sort of interactions and when they are presented with um with that demographic you know whatever it may be um but in this case we are talking about like gender and sexuality. Uh it’s it’s right now it is is it’s been weaponized and it’s a lot of propaganda and there’s a lot of conflation.”
Rose then gave a blunt example of how she believes that misinformation can shape someone’s entire understanding of transgender people.
“So to hear, you know, oh, there’s a trans woman. And then they’ll show a picture of a drag queen and now this person is like, well, that person has a beard and like their perception becomes their reality. And it’s like it was it was presented wrong from the jump.”
According to Rose, once somebody’s first impression is built around bad information, breaking that perception can become much harder.
“But now they have this preconceived notion that they can’t escape because unfortunately and this is just the way humans are wired. What is often seen first is liked the most. So if that’s the first thing you’re seeing, that’s what you’re going to connect to and that’s what’s going to be true in your head.”
Rose’s point was pretty simple — if someone’s entire view of transgender people comes from inflammatory images, political arguments or people being incorrectly lumped together, they may be forming an opinion about something they’ve never actually experienced for themselves. For Nyla, real interaction can cut through a lot of that noise, but the damage from a bad first impression can be tough to undo.
What do you make of Nyla Rose’s comments about misinformation shaping how people view transgender people? Let us know what you think in the comments.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
