Friday, February 24, 2023

How we lie to ourselves with charts about LGBTQ issues

In the past few years I've become increasingly alarmed about how journalists cover the transgender community, particularly transgender youth. Being interested in graphics, I decided to record the following short and informal talk about a specific set of charts that I often see misused and even weaponized against one of the most vulnerable minorities in this country. Jon Schwabish has also written about one of them.

(Note: I recorded this in 15 minutes this morning after a friend was contacted by a large news organization asking about several things, this chart among them. Instead of writing a long answer, I quickly recorded a video for her so she could share it. That explains the just-OK quality. You can download the slides here.)