What Grantland Got Wrong
Understanding the serious errors in "Dr. V's Magical Putter"
by Christina Kahrl on January 20, 2014
http://grantland.com/features/what-grantland-got-wrong/When you're a writer, you want something you create to have a long life, to be something that readers will remember and revisit for years to come. If such was Caleb Hannan's wish, it's been granted, because his essay on "Dr. V and the magical putter" figures to be a permanent exhibit of what not to do, and how not to treat a fellow human being.
Hannan's job might have seemed fairly straightforward. There's a cool new tool with a padded sales pitch — does it really work? He could dig into its virtues on the golf course and look at the validity of Essay Anne Vanderbilt's claims on behalf of her product, and as a matter of basic homework verify her claims of expertise in inventing it. And he did a good chunk of that checklist, effectively debunking her elaborate claims of expertise with an ease almost anyone in the electronic age has within his or her power. He struggled with the question of whether or not she'd actually designed a great putter; if you're a golfer, that might have been what you wanted to know. It certainly would have been the extent of what you needed to know.
Unfortunately, that isn't where Hannan stopped. Instead of fulfilling his mission in its entirety, he lurched into something that had nothing to do with his story, but that he was excited to share, repeatedly: Vanderbilt was a transsexual woman.
By any professional or ethical standard, that wasn't merely irrelevant to the story, it wasn't his information to share. Like gays or lesbians — or anyone else, for that matter — trans folk get to determine for themselves what they're willing to divulge about their sexuality and gender identity.
