"For those who care about the way transgender people are covered in the media — to say nothing of transgender people themselves who bear the brunt of the blow — it has been a difficult few weeks. "A chill ran down my spine" is how Caleb Hannan, a Grantland contributor, describes the moment he realized that the subject of his story was a transwoman. In the article, Hannan doesn't get a "chill" later when the woman, an inventor and entrepreneur, begs him not to out her, stating "you're about to commit a hate crime.""

http://www.buzzfeed.com/saeedjones/transgender-people-are-paying-the-price-for-the-medias-willf

He obviously shouldn't have outed her but she was lying about qualifications.

Here is a response from the website: http://grantland.com/features/the-dr-v-story-a-letter-from-the-editor/ Many are going to think that response is not enough, but I am satisfied with it.  There is a lot more to it than just some writer maliciously outing someone, though that does not make the outing by any means okay.  This all stemmed from a societal ignorance on trans people.  While it is very unfortunate these things have to happen for progress to be made, I feel like massive strides in education are happening as of late.  Between this, Katie Couric, and the lessons from the Chelsea Manning reporting the media, at least, will be completely on board soon.  It is in no means fair or easy to have to wait for society to become educated and accepting, but it is the reality.  In fact, despite the fact that I have felt I was assigned the wrong sex at birth since I was 4 or 5, it wasn't until I finally accepted it at age 24 and started reaching out for support that I learned certain words were discriminatory to transgender people. So, for myself at least, I am quick to forgive offenses as long as learning occurs.  In this case, ignorance does not excuse the writer's actions.  Common sense should dictate that outing is not okay; however, to label him a murderer seems extreme.  This all could have been avoided had Dr V not publicly falsified her grand credentials in order to better advertise her product.  The end result was way more than she deserved, but to overlook her desire for money overrode her desire to remain stealth cannot be ignored as part of this issue.

All my rambling is about this point: the editor's assessment on what went wrong here is that when they read it as purely through the eyes of cisgender journalists, they saw a fantastic piece of investigative journalists.  However, they failed to recognize that they were uneducated on the transgender community and to get a set of transgender eyes on the piece.  I believe the transgender community should not make their same mistake: before responding with vitriol, take a second to try and understand how it is on the other side.  I am not saying that any sympathy is deserved for cis-ignorance, nor that all cases of ignorance are excusable, teachable moments.  I am also certainly not saying that this instance is one of those moments, but reaction to it should come after thought and reflection instead of an emotional response.  Again, it is not fair that the transgender community needs to be so willing to turn the other cheek so often, but I believe that unfortunately acceptance and understanding will come quicker through patience and a willing to educate rather than anger.

Disclaimer: before I get angry responses - I tried to use "I think" and "I believe" throughout that ramble because I do not in any way want to give the impression that what I said is correct.  I am only partially out as trans and have yet to deal with the roughest parts of being trans in society so that is just how I see things today, and I fully respect anyone here that disagrees with it.

Quote from: pebbles on January 21, 2014, 01:55:32 AM
He obviously shouldn't have outed her but she was lying about qualifications.

It is not clear that she was, in fact, lying.  What we know is that the reporter said he didn't find confirmation of some of her claimed qualifications.   I believe that the reporter said she offered to give the reporter proof of her qualifications, provided he promised not to out her.  He declined.

A number of people suggested that the reason he couldn't find confirmation was that they would have been in her birth (male) name.  Given that the reporter was clearly more interested in sensationalism than accuracy, it's likely that once a cursory search (using her current name) failed to turn up confirmation, he simply assumed she was lying.

Unfortunately, by the time someone does the legwork to find out the full story (assuming anyone does), Teh Media will have long since forgotten her and the hatchet job that was done on her.

I can't help thinking of Heinrich Boell's story The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum

Does her invention works?

Quote from: peky on January 21, 2014, 05:48:32 PM
Does her invention works?

From what I hear yes it does even though it is a counter intuitive concept.

Also from what I hear (from an online news/political source) the reporter responded to the criticism with, outing her was essential to the story to prove a history of lying. If that is true then I would say the reporter is not favourable  towards the trans community.

I've read a few articles about this, and it makes me terribly sad.

I can't help thinking: if you replace "trans" with "Jewish" or "Black" (as in: has African-American ancestors) in his story, it becomes obvious (even to cis people) how skeevy and creepy (and gratuitous) bringing up (and harping on) her trans-ness was.