Is Seventeen teaching transphobia?

LGBT activists are up in arms about the magazine's story, "My boyfriend turned out to be a girl"
By Judy Berman

http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet/feature/2009/10/28/seventeen_transphobic/index.html

What do you think your daughter is learning from Seventeen magazine? Self-esteem? Hopefully. Body hatred? Perhaps. How to buy a flattering winter coat or strike up a conversation with that hottie from homeroom? Most likely. I'll forgive you for not guessing "transphobia." But that may be exactly what teen and tween girls are getting out of a troubling Seventeen article called "My boyfriend turned out to be a girl!"

The piece, posted as a PDF at Pam's House Blend, begins innocently enough. Narrator "Sheri" (who told her story to Senior Editor Jessica Press) recounts the beginnings of her relationship with "Derek," in which a misdirected text message led to marathon phone conversations and, finally, a first date. "He revealed that he wore bandages around his chest because of a basketball injury," writes Press. "When we made out, he never let me see him with his shirt off or touch me 'below the belt.'" Still, Sheri fell in love, and their relationship lasted through Christmas break of Derek's first year of college, when it dissolved over suspicions of infidelity.

The Michigan Chronicle newspaper ran a front page story a while back telling male readers how to make sure their lady was really female, including advice to check out her medicine cabinet for hormones. The author of this piece was outraged at what she feels is the anything-goes atmosphere of the world today. By god, she was out to draw the line and out some transies.