Style and substance

Trans journalist group tells us what we can say about trans people:

A trans journalist group which advises media on how to cover trans-related topics has published a style guide encouraging media outlets to “kill” stories on trans criminals, censor detransitioners, and erase all references to biological sex.

Next up: rapist journalist group publishes a style guide encouraging media outlets to call rapists “heroes” or “rapscallions.”

And by “accurately” they mean…not accurately.

In one section, titled “guidance on covering anti-trans hate and disinformation,” the TJA encourages media to avoid coverage of certain topics, including detransitioning – wherein a person ceases a gender transition – which the TJA states have been “overemphasized” as well as “sensationalized and given a disproportionate amount of weight in the media.”

In sharp contrast to trans activism, which doesn’t get any weight in the media at all, right?

The association also encourages media to “avoid giving a platform to TERFs or so-called “gender critical feminists,” going on to state that “when reporting on fringe groups and hate groups, instead of calling them TERFs or gender critical feminists, use language like transphobic, anti-trans, etc. Avoid referring to anyone as a feminist when they are spreading anti-trans hate.”

Silence feminists; lie about trans people. Sterling advice for purported journalists.

More egregiously, the TJA encourages writers to avoid any negative press directed at criminals who are transgender. In the section titled “guidance on respectful coverage,” the TJA states that journalists should note the consequences for a trans person to have their criminal history disclosed, writing “publishing such information is rarely in the public interest,” and that journalists should “Consider killing a story if [they] have no alternatives.”

Well we wouldn’t want people to know that some men who identify as women are rapists, would we.

Despite rejecting the concept of biological sex, the TJA also discourages writers from marking transgender people as ‘identifying as’ whatever gender they do, stating: “This language questions a trans person’s gender by calling it an “identity” instead of just stating someone is non-binary or a man/woman.” In all cases, the guide seems to steer journalists towards simply never identifying a person as being trans save for instances it is overtly positive coverage.

Awesome Trans Woman Breaks Glass Ceiling type of thing.

In March, Open University Philosophy of Sport Senior Lecturer Jon Pike had one of his articles on trans-identified males in women’s sports edited without his consent to abide by the TJA style guide.

Without his consent or knowledge.

It’s a massively important distinction.

It doesn’t seem the least bit trivial.

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