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Anyone who lives in Britain, has lived in Britain, or just generally pays attention to British media will have heard of the Daily Mail. The Daily Mail, a long-time supporter of the Conservative Party, enjoys whipping its readers, also generally long-time supporters of the Conservative Party, into a blind frenzy with its writing. Usually it involves minorities or (cover your eyes if you happen to read the Mail) lower class people, and in most cases this is because readers of the Mail are incredibly scared of everyone who isn't exactly like them. If you don’t want to hear about some truly disgusting examples of hate speech against trans* people, then don’t read any further.
Now I’m not sure how much other countries hear about the Mail’s many varied exploits into bigotry, but let me point at the most recent (because it would take more time than the world has left to show up every instance of hateful writing it’s ever put out) issue I’ve taken with them: They wrote and published an article about a primary school teacher called Lucy Meadows, who was trans* and in the process of transitioning, with the full support of her school and students, after a handful of parents went to the media giant with the story instead of raising concerns with the school like adults, or maybe just accepting that they needed to stop being gigantic dicks (hey, the option is there). The Mail then published it despite her asking for her privacy to be respected so she could get on with her job.
The readers of the Mail, incensed by the article, caused an outcry so great that reporters began to hound her around her work. Distressed by the media attention to her transition, Lucy committed suicide last week.
What followed has been a maelstrom of conflicting opinions from both sides of the argument. Several petitions have been set up calling for the author of the original Daily Mail piece, Richard Littlejohn, to be sacked. Some QUILTBAG online authors (most notably Paul Canning of PinkNews.co.uk in this article) argue that the call for Littlejohn to leave the mail is just people “jumping on a bandwagon” and that Lucy’s death is unrelated to the original article, which has since been removed from the Daily Mail’s website.
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| The petition being delivered to the Mail's offices (S) |
So where does the blame lie? Obviously it’s with the media journalists that refused to stop invading her privacy, in which case Canning’s view may be correct as the Mail didn’t report on it beyond the first piece. In my mind, though, I will always say that the Mail brought it to national attention and opened up the option for much smaller newspapers to sell more papers and sensationalise the story even further. The Mail’s no stranger to the outrage that their articles cause, and I have absolutely no sympathy for them or for Littlejohn. It was his decision to write an article about something that was absolutely none of his, or anyone’s except Lucy’s, business. It was his editor’s choice to publish the article, knowing full well that it would cause trouble for Lucy (and why should we even pretend that the Mail doesn’t know its readers and what their reactions would be – it knows its target market far too well for that).
It was their choice to print something intended to cause a negative reaction, regardless of a Mail spokesperson claiming that Littlejohn "emphatically defended the rights of people to have sex change operations but echoed the parents' concerns about whether it was right for children to have to confront complex gender problems at such a vulnerable young age". Gosh, (sarcasm imminent) how complicated, right? It’s not like children are inherently accepting at “such a vulnerable young age”, of course. And obviously the idea that children could be taught about something like the gender spectrum and the fact that trans* people exist so that they understand it and aren't transphobic later on in life is the weak minded, hippy, pipe dream of the left-wing people who are so ACCEPTING and NOT BIGOTED, gosh how do they even survive without hating the nearest person to them?
Am I a Daily Mail writer yet? No? Excellent.
The Mail itself has put out this charming statement about the outcry over Lucy’s death:
“It is regrettable that this tragic death should now be the subject of an orchestrated [attack on us], fanned by individuals... with agendas to pursue.”
This roughly translates to "we didn't think that people would hold us accountable for what we publish, why are you so offended?" It's not the first time the Mail has had to fend off accusations of homophobia or transphobia from angered QUILTBAG activists. In 2009 after the openly gay Stephen Gately, of the pop group Boyzone, passed away unexpectedly, Daily Mail writer Jan Moire wrote an article in which she says: "Under the carapace of glittering, hedonistic celebrity, the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see" and that it "strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships." Ah yes, silly me, I forgot that in the hive mind of the Mail's readers, only heterosexual couples can commit to long term relationships. Thank you for reminding me, Jan.
Let's not forget the backlash that the Mail received - for an organisation so quick to point at complaints about the BBC, they're surprisingly reluctant to talk about how Moire's article had more complaints made in a single weekend to the Press Complaints Commission than the Press Complaints Commission had in the five years preceding it. There were over 22,000 complaints in two days, the most about any single article in any form of British media before or since.
Another example was the Daily Mail's article from February 2012 about the first pregnant man in Britain. In it, Fiona Macrae discussed how his child will apparently be confused over whether to call him "mummy" or "daddy" (he's a guy, Fiona, guys are dads, it's not hard) and involves Trevor Stammers, a lecturer in medical ethics and former chairman of the Christian Medical Fellowship, saying "the child’s ‘bizarre beginning’ would stay with it for the rest of its life." He told the Sunday Times: "‘You are hardly going to end up with a baby that is going to have a happy, productive and optimal childhood.’". He conveniently forgets to mention that the only reason that the child wouldn't have a happy childhood (the only reason that can definitely be predicted at this point, that is) is because ignorant people don't understand that it's none of their business if the child's dad happens to have a womb.
So yes, maybe the Mail wasn't hounding Lucy Meadows constantly. But it would be ridiculous to suggest that they are innocent of all blame, or that they aren't a ridiculously bigoted publication that needs to realise that it can't exist in a vacuum where complaints are the problem of papers that don't twist facts to scapegoat minorities any more. Transphobia in the media needs to stop, and stepping back and talking about "author's intent" and "freedom of press" instead of looking at the actual words written and the impact of it on the readers, as well as the morality of exaggerating a story to sell papers, is not going to help people on the trans* spectrum.
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