Contributing Editor Koan Bremner also blogs at Multidimensional.Me

In my opinion, a free press is an essential element of a free and just society. And yet, for all of the examples where journalists have uncovered wrong-doing and pursued those responsible (even to the highest reaches of government) there is at least one area where the fourth estate typically fails to cover itself in glory.

Take the death of Krystal Heskin. A woman of 31, Krystal was found dead in a motel on April 18th. Police have now arrested and charged a Chicago man, Michael Davis. And how did the Chicago Sun-Times choose to cover this news?

ELK GROVE VILLAGE -- A Chicago man was charged Monday with the April 18 murder of a transsexual, police said.

Great. Just great. Faced with reporting a serious crime, the reporter falls back on the tried-and-tested tactic of objectifying this dead woman as "a transsexual". As the piece goes on to say:

While the medical examiner's report noted the victim as a white male, police are referring to the victim as a woman. The deceased "has male anatomy, but also has female anatomy, and has been referred to as a she," Schmidt said.

I became aware of Krystal's murder through this post on Jen Burke's blog "Transcending Gender". In the comments (well worth reading in their entirety), Jen gives more examples of the less-than-sympathetic coverage Krystal's death received from various news sources. Now, of course, those who are transsexual, transgender, gender variant or otherwise outside of the heteronormative binary gender divide have no right to fair and reasonable coverage from the press, right? They're fair game for any number of objectifying stories, right?

Er, wrong - in my opinion. Because, even if your personal feeling or opinion towards those from outside the binary gender divide is less than supportive, remember this - these people are somebody's son / daughter / wife / husband / brother / sister / aunt / uncle / friend / colleague. What of *their* feelings about the treatment handed out the victim by the press? In a later comment on Jen's post, Vicki, Krystal's sister made her feelings clear:

Krystal was my sister is my sister, and she was taken away from us. Why she was, I will never understand. The hardest part in all of this, for myself and for all of my family has been the cruel and unnecessary way in which the media had chose to present this story. We love Krystal so deeply, and these stories have just ripped us apart.

Krystal was the victim of the apparent murder - and now her family, and those who loved her, are the victims of the press' treatment of her story. Vicki continues:

We talked to the press, in hopes that they would treat her like a person rather than a freak (she was not a freak.. she was a loving, caring, wonderful sister, daugther, friend), and they took our words and they turned them around to something that they were not. Her life was not filled with woe, it was filled with love, it was filled with family who cared for her with friends who were there for her.

Here's a tip, for any journalist out there - "transsexual" is an adjective. If you're tempted to write a story and use it as a noun, try a little experiment before you publish the story - substitute in an adjective which might be used to describe another social or racial minority. Would the Chicago Sun-Times have published that story with "transsexual" substituted with "black"? Calling someone "a black woman" may or may not be offensive to that person - calling them "a black" is, I believe, almost guaranteed to offend.

Sometimes the press can have a more even-handed part to play. The La Crosse Tribune, of La Crosse, Wisconsin, recently ran a story reporting a talk given by Anne Rubenstein, associate professor of history at York University, Toronto to a group of students at the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse. Her talk included the story of Zulma:

Miguel began wearing lipstick at age 9.

He was born male, but said he always felt like he was female, Anne Rubenstein told a group of University of Wisconsin-La Crosse students.

By age 12, Miguel had run away from home, become a prostitute and taken the name Zulma. At 18, she went to Tijuana for a sex change operation but wound up spending six months in jail for assault.

She was stabbed to death weeks after her release from prison.

Whatever your opinion of the value or relevance of the story, take a look at the extensive comments thread which resulted - which runs in reverse chronlogical order, so it only makes sense if you start reading from the bottom of the page. In one discussion, you'll see just about all shades of opinion on the subject of transgender and transsexual people - from the supporters and the open-minded through to those whose convictions (religious and otherwise) give them, they feel, free rein to deny the validity of another's existence. Whatever your feelings on this subject, you'll probably find them voiced in this thread - but I'd like to pull out three for illustration. From one commenter:

Let's imagine that one day "Poof!" God makes everyone straight. Since other forms of discrimination are passe, what demographic group would you next single out to bring your little world back to its comforting "us and them" order? Me, I'm straight because I was born that way, and another person's orientation can't change that. So what's your problem? "Worry about kids", my eye. Kids see more than enough marginalization and hazing in school without your help in the real world. Some of us outgrew the brutalities of playground politics. I suggest you do the same, if you care as much for the next generation as your santimonious pretensions would have us believe.

From a commenter who calls themself "COMPASSION":

I JUST DONT UNDERSTAND YOU PEOPLE. YOU MAY FEEL DIFFERENTLY IF IT WAS YOUR CHILD WHO STRUGGLED WITH SOMETHING PEOPLE WOULD RIDICULE THEM FOR. FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO MADE YOUR SNIDE COMMENTS, I HOPE IF YOU HAVE CHILDREN, NONE OF THEM GROW UP TO BE "LESS THAN PERFECT" IN YOUR EYES.

And from Julie Z:

The single most silly thing that I have seen here, is when someone that disaproves of the LGBT community brings up the subject of protecting children from us having our civil rights, when we were all once children ourselves. Seems to me that these people are only interested in the welfare of heterosexual children, convieniently forgetting about all the LGBT children that they themselves procreate. It's like they think the only gay people there are in the world are adults. Pretty amazing how thoughtless some people can be.

As I say, I respect the press more when it handles a story like this without undue sensationalism - and even more so when it provides and supports the exchange of ideas and opinions from all sides.

I'll leave you with one more story which is growing in Europe - specifically, in Spain. In response to the Spanish Government apparently back-tracking on a previous commitment to table a Gender Identity Act this year in the first semester of parliament, one trans activist, Carla Antonelli, announced that she would begin a hunger strike on May 15th, until the promised legislation was tabled. As the days have progressed, more activists have announced their intention to join the hunger strike - and the story is receiving coverage in the Spanish media, including the daily paper El Mundo - for example, this article:

"Cada daa que pasa miles de personas transexuales en España viven situaciones humillantes y absolutamente bochornosas a la hora de alquilar una vivienda, abrir una cuenta en un banco, tomar un avion, solicitar un trabajo o cualquier otro escenario posible donde tengan que mostrar sus documentos", denuncia.

Sadly, my grasp of Spanish is insufficient to translate most of the article - but courtesy of Google, a rough translation is as follows:

"Every day that passes thousand of people transsexuals in Spain humiliating situations live and absolutely embarrassing at the time of renting a house, opening an account in a bank, to take an airplane, to ask for a work or any other possible scene where they must show his documents", it denounces.

Overall, reading that machine translation of the article, I'm struck by the even-handedness of the article - factual and non-sensationalist. Maybe my hope for a press which treats trans people as people, rather than fodder for sensationalised pot-boilers, is not yet dead.

Blog: Multidimensional.Me