Digest 03/29/2023

Grace Byron writes, in the wake of trans femicide it matters who's in the newsroom.

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RETHINKING THE TRANS EULOGY

Walking through Central Park after an HRT check-up, I felt raw and exposed. I was texting my friend about Brianna Ghey, a 16-year-old trans girl who was stabbed to death in February by two teenagers in the UK. Ghey was remembered for her TikToks documenting her transition and offering encouraging words to other young trans girls. It started to rain. I got a notification about a new bill from my psychiatrist that I had no hope of paying. “I feel so fragile and angry,” I texted my friend. The next night at the club a man tried to dance with me and I had to walk away and sit down. The specter of death hung in every room. If a teenage girl’s peers could murder her, what optimism could I summon? 

With anti-trans legislation on the rise, the LGBTQ+ organizations sharing colorful images on social media reminding readers that “trans women are women” have been replaced by news articles written mostly by cis journalists about what states have stripped away the rights of trans children. If you’re lucky you may have caught a few posts about Ghey on social media. Most of the eulogies and articles written about Ghey’s death follow a familiar pattern: quotes from friends, followed by context about the growing gender-critical vitriol targeting LGBTQ+ people, and people remembering Brianna as simply their dear friend Bri. But there is a limit to the traditional journalistic eulogy as such, unemotional short obituaries that flatten a person’s life to a few quotes and a political moment, especially when cis newsrooms fail to understand the depth of transphobic violence. While on the surface the articles masquerade as objective, many read as cis. The terse cis spectacle of trans death often fails to consider how anti-trans violence is perpetrated not just by individuals, but by the State, and people carrying out such violent acts are rarely treated as agents of a state-sponsored agenda. 

The reality is trans writers don’t just need bylines, they need institutional support and power in the newsroom. The media often treats us as either girlbosses or suicidal. Too often, the media presents loving a trans girl as the most Herculean task because we are always one step away from death. 

Writers like Pamela Paul at The New York Times seemingly get free rein to critique trans-inclusive medical language, and pen their defenses of J.K. Rowling; yet, the amount of trans staff writers at legacy publications remains abysmal. Nearly every trans woman writer I know is a freelance worker, struggling to get by with gig work, GoFundMes, and (dare I say) partners with more stable jobs. Some of my friends have recently had their insurance deny them medical care in New York, something that seems an eerie siren of right-wing politicians’ attacks on our rights. 

Trans Day of Visibility, which is quickly approaching, is supposed to be a time to celebrate representation, seen by some as a way to rebrand the mourning of Trans Day of Remembrance. But representation only goes so far. Trans writers, unlike their detractors, rarely hold positions of power in the writing world. Without support at the executive level of a newsroom, marginalized voices can easily become disposable. Trans people become content for journalists like Jesse Signal and Abigail Shriver to build their names on, but trans people rarely receive the same economic incentive. Despite successful trans women writers being a stereotype in the T4T community, it’s only slightly more lucrative than DJing or coding unless newsrooms start to open up fellowships and full-time positions. 

Trans people may feel pigeonholed into writing about trans topics, both for viral clicks and because this may be what cis editors view as their area of expertise. When I pitch about something “trans,” I have noticed that I’m more likely to receive an assignment. Even when trans people get to cover trans issues, they face the possibility of a hostile workplace, or are forced to spell out concepts like electrolysis, muffing, or T4T for a cis readership.  

“I don’t think trans stories need a trans editor, but it would be nice if our existence in newsrooms was common enough to inform how others go about this coverage and approach reporting on this marginalized group,” Sydney Bauer, a freelance reporter who covers sports and LGBTQ+ issues told me. In other words, it would not matter if some cis writers covered trans issues as long as there is a familiarity with trans life in the newsroom. That could mean cis editors doing their own research. It could also mean trans editors were common enough that even publications without them incorporated more thorough guidelines for covering trans issues. 

We’re all continually mourning, forced to fight for our right to grieve while watching the roots of fascism spread. There is a mental cost for trans people covering trans issues because stories about trans trauma are often prioritized in the newsroom over those about trans joy. 

“There are times after reporting stories I’ve just had to cry because of how emotionally exhausting it is,” Bauer said. “Very few people talk about it, but a lot of the stories that editors are more interested in are ones that sell or are in cultural conversations and those stories are pretty heavy and sometimes traumatic.” 

While writing this, Republican lawmakers in my home state of Indiana passed a ban on trans healthcare for minors, and a trans friend of mine from high school passed away. Not that long ago, friends mourned Tortuguita, an Indigenous, trans activist who was shot 14 times by police at the Stop Cop City encampment. I recently read about Josie Berrios, a woman who called her lover “king” until he burned her alive. Days ago, Black trans teen Tasiyah Woodland was killed. The stakes continue to rise. 

There’s a limit to the trans eulogy, the way it struggles to consider trans time, the ambiguity of optimism for the lives to come and the sharp pang of those we’ve lost. Writing about my own grief might tap into someone else’s, but singling in on one person’s death can also obscure both that person’s individuality and our collectivity. How do we celebrate, mourn, and fight at the same time? How do we remember that death is political and should always be disruptive to the status quo? 

As Hil Malatino wrote in “Side Affects: On Being Trans and Feeling Bad,” his study on the resistance of negative feelings, perhaps so many trans people turn to writing to “strategically minimize the world frame until it is constituted primarily, if not exclusively, by the paper upon which you write.” Do we write about our suffering in order to control it? Certainly this is part of what makes the trans memoir such a go-to form for processing our experiences. Writers like Hannah Baer and T. Fleischmann stitch life, art, and theory together to understand both the individual and structural heartbreak of transphobia. 

Here is the thing about structural heartbreak. It never ends. As I told my friends I was writing about Brianna Ghey’s passing, they worried I would tip over and fall into the abyss. I understood why they were worried I would get sucked into the whirlpool of grief. Rethinking the trans eulogy requires a world where enough trans people are in the room that new voices can expand the way we talk about representation, violence, and mourning. 

Instead of posting more pastel graphics declaring trans women’s validity, I just want you to hire a trans columnist.

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It’s One Newsletter. What Could It Cost, $100? 

Yesterday, the founders of Substack made readers an offer that they can totally refuse. In a post, the founders solicited “investments from $100 up” so that they continue building an “economic engine for culture” that empowers “readers and writers” and harnesses the “democratizing power of the internet.” So, how did the cogs in the machine of culture respond to this alluring proposition? Sifting through the comment section, the reception has been mixed. “At only $100 I can buy a piece of a company for about the price of a dozen eggs?!? I’m in,” wrote one user. “I have organic eggs for sale at $50 each then, where are you buying eggs at? Got bridges too. Heheh,” responded Tiny Texas Houses Newsletter. From there, OP fired back by holding firm on his preference for “old grocery store” eggs over organic eggs that are way “too expensive.” A flamewar about eggs on a blogpost trying to get random people to fork over money? Now, that is the “democratizing power of the internet”!  —Daniel Spielberger

You Can Own a Piece of Substack — But Not The Whole Thing 

You can own a piece of Substack if you really want to. But you don’t have to own a piece of Substack. Should you invest in Substack? Probably not… I mean, don’t spend your money on this… But if you believe in Substack, and you have $100, you might want to own a piece of it. —Erin Corbett 

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COMINGS AND GOINGS:

—Rosalind Adams is joining The City as an investigative reporter.  

—Stephanie McNeal is leaving her role as senior culture and features reporter at BuzzFeed News to be a senior editor at Glamour.

—Jenny Ryu is leaving USA Today to join SELF Magazine as their Lifestyle writer. 

—Edward Felsenthal announced that he’s no longer editor-in-chief of TIME. He will continue as both an executive chairman and contributing editor. Sam Jacobs has been named interim editor-in-chief. 

—Morgan Sung is leaving NBC News and will soon join TechCrunch as a senior writer. 

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EVERYTHING ELSE:

—The Texas Democracy Foundation is planning to shut down The Texas Observer on March 31st. According to the Texas Tribune, the progressive publication, which was founded in 1954, “had been supported for years by a small number of major donors.” The bi-monthly magazine was mired in internal struggles with many staff members resigning after editor-in-chief Tristan Ahtone quit back in September. As a result of the magazine shuttering, 13 journalists will be laid off. James Canup, the former managing director, started a GoFundMe campaign to assist with funding the Observer if it chooses to keep its doors open. In the event that doesn’t happen, the funds will help support staff members who have been laid off. “It seems to me that it will be hard for the foundation to shut it down and lay people off in light of this overwhelming surge of public support for the Texas Observer and its staff,” wrote Canup. 

—As an attempt to cut down on costs due to a dip in ad revenue, NPR laid off 100 people and canceled four podcasts: “Everyone & Their Mom,” “Rough Translation,” “Invisibilia,” and “Louder Than a Riot.” Rodney Carmichael, co-host and co-creator of “Louder Than Riot,” wrote in a tweet, “DEI spells DIE within corporate media. All my people are expendable here. Our culture is only valuable when it can be thoroughly commodified. If covering the most-consumed genre on the planet is not financially viable at this institution, public media ain’t truly for the public.” 

—Last week, a federal judge sided with four publishers (HarperCollins, Hachette, Penguin Random House, and Wiley) in their copyright infringement lawsuit against the Internet Archive, a digital library. The lawsuit centered on IA’s practice of scanning and digitally lending books. 

—New York Times management has sent warnings to 20 staffers who last month signed an open letter lambasting the paper’s coverage of trans issues, according to The Daily Beast. 

—Kendall, Shiv, and Roman Roy will put their new media venture, The Hundred, on the backburner. The Hundred was initially described as “Substack meets Masterclass meets the Economist meets the New Yorker.” 

—Jokes about the new season of “Succession” are so corny…