Joint statement: Trans journalists Vic Parsons and Freddy McConnell pull out of Guardian’s G2 Pride special issue over continued attacks on trans women
We were both asked to submit pitches for a special Pride month issue of the Guardian’s G2 magazine. The editor who contacted us is a proactive trans ally. We both felt deeply conflicted about writing for The Guardian given its track record of publishing inaccurate and inflammatory articles about trans people, in particular trans women. However, we are also both freelance writers with bills to pay, who sincerely want to work with editors trying to make the paper’s output less trans-hostile. We both pitched and had our ideas commissioned for the Pride issue.
On Sunday 29 May, The Observer (as “The Guardian” online) published another profoundly misleading article about trans women. It contained misinformation about the content of a 2012 workshop run by a trans woman, misgendering of trans women, and several anti-trans tropes such as: repeatedly calling trans women “biologically male”, labelling trans people “activists”, suggesting trans people are trying to “shame” cis lesbians into fancying trans women, referrring to the fight for trans equality as “gender ideology”, suggesting LGB people are “divided” on the issue of trans rights, falsely claiming there are “long term health consequences” for trans young people accessing gender-affirming care, falsely claiming young trans people have “surgeries”, and suggesting adult trans people are “foisting” transness on young gay people.
The piece not only contravenes The Guardian’s editorial code on fairness, verification, accuracy and discrimination, it ignores its own style guide on how to refer to people who are trans and not trans when contextually relevant. Most worryingly, this piece and the many others like it fly in the face of CP Scott’s foundational values:
“We foster a supportive and open culture…
We are curious and innovative, prepared to fail and willing to learn…
We embrace diversity, champion inclusivity and treat everyone with respect…
We stand up for what we believe is right, not what is easy”
… except, it seems, when it comes to trans people and their allies.
The 29th May column is the latest in a long line of rampant transmisogyny, i.e. ingrained prejudice against trans women, published by The Guardian. The timing and egregiousness of the column mean we both now find it morally unconscionable to contribute to G2’s Pride special.
This decision was not reached quickly or easily. Since 2017, trans writers, staffers and allies have been working politely and tirelessly to help editors understand the harm that misinformed hostility to trans equality is doing, both to trans people and to the paper itself.
We originally hoped that contributing to G2 would encourage early signs of a shift towards inclusivity. Instead, we are sharply reminded that others remain free to spout bigotry and misinformation in the paper at will. Rather than being a positive step, therefore, our contributions – expected to sit alongside that bigotry – would serve as convenient pinkwashing. We refuse to be part of this; to enable management to continue ignoring the entrenched anti-trans prejudice wielded by a minority of its senior editorial staff.
Instead, we are using our relatively tiny platform and influence to publicly state that we can no longer write for The Guardian until it changes its trans-hostile and exclusionary stance.
For far too long, the UK’s supposedly most progressive mainstream media outlet has routinely monstered trans women, undermined non-binary people and misrepresented our desire to simply live in peace and safety. It has amplified conspiracy theories about trans healthcare and trans and gender non-conforming children and has contributed to attempts to smear those working to support trans people. On social media, it’s even worse, with prominent writers routinely amplifying and generating misinformation about trans women, trans men and nonbinary people.
This goes on despite the dismay of many readers, many more readers’ children and the paper’s own journalists working in the US, Australia and other places, where trans equality is unanimously supported by the political centre and left. The Guardian can no longer point to trans staffers as evidence of not having a transphobia problem because they’ve all left, either wholly or partly due to said transphobia.
We call on other writers, especially cis queer writers, to end your working relationship with The Guardian until it stops attacking trans women and trans equality more broadly.
We must constantly return to the fact that trans women and trans feminine people are one of society's most vulnerable groups according to numerous empirical measures (a grim reality that the UK media is actively making worse). We have a moral duty to stand in absolute solidarity with them.
We call on The Guardian, including The Observer, which we once looked up to as the pinnacle of vital, progressive journalism, to acknowledge that it is going against its own values by empowering journalists to write misleadingly about “trans issues”, of which they have no lived experience and with which they make zero good-faith effort to engage.
Specifically, we call on the Guardian Media Group to:
Notes to editors: Freddy (he/him) is a Vice columnist, podcaster and former Guardian journalist. Vic (they/them) is a freelance journalist, formerly of PinkNews.