Our Birth Names Are Not Germane To Telling Our Stories

Was having a conversation Saturday with my little sis from another mother Jordana in which we touched on the jacked up news coverage of Cemia's death and the AP Stylebook guidelines for covering trans people.

We noted how the Cleveland Plain Dealer seems to have adopted flipping the journalistic middle finger at the Cleveland trans community in their Cemia Dove Acoff coverage and also talked about the disrespectful reporting incidents in New York with Lorena Escalera and Los Angeles with Cassidy Vickers that pissed off people in those trans communities as well.

By the way, here's what the AP Stylebook currently states about covering transpeople  . 

transgender-Use the pronoun preferred by the individuals who have acquired the physical characteristics of the opposite sex or present themselves in a way that does not correspond with their sex at birth.   
If that preference is not expressed, use the pronoun consistent with the way the individuals live publicly.

Fortunately I'm seeing a lot less instances of media outlets putting a trans persons chosen or new name in quotation marks.  But with the way some of the media outlets have been backsliding on or straight up ignoring the AP Stylebook guidelines lately, I won't be surprised to see that odious news article tendency make a comeback.

What I and a lot of transpeople are also concerned about is seeing in far too many stories about us lately adding the line 'born as ___________'  or 'legal name is __________'.

I'm proposing that since many transpeople find this problematic, another line be added to the AP Stylebook guidelines or the NGLJA and GLAAD stylebooks that state that we find this problematic and they not do it.

You already know by stating the person is transgender is sufficient enough for the average reader of your story to know that the person you're writing about wasn't born with the gender characteristics they currently have.  So why add the birth name of that person unless you're deliberately trying to be disrespectful or salacious?   

I also can't stress this point enough that transpeople consider you using the name that matches their current gender presentation as a sign of respect of their lives.   

I've had a longstanding policy in any interview I do that my birth name is none of your business.   I've noticed that other trans people are also doing the same thing these days.  When Kylan Wentzel declined to give her old name to a reporter, I noted the tone of the article tuned pissy when she did so.  

Reporters, don't get mad when we insist in only giving you the names that correspond with the way we live our lives now.  I'd advise my trans younglings who are fortunate enough to get the opportunity to be interviewed from this day forward to decline to answer that question.  Far too often what I've observed is that your old name gets used to attack and misgender you. 

If we can respect Cher, Sir Elton John, Tina Turner and Sting and a long list of celebrities and politicians by not pointing out their birth names are Cherilyn Sarkisian, Reginald Dwight, Anna Mae Bullock and Gordon Sumner, why do we insist that somehow it's different for trans people and we MUST know their old names they no longer identify with?  Are we not worthy of the same media respect that a cis person gets? 

My birth name or the birth name of any trans person you're writing about in many instances is not only not germane to the story, it's a derailing distraction. 

So if you're concerned about writing a story respectful to our community and the trans person in question, how about simply focusing on our lives in their current manifestation?