CULTURE/SOCIETY: Lies about transgender people (and how to spot a rubbish journalist)

Ever been kicked in the face? I have. Violence is common towards children who display gender difference. Poofter, they used to call me. AIDS victim, they’d whisper. Walk like a man, boy, or get a clip ’round the earhole. That last one came from my father. Still, as one matures, so does the nature of the bullying. Instead of gossip and ciggies behind bike-sheds, badmouthing is done by respectable journalists in national newspapers. Take the Telegraph’s Ed West, for example, who seems perfectly comfortable belittling the existence of “transphobia” (hatred towards transgender people). His quotation marks, not mine. Guess he’s never had a kick in the head. In fact, I doubt he has any subjective experience of being trans, and nor will many of his readers. That’s the trouble.

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/08/31/lies-about-transgender-people-and-how-to-spot-a-rubbish-journalist/