For #TransAwarenessWeek2020, I want to talk a little bit about the challenges trans journalists face in the news industry and the troubling absence of trans voices in newsrooms.

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One of the most frustrating things is how few of us have staff or full-time jobs. It's truly stunning and still blows my mind. Trans people are written about by the media CONSTANTLY, but very few of us area actually in newsrooms.

This often leads to atrocious coverage, distrust with trans communities, and disrespecting trans sources.

Covering trans communities well requires a deep understanding of trans experiences and communities and also not treating trans people like aliens.

A lot of cis people just don't have the range. Bless the few who have really done the work and are pushing for better coverage in their newsrooms and advocating for hiring trans journalists.

There are SO MANY INCREDIBLY TALENTED trans journalists who are doing hands down the most groundbreaking and meaningful reporting on our communities. It's shameful that they do not have full-time jobs.

The few of us who do have full-time jobs are often the first to be laid off when cuts need to be made. Almost none of us have ongoing stable employment and almost all of us are freelancers.

This is a MAJOR failing of our industry and demonstrates how little trans people are valued.

The few of us who are fortunate enough to get some employment stability with a full-time job have to navigate being in newsrooms where we're often not meaningfully supported.

We're often walking into newsrooms where our colleagues haven't been meaningfully educated about trans people or how to respectfully interact with trans people.

They're often unaware of their own cissexism/transphobia, which often leads to harmful comments and microaggressions.

And this is best case scenario, assuming everyone is well meaning and no one is hateful of trans people...which we know is often not the case.

On top of that, we're also often not institutionally supported by the organizations we work for.

For instance, most media orgs don't have good trans healthcare options. Even having stable, full-time employment doesn't make gender-affirming medical care terribly accessible.

The @gmgunion is organizing and pushing for this as we speak. Many of these orgs profit off of telling stories about the fights for our rights, but don't make those rights accessible for their employees. https://twitter.com/gmgunion/status/1320796510557249539?s=20

Most orgs don't have policies in place for trans employees before they actually have a trans employee and that trans employee has to do A LOT of education and work to get basic institutional support...if they can even get that institutional support.

In addition to doing a lot of extra work on making institutions better, we often have to do additional work on sensitivity reads, speaking up about bad pitches from our colleagues on trans things, & having conversations with editors about harmful language & framing.

A lot of those conversations are regular, uphill battles trans people have been really exhausted by. That's one of the reasons we made the style-guide with the launch of @TransJA https://transjournalists.org/style-guide/ 

And a lot of times we have really smart, thoughtful pitches our editors don't understand or agree with, so they get rejected.

I struggled with this early in my career, and it was really hard to figure out when my pitch just wasn't good and when my editor just didn't get it.

This was before I knew I was trans, but when I knew way more about transness than anyone else I was working with. Some of my pitches weren't good, but some of them were actually really smart and necessary, and I just needed support!

But our voices are often filtered through cis ideas/perspectives and if they challenge or make cis editors too uncomfortable, they're rejected.

MEANWHILE, trans journalists are pigeonholed into writing exclusively about trans things.

We are multifaceted people with different identities, life experiences and expertise. Trans journalists are more than qualified to write about other things too.

And yet, in other newsrooms trans people are PROHIBITED from reporting on trans things because we're "too biased," which is equally bad and wrong.

Outlets that treat the reality of trans people existing and deserving respect as up for debate are biased towards transphobia!

And back to trans people not having stable employment...very few of us have stable employment. And the few of us who have had that (for a time! We're talking about short-term stability still) are generally relatively privileged compared to the rest of trans communities.

Trans people who are POC, disabled, don't come from a financially well off backgrounds, etc., are even less likely to be found in newsrooms or have anything resembling stable employment in our industry

Anyway. All of this is bad and fucked up and trans people deserve so much more. And this doesn't even begin to cover all of the problems trans people in media are facing.

So hire trans people! Esp. trans people who are least likely to be represented in our media lanscape. And do the work to make your institutions trans-welcoming. @TransJA has some great resources & you can hire consultants like @tuckwoodstock to help make your workplaces better.