Seventeen Meets with GLAAD to Address Transphobic Article in November Issue
November 5, 2009
On Wednesday morning, top editors of Seventeen Magazine met with GLAAD representatives to discuss their misrepresentation of transgender people in the article “My Boyfriend Turned Out to be a Girl,” printed in the November issue. After vocal expressions of shock and disappointment about the article’s sensational tone appeared on blogs such as Pam’s House Blend, Salon.com, and GLAADblog last week, Seventeen agreed to meet with us to plan their response.
In Wednesday’s meeting, the editors – including Jessica Press, who directly edited the piece in question, and Editor in Chief Ann Shoket – expressed their sincere regret about the problematic portions of the coverage. They explained that in trying to stay as true to Sheri’s story as possible, they had not considered the necessity of discussing transgender issues, or the common uncertainty transgender people face in deciding when and how to safely and respectfully share their who they are with romantic partners, because Sheri had not used the word transgender in relating her own experience to them. They also expressed regret for using a sidebar to compare Sheri’s story to lurid and unrelated break-up stories.
So far, Seventeen has committed to sending in-depth response letters to the individual readers who have written in to express their concerns, and they are still deciding whether and how this response will appear in the Letters section of the February issue of Seventeen to hit newsstands in January. The combined January/December due out in this month will not address this issue, but editors are considering posting a response on Seventeen’s website.
In an excerpt from the individualized response letters to readers, editors write:
“In no way did we intend to alienate or judge anyone–to the contrary, our goal was to connect our readers who are on either side of a relationship like Sheri’s: We want to show them that it is normal and universal to want to keep some things private–and that it’s just as normal and universal to feel hurt when you find out facts you didn’t know about someone close to you.
“In our efforts to convey Sheri’s authentic experience, we regret that we missed an opportunity to provide background about transgender people and the difficulties they often face in being who they are. It was never our intent to sensationalize this story or make negative assumptions about transgendered people.”
GLAAD will remain in contact with the magazine, providing material for stories that will fairly and accurately depict LGBT identities and experiences. We look forward to working with their editors to provide feedback on future LGBT-related content during the story planning phase, and appreciate the continued cooperation of their editing staff in addressing this recent misstep.
We thank the readers who sent their concerns to Seventeen and who spoke out against sensational reporting. We encourage you to keep notifying us of inaccurate and unfair articles you read in any mainstream publication.
Related Posts:Call to Action: Seventeen Magazine Needs to Apologize for Transphobic Article
October 27, 2009
In their latest issue (November 2009), Seventeen magazine published a defamatory article representing transgender youth as “liars” and deceivers. In an “as told to Jessica Press” article titled “True Life Drama: My BOYFRIEND turned out to be a girl!”, they relate Sheri’s story of finding out that her first love was a transgender young man in an accusatory and sensationalizing tone.
As first pointed out by LGBT teen activist Ariel Bustamante when she alerted prominent Pam’s House Blend blogger Autumn Sandeen to the story:
“Rather than use this opportunity to educate readers about transgender issues, it …instead furthers the common transphobic assumption that someone whose gender does not match their sex assigned at birth is a deceptive liar and even compares them (at the bottom) to perverts, drug addicts, and older dads trying to get young women without disclosing their parental/age status.”
In her insightful blog about the article, Sandeen wrote:
“What the sensationalizing of this Seventeen story [creates] is a recipe for teaching intolerance of trans youth based on gender identity and expression, and this recipe — when I think about Brandon Teena and Angie Zapata — is also a recipe for fueling violence against trans people.”
While Seventeen was certainly right to publish Sheri’s experience of her dramatic break-up, there is never an excuse to misgender and misrepresent transgender youth, especially given the highly at-risk status of this demographic. (See GLSEN’s report on the experiences of transgender youth in U.S. schools.)
GLAAD has written to senior editors at Seventeen, requesting a meeting and an apology for their sensationalized coverage in their December issue.
Bustamante has also created a facebook campaign to raise awareness of this unacceptable article.
Please Take Action Now:
Please write to Seventeen to voice your concerns about this sensational presentation.
Tell the magazine’s editors that sensationalizing transgender teenagers and young adults contributes to a climate that puts young LGBT people in harm’s way. Ask them to consult GLAAD for resources when covering future stories on LGBT people.
Please remember, when contacting Seventeen, to ensure that your emails are civil and respectful and do not engage in any kind of name-calling or abusive behavior.
Keep checking GLAADblog for further updates on this developing story.
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