Writer Chaz Harris responds to Rosemary McLeod's 'he-she' piece in the Dominion Post. He questions the ethics of publishing such a piece when "there is nothing helpful, thought provoking, intelligent or funny about it". I remember writing a blog post relating to gender identity when I was blogging for Stuff.co.nz a couple of years back, I’ve had trouble tracking down the post to refer back to it now but the horribly transphobic opinion piece by Rosemary McLeod about transgender people having babies shows just how bad things are in the world of online opinion pieces these days. When a mainstream media news website is willing to publish what is essentially hate speech and hide behind opinion and freedom of speech to justify publishing it, you begin to wonder if any of the people working there studied journalism at all. There’s this thing called ethics, you see, and I personally question the ethics of allowing a piece like that (opinion or not) to have such a public platform when there is nothing helpful, thought provoking, intelligent or funny about it. Several times when reading it, I thought it was someone from Westboro Baptist Church, famous for their hateful and bigoted views, “won’t somebody please think of the children!!”. But no, this was a writer paid by a news organization to write opinion pieces and who presumably has an editor reading their work before publishing it. The opinion piece has in recent years become a license to write anything, no matter how poorly researched, misinformed or offensive. It then gets defended under the guise of freedom of speech should anyone not like what they’ve read, but by that point the message is out there and the damage is done. This may be a logical defense for someone writing on their own personal blog, but when given the power and audience reach of a mainstream media platform, writers need to think carefully about what they write and editors need to also consider what they publish. Although the opinions may not be the same as that of the news organization, it still reflects on them by association and shows they are willing to put out certain messages into the world. There’s a common misconception that opinion pieces do not need to be thought through or measured when the truth is, it takes more reporting, not less. A news article should only continue until all reasonable sides of a story can be represented but an opinion piece is more like a debate rather than stating opinion as facts, or at least, that’s what it used to be. Since the demise of the NZ Press Association last year, the time for objective or impartial journalism in this country feels like it is long gone. Whether you like it (or realize it), advertisers pretty much own the news now. Want to hear a good news story about a New Zealander doing well overseas? If it involves an award most people have heard of, a celebrity connection or a sensationalist angle then SOLD! That will get clicks and that will make money. As for the rest, you probably won’t hear about it. As I tried to understand how such an ignorant, offensive and hateful opinion piece ever came to be published I was only able to come to one conclusion as to a train of thought that explained it. “That will offend everyone, that will get them sharing the link, that will get clicks and traffic and our advertisers will be happy”. Never mind the people it refers to, never mind that it belittles the far more complicated and emotionally wrought process many go through when realizing their true gender identity. I might not be Transgender, but even I can recognize that repeatedly saying “he/she” is the equivalent of saying “faggot” in every sentence, and it’s completely unnecessary. One someone decides to be male, “he” is the correct term or, you could always call them by their name – now there’s a novel idea. By turning someone into an ambiguous “he/she”, it serves to completely dehumanize them, and contrary to what McLeod might think, a Transgender person is just that, a person! But alas, thinking about people’s feelings doesn’t make money, does it? Hurting them sure does, but that still doesn’t make it right. Chaz Harris - 24th February 2012