Boston Herald 'tranny' headline uncalled for

November 28, 11:55 AMTransgender & Transsexual Issues ExaminerMatt Kailey

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Newspaper stand

AP Photo/Paul Sakuma

The Boston Herald headline that ran, at least online, on November 26 is one of the most negative and biased “news” headlines that I have seen in quite some time.

“Wife-killing tranny denied electrolysis for time being” is the headline not to an opinionated blog entry, but to an actual news story about Michelle Kosilek (nee Robert), who is in prison for killing her wife. (I am using female pronouns here, although the story uses male pronouns, because the story says that Kosilek lives as a woman in an all-male prison.)

I am not going to argue about what treatments Kosilek should or should not receive in prison. This is about a headline on a reputable site that claims to offer “News & Opinion.” But the Kosilek story was written as a news story, not an opinion piece — although the opinion of the headline writer, who may or may not have been the journalist who wrote the piece, comes through loud and clear. And it is not just an opinion about Kosilek — it is an opinion about trans people in general.

In addition to the offensive headline, a sidebar shows a photo of Kosilek with the caption: “Robert Kosilek: Not sitting pretty yet.” Well, isn’t that clever? I work at a newspaper, and I’m sure that the person who came up with that caption felt pretty proud, indeed.

The problem with all this is that the sarcasm and the hatred that are reflected in the headline and the caption have little to do with the writer’s (or writers’) personal feelings about Kosilek (nor should they — this is a news piece, which should reflect the facts only). Instead, both the headline and the caption reflect an anti-trans bias and a palpable disgust with an entire community.

I don’t live in Boston, I don’t read the Boston Herald as a rule, and I probably won’t make it a habit to read it in the future. I don’t know if it has a conservative reputation or if it is given to its own judgments when reporting the news.

I do know that this headline negatively impacts an entire community of law-abiding citizens for the sake of a bit of sensationalism about one person convicted of a heinous crime. It is not appropriate, it should be changed, and the trans community should receive an apology.