Trust.
As a member of the media, trust is something that I want my readers to have in me. Trust is something that I want the people that I write about to have in me. It is something that I want to be able to have in the organizations that I write for.
At the moment, as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I honestly don’t have that last one.
I attended the Ann Arbor Pride event on Saturday, August 1st in Ann Arbor, Michigan and was overwhelmed with the vendors present and the general friendliness of the members of the community who attended.
I spent around four hours at the event and only took in probably 15 minutes of the shows.
Each of the major media corporations that I saw there led with the hot button topic for a small minority of Americans and that was the drag performances.
First, there is absolutely nothing wrong with drag performances however each of the papers I read, used that as their lede because they knew it would generate page views.
Where does this tie in with sports you may ask? For me it ties in through the erosion of trust.
I have been working on a story pitch about some transgender individuals who are meeting for occasional pick-up baseball games. In talks with the women, men, and non-binary individuals who are playing, one thing was non-negotiable, it was NOT to get spun in a direction that could be detrimental to transgender athletes participating in sports at any level.
Even more important than that, and to me this is one of the biggest ones to me, NO ONE, either individuals participating in the events or even other transgender individuals would be put at risk by the story by some nut job that might read it.
I realized today that what I envisioned as a feel good, get to know that participants story to honor what was happening, could and probably would be used to an end that I can NEVER approve. That end would be to create controversy for page views.
I consider the women out there playing to be friends and, if I’m being totally honest, since I am one of the older individuals, my kids and I will never let them be hurt.
I still want to write the story, but it will not be presented to a traditional major media publisher at this time.
After talking to the group, I will self-publish or we can find an appropriate LGBTQ+ media outlet. Rules for safety and usage of the article will be contractually adhered to and EVERYONE must be safe.
In the end though it will be a team decision because as trans women, men, and non-binary individuals, there is a definite need to stick together.
Allie –