From today's Southern Voice comes this...
It was only two letters, but said a lot more. The lead paragraph of a Dec. 19 Associated Press article reported "Southern Utah University says a transgendered student must prove its gender in order to live in an all-male dormitory." Language can be tricky when discussing transgender issues, but referring to a human being as “it” is beyond demeaning. The AP should FOLLOW its own stylebook, which instructs reporters to refer to transgender people as the gender they prefer.
I think the questions is; who used the word, SUU or AP.
ReplyDeleteI think AP was just quoting the university.
But it still is lousy either way.
I completely agree that it's entirely inappropriate. Maybe contact the spokeperson for the university and see if "it" has any comments?
ReplyDelete