Examining trends in editorial standards in coverage of transgender issues IPSO November 2020 Mediatique Limited 65 Chandos Place London WC2N 4HG UNITED KINGDOM www.mediatique.co.uk 2 Contents A. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ....................................................................................................................................... 7 1. INTRODUCTION AND PROJECT OBJECTIVES ....................................................................................................................... 7 2. QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF COVERAGE ......................................................................................................................... 8 3. QUALITATIVE CASE STUDY ANALYSIS ............................................................................................................................ 11 a. Coverage types .............................................................................................................................................. 12 b. Our analysis of the articles ............................................................................................................................ 12 c. Terminology ................................................................................................................................................... 14 d. Accuracy (rights and legislation).................................................................................................................... 14 e. Accuracy (statistics) ....................................................................................................................................... 14 f. Pronouns ........................................................................................................................................................ 15 4. DRIVERS OF CHANGE ................................................................................................................................................ 15 B. BACKGROUND MATERIALS ...............................................................................................................................19 1. A NOTE ON LANGUAGE ............................................................................................................................................. 19 2. DEFINITIONS AND SUMMARY OF ISSUES ........................................................................................................................ 19 3. THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK ........................................................................................................................................... 20 4. THE EDITORS’ CODE OF PRACTICE (THE ‘CODE’) ............................................................................................................ 21 5. IPSO GUIDANCE ON TRANSGENDER STORIES (THE ‘GUIDANCE’) ........................................................................................ 22 C. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................23 1. PROJECT BACKGROUND ............................................................................................................................................. 23 2. MEDIATIQUE’S APPROACH......................................................................................................................................... 24 a. Quantitative analysis ..................................................................................................................................... 25 b. Manual textual case study analysis ............................................................................................................... 26 c. Interviews ...................................................................................................................................................... 27 d. Secondary research ........................................................................................................................................ 28 e. Notes on methodology .................................................................................................................................. 28 3. REPORT STRUCTURE ................................................................................................................................................. 28 D. TIMELINE OF TRANSGENDER-RELATED EVENTS ................................................................................................29 1. INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................................... 29 2. TIMELINE OF KEY EVENTS ........................................................................................................................................... 30 E. AGGREGATE ANALYSIS OF COVERAGE OF TRANSGENDER-RELATED STORIES ...................................................37 1. INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................................... 37 2. COVERAGE VOLUME AND SOURCES.............................................................................................................................. 37 a. The growth of transgender-related stories .................................................................................................... 37 b. The importance of celebrities ........................................................................................................................ 38 c. The emergence of more serious issues .......................................................................................................... 40 d. Engagement in transgender-related issues by the non-broadsheets ............................................................ 41 3. LANGUAGE AND TERMINOLOGY .................................................................................................................................. 42 a. A shift in terminology ..................................................................................................................................... 42 b. Gender identity .............................................................................................................................................. 43 c. Use of terms considered offensive ................................................................................................................. 43 d. ‘Transsexual’ or ‘transgender’ ....................................................................................................................... 44 e. The emergence of ‘non-binary’ ...................................................................................................................... 45 f. Gender reassignment versus sex change ....................................................................................................... 46 g. Gender being assigned at birth versus born male/ female ............................................................................ 46 h. Pre-op / post-op ............................................................................................................................................. 47 i. Male- or female-bodied ................................................................................................................................. 48 j. The trans lobby .............................................................................................................................................. 49 k. The perspective of the transgender community ............................................................................................ 50 l. The perspective of editors .............................................................................................................................. 50 4. CONCLUSIONS ......................................................................................................................................................... 51 F. MANUAL ANALYSIS OF EDITORIAL STANDARDS IN COVERAGE .........................................................................53 1. INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................................... 53 a. Editorial standards parameters ..................................................................................................................... 53 3 b. Selection of case studies ................................................................................................................................ 53 c. Approach to manual analysis ........................................................................................................................ 54 d. Section structure ............................................................................................................................................ 54 2. COVERAGE TYPES / PHASES ........................................................................................................................................ 54 a. Type I: transgender status as anomaly .......................................................................................................... 54 b. Type II: human interest .................................................................................................................................. 55 c. Type III: policy, rights and children ...............................................................................................................