Press regulator IPSO has cleared the Mail on Sunday after a complaint that it deadnamed a trans woman by making reference to her pre-transition name.
IPSO decided the references to the woman’s past, including her previous name as a man (or “deadname”), her status as a “successful businessman” and details of her gender dysphoria and transition, were “genuinely relevant” to the story.
Clause 12 (discrimination) of the Editors’ Code of Practice warns against “prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual’s sex and gender”.
IPSO’s draft guidance on reporting of sex and gender identity, which is currently out for consultation, states: “References to someone’s gender identity and/or sex may be pejorative, even in the absence of any pejorative term. Editors should consider carefully the relevance and presentation of information relating to an individual’s sex or gender identity.”
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The Mail on Sunday article, which also appeared on Mail Online, was headlined: “Militant transgender rights activist backing Penny Mordaunt ‘compared feminist writer to the Nazis’.”
It claimed the woman had “launched strident online attacks against those who have raised concerns about the impact of transgender activism on women”.
It also said she had “once appeared to compare a feminist author to the Nazis” by saying the author advocated “a ‘final solution’ for trans people”, although the activist denied she had done this.
The woman complained to IPSO, saying the inclusion of details of her pre-transition identity were “irrelevant in the context of either her attendance at a political event or her comments in relation to the author” and that the fact the details were already in the public domain following an interview she gave to a news agency in 2015 was irrelevant.
She said it was pejorative to use her deadname and misgender her, and that describing her as “militant” and “strident” was “prejudicial to her gender identity as a transgender person”.
The newspaper said in response it had used “basic background biographical details which were not prejudicial or pejorative” and that “the previous name and pronouns used by the complainant appeared only in the section of the article which related to her life before she transitioned, and matched how she presented at that time”.
It also argued that Clause 12 of the code does not require publications to “explain why a person’s former name or pre-transition story were genuinely relevant to a story”.
IPSO did not respond to the publisher’s point about Clause 12, but did conclude that the details were relevant. Its ruling said: “The story highlighted the complainant’s support of Penny Mordaunt in her bid to become Prime Minister and had presented in a critical light the complainant’s comments, and in particular her suggestion that the author was seeking a ‘final solution’ to reduce the number of people making gender transitions.
“The committee noted that the complainant had established a profile as a trans activist in the Conservative party, including by disclosing some of the information included in the article. In the view of the committee, these details of her gender identity provided relevant context for her criticism and her strength of feeling on the subject of gender transition. The Committee therefore found that the brief details relating to the complainant’s gender identity were genuinely relevant to the story, and there was no breach of Clause 12”.
IPSO went on to say that the woman’s previous name and pronoun were “used in one paragraph only and solely in the context of a brief description of the complainant’s pre-transition history – and that her correct name and pronoun had otherwise been used throughout the article”.
Its complaints committee said the use of the terms “militant” and “strident” were not related to her gender identity, but were used to describe “the strength of her criticism of the author on Twitter”.
IPSO also cleared the newspaper on further complaints from the woman, including on the grounds of accuracy and privacy.
Read the full IPSO ruling here.
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