Court unconvinced with apparent femininity
Media create, sustain and foster images, not just by lending voices to some (like celebrities), but also by withholding voices from some (like the transgender). In a sensation-hungry, sadistically competitive society that we live in, media exist to quench the instant thirsts for blood (hot news). And in the entire process, intercontextualities and complexities of social locations are often sacrificed.
Hence one finds the mainstream news choosing sides of the “authorities” or the “victors”. The sources of news in order to be credible, then emanate from the powerful quarters. And balance of news coverage becomes an incidental casualty.
In the recent review of a case involving a transgender person who was interrogated by the police over possession of a stolen purse, we can see the insensitivity of media as a public sphere.
The case of Stephen Lomiller is unique. Around two years back the defendant was considered by the court as “unquestionably . . . a person of transgender appearance and display," and Justice Yates had ruled that the detectives’ did not have cause to approach and interrogate Lomiller.
Yesterday, the New York state Supreme Court’s Appellate Division has reversed the earlier judgment and declared that the police officers were acting quite reasonably. The judges have stated, Lomiller
“also claimed to be wearing eyeliner, but it is not discernible in the arrest photograph, and the fact that he is wearing an earring and a ponytail is not necessarily feminine.”
Media have a role of social responsibility when it comes to covering marginalized people. In the report from Associated Press, one will notice how while taking views, the press has chosen to devote more than 90% space in favor of the detectives. The response of the transgender defendant appears at the extreme bottom two lines that say: Lomiller claimed to have found the purse unattended at a fast food restaurant and intended to return it and the cards to its rightful owner.
Here too, these are not direct quotes. Not just the comparative proportion of coverage, in a story that has two equally opposite angles, is unjust, but it’s also about the social responsibility of press that is clearly amiss. Legal decisions need to expound on the transgender issue, by considering the unique self of being transgender. This cannot be determined through resorting to the same simplistic lens of stereotyped gender roles, that fails to comprehend and/or respect the transgender. The media, just like the legal system, need to look beyond what can be categorized as “feminine”. Earring, ponytail and eyeliner can be rejected as factors to identify a transgender person, perhaps. But the fact that a transgender person says so should be good enough reason for the media to directly interview and quote this differential perspective out for everyone to know.
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