Prejudice: trans people shouldn't have been subjected to such abuse

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2013/jan/20/the-big-issue-trans-burchill

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EB White once said: "Prejudice is a great time saver. You can form opinions without having to get the facts." On the basis of last week's article ("Cut it out, you transsexuals", Comment), Julie Burchill has taken this to be an axiom rather than a witticism.

Unfortunately, transphobia in the media has real-world consequences. Statistics on transphobic crime are currently still difficult to obtain as few large-scale studies have been undertaken, but what evidence there is strongly indicates that trans people are at much higher risk of casual violence and verbal abuse than the general population. Then, of course, there is everyday prejudice and marginalisation, highlighted for instance by the twitter hashtag #transdocfail, which records the medical community's failure to carry out its duties to its trans patients.

If even a newspaper such as the Observer, which prides itself on its left-leaning principles and support for social justice issues, can publish transparently transphobic invective and call it journalism, then it is a worrying indictment of systemic prejudice in Britain today.

Dr Rachel Moss

Corpus Christi College, Oxford

The hostility towards trans people that Ms Burchill exhibited in her article was discrimination, no different from any other form of discriminatory conduct. It is unacceptable and rightly so. Ms Burchill peppered her article with insults, threats and misinformation. She resorted to name-calling and provocation and, in doing so, completely undermined any value to her piece.

As someone who works as a solicitor in the field of discrimination law, I am all too regularly struck by how damaging discriminatory comments can be, both to the individuals on the receiving end and to the basic principle that a tolerant society is a better one for all.

Alice Ramsay

London EC1

A strident, thought-provoking, astute and downright entertaining piece by Julie Burchill: it was almost like being back in the 1980s. Then the Observer bows to complainants' outraged sensibilities and censors it. It's almost like being back in the 1880s.

Sean Cordell

Manchester

That you should choose to publish Julie Burchill's ugly rant is hard to believe. The spite and venom, bigoted language and refusal even to acknowledge that there is more than one kind of transsexual were vile. The "all Bollinger buddies but still working-class" chumminess was nauseating.

Ron Donachie

Glasgow

I understand there is a great deal of protest regarding Julie Burchill's article, but I think the Observer and Ms Burchill were within their rights to publish such views. Giving offence is not a good enough reason to suppress controversial opinion; real cultural dialogue requires engaging with challenging ideas, even bigoted ones. But by standards of basic decency and good taste, the article did not merit publication. The Observer was wrong to give such ignorance a platform.

Steven Martin

Peterborough, Canada

Julie Burchill's article displayed the bigotry and blind prejudice that are at odds with the Observer's political views.

The tone of the article throughout was one of flippant ridicule for a hugely marginalised section of society, casually accusing all transgender people of being reactionary and therefore worthy of her abusive retort.

Beyond the shameful words used to define and ridicule the transgender community, there was an even more sickening tone of bigotry that seemed to imply transgender people had less of a right to comment on feminist issues than "natural-born" women.

Alex Keble

London E3

Suzanne Moore's "Brazilian transsexual" comment was plainly nothing more than a writer trying to find a non-mundane way of saying "jaw-droppingly gorgeous". There really is nothing more to it than that. She has nothing to apologise for and I hope she does not.

Burchill has been a known quantity for decades and nothing she wrote was disproportionate to groundless death threats. Disgracefully, you have damaged free speech by bending the knee to the outrage industry. This might have been excusable had they the slenderest leg to stand on, but they have not.

Michael Rolfe

Cape Town