It Is Not Easy Being A LGBTQ Reporter.

 One of the news sites that I visit is one by the Poynter Institute. Hun? Who? What?

The Poynter Institute for Media Studies is a non-profit journalism school and research organization in St. Petersburg, Florida, United States. The school is the owner of the Tampa Bay Times newspaper and the International Fact-Checking Network. It also operates PolitiFact.

I was checking the other day and I came across this article.

How LGBTQ+ journalists can survive this moment in American politics

A legislative blitz of anti-LGBTQ+ bills has hit statehouses across the country. What’s an LGBTQ+ journalist to do?

By: Mike De Socio

May 2, 2023

This year is shaping up to be one of the hardest years yet to be a queer or trans journalist in America.

A legislative blitz of more than 450 anti-LGBTQ+ bills has hit statehouses across the country. Add to that a near-constant cycle of debate in the political arena — over everything from trans rights to drag queens — and it can be debilitating to absorb all of the hate aimed at LGBTQ+ people.

So, what’s an LGBTQ+ journalist to do? How do we report on these mounting atrocities while protecting our mental health? What should newsroom leaders be doing to support us at this moment? And where do we draw the line of “objectivity” when our own rights are under attack?

“There’s a heightened level of scrutiny now for every LGBT person who is writing about the trans or anti-LGBT laws, that somehow we have this agenda or this political motivation, when really all we’re talking about is being fair and accurate in our coverage,” said Ken Miguel, president of the board of directors for NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists, and a special projects producer for ABC7 in San Francisco.

I know a couple trans journalists and it must be hard when you represent LGBTQ+ media, somehow I don’t think that governors DeSantis and Abbott will be eager to give an interview to them.

When Miguel wanted to report on the early days of the marriage equality debate in California in 2004, there was some question about whether he, as a gay journalist, should be allowed to cover the story at all. His TV newsroom decided that “having somebody with intimate knowledge of the ‘other side,’ so to speak, was more beneficial than harmful,” he said, and Miguel was allowed to cover the story. But it wasn’t easy.

He and a lesbian photographer conducted an interview with a lawmaker in Sacramento who was opposed to same-sex marriage. The pair tried to brace themselves; they knew the politician was likely to say some hateful things about gay people. The conversation left a mark, and they spent the drive back to San Francisco processing what they had heard. “Looking back, I can say it was traumatic,” Miguel said.

I was on the other side of the interviews and 99.999 percent of them were alright with me. One Sunday morning talk show host was not, the interview became about trans athletes instead of all the bills before the legislature that year. It left a very sour taste in my mouth. Another wasn’t combative but rather ignorant… zero knowledge on the subject. We finally got it through their thick head to take a look at the Associated Press Stylebook first, it did turn out that once he thought that we were not telling him what to say but trying to educate him he mellowed. But most of the time the reporter would talk to you first and chat with you. But for the Sunday morning talk show they just escorted me, I sat down and the host just kept on asking about trans sports and locker rooms.

A similar dynamic is now playing out for LGBTQ+ reporters. What happens when you’re queer or trans, and the “other side” is arguing that you shouldn’t be able to get married, or get medical care, or even exist in public?

“I think sometimes LGBT people give the opposing point of view too much credit because they feel they have to overcompensate,” Miguel said. It’s better for journalists to resist this impulse, he advised, and instead anchor their reporting in the facts. He cited the debate over gender-affirming care for trans youth.

I think of James Baldwin a lot: “We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.”

You can discuss both sides of slavery and you can’t discuss both sides of oppression.

“You have the entire medical community reinforcing that this is life-saving care,” Miguel said. “And then you have lawmakers who are trying to remove those rights from people and that care from people, without any knowledge. … Is that a fair argument? Is that fair reporting?”

He said he would argue that it isn’t. Reporters can’t put the genie back in the bottle, but they can report that the person making the anti-trans argument does not have any medical degree, or is not qualified to speak on the topic.

Ding, ding, ding… We see this now down in Florida where DeSantis crew is passing an anti-trans health bill but many of the media outlets don’t mention that all the major medical associations are against the bill.

The hostile political climate toward LGBTQ+ people means that journalists also need to consider their mental health.

[…]

“Our newsrooms should be thinking about ways to make that work sustainable and minimize burnout,” Petrin said. 

It can’t be fun interviewing a politician who is anti-LGBTQ.