The Pack Unleashed

Well my brief flirt with fame in our local paper, produced a unexpected minor flurry of press interest.

Three journalists found there way to me via three different routes.

First of the mark was Dan from a press agency in Birmingham, who tracked down my office phone number. I guess it was through my union details and he cleed me just minutes after the paper had hit the stands.

Dan wondered if I was interested in telling my story to a national paper. He seemed to think ,my being a Trade Unionist was an angle, as the Union movement is perceived to be the domain of gruff middle aged men (this is certainly not the case in my union). Anyhow, he left me his number and said sleep on it. Must admit I was not really keen to get into the national press. Of course,, if the Guardian, Observer or Independent wanted to do an in depth piece then I would jump at the chance, but to be honest they will not be interested in my small story. As for the rest, well the tabloids would only trot out a cliched exploitation piece and as for the Mail or Express. Well, a full time, Transgendered,, NHS Trade Unionist, is pretty much everything they stand against.

I can hear their readers now, hurrumphing, over their indignant letters.

So all in all I think talking to the national press would be about as bad a move I could make. To be honest I can't see that they would be interested in my story anyway. Its not really newsy.

Second up, was a lovely lady called Nicki, from my second favourite city Liverpool. She got in touch by emailing me from the link to my blog on the sentinel web page. She was really polite and said she was a freelance journalist who wrote for many of the women's magazines. Now a magazine feature would be more attractive for 3 reasons. 1 ) There may be more space to say something. 2) I would be able to have a little more control over the article 3) errr cash !! Another plus was that she was looking to write the article herself and we struck up a good rapport on the phone. She did seem genuinely interested in what I had to say

So not wanting to rule anything out or in, I let her waltz off and tout my synopsis around and about. She hasn't got back to me at the moment so I guess she drew a blank.

Third out of the blocks was a mysterious un addressed envelope on my doorstep the next day. Now an unmarked unsolicited hand delivered letter usually fills me with foreboding, but on opening it it was from a news agency based in Bristol. They must be keen, I thought because they had snooped my, address and then faxed the letter up here to be hand delivered. So I thought I ought to give them a call. I spoke to a bubbly feature writer called Lauren. She was very positive that she would get some offers. So again I didn't rule anything in or out.

Well over the next few days there was an snowballing or emails between this news agency and myself. Must admit, as time went on, I went cooler on the whole thing. It seemed any magazines, interested would be of the weekly type, that wouldn't give much space to say anything new. Secondly and more concerning, they seemed more and more interested in focusing on my marriage, which wasn't really the point. They were insistent on photos of my  ex wife, and the old me. It became very clear that most of these magazines just wanted to roll out another "sex swap" marriage breakdown story from the wife's point of view. This really disappointed me.

Putting the story over this way, could be seen, not to respect me as a woman. The story becomes the woman, and her sex change husband. It becomes a cliche that marginalizes me, and in some way treats me as sub woman. Treats me as not like their readers. The reason I agreed to the local paper feature in the first place, was that it was for the women's section, and the odd tabloidy phrase aside, it respected and accepted me as a woman. The article that these magazines seemed to want, would almost do the opposite. I am not saying that they would deliberately set out to be unsupportive in their copy, but the laziness of not thinking beyond what has been written a thousand times before, and their obvious ignorance of the issues for transgendered women would result in something that may just reinforce prejudices.

So I have said that neither Caroline or myself would be interested in such an article. That left one offer still on the coffee table. Chat magazine were looking to do an article from my viewpoint, and to include my experience of transitioning at work. Of course it is to Chat's credit that they see the point of what I would say, but to be honest I'm not sure there would be enough space given over to do anything beyond what was in the local paper. I haven't ruled this out yet, but at the moment I'm as cold as tonight's air. Of course wodges of cash in a bulging brown envelope could always warm me up somewhat.

For all my protestations at media's inability to grasp a different message, I'm as shallow as Z-list wannabe in a paddling pool.