Seventeen Magazine Doesn’t Do Much To Encourage Compassion For Transgender Teens
Posted by: Amelia McDonell-Parry
Filed in:
news
11:30AM, Thursday October 29th 2009
In the upcoming issue of Seventeen there’s a story about a young woman who discovered that her boyfriend was actually a female. While I think it’s cool that a traditional teen magazine like Seventeen is covering the existence of transgender teenagers, which wouldn’t have happened when I was reading the mag back in the day. But the story’s angle doesn’t do much to discourage negative attitudes towards teenagers who are struggling with their gender identity, and that’s a shame.
True, the “as told to” is from the perspective of the girl, Sheri, who believed she was dating someone who was born a male. She was, essentially, lied to when her boyfriend, Derek, didn’t tell her that he was born female and planned on getting a sex change once he turned 18. I have no doubt that it was upsetting for her, especially because teenagers aren’t exactly educated about what gender identity actually means. Sheri says that she would have accepted Derek for who he is, had he just been honest.
However, the overall tone of the article—mostly on the part of Seventeen‘s tabloid-y layout and editing—gives a pretty good idea of why Derek might not have felt comfortable “coming out” to Sheri. The title of the article itself—“My Boyfriend Turned Out To Be A Girl!”—and the arrowed text pointing at a photo of Derek—“He was actually a she!”—totally supports the belief that transgenders are somehow wrong or incorrect in their sexual identity confusion. The bottom of the page compares this type of betrayal—not being told the “true” gender of someone you’re dating—to the betrayal of dating a secret druggie, perv, or baby daddy. These issues are certainly complicated and Seventeen‘s accusatory tone is borderline transphobic. Would it have killed them to do a sidebar on discrimination against transgender teens? Perhaps even an explanation of what transgender even means? Anything to encourage a little bit of compassion for Derek and other teens like him who might be reading Seventeen too? [via Pam’s House Blend]
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H. Blue
wrote on October 29 2009 @ 10:44 am: [report]
Gender identity issues are a tricky one, no matter the age of the audience. I agree, it was wrong for them to portray it the way they did, in a tabloid-y fashion. But, really, it IS a kind of betrayal to not be honest about something like what gender you were born, and in this case, still are. A LOT of people have trouble getting their heads around the idea of a person being transgendered.
As open-minded as I like to think I am, I am the first to admit that I don’t understand gender identity issues at all. At the same time, I think it must be horrible to be born in a body you can’t identify with. All people deserve to be treated with compassion, and not made to feel like freaks, regardless of whether you understand what they’re going through. That’s where the article went wrong- they could have shown the anguish and shock Sheri experienced, while also educating about gender identity issues.
bethlynn00
wrote on October 29 2009 @ 10:49 am: [report]
@ Amelia: All of those suggestions would have been nice to see on that page! I hope the article takes a less sensationalized approach and does not further stigmatize transgender teens. I am glad the issue is being brought up, but I wish they would have taken a different perspective, like interviewing a trans teen or something and not taking this deceptive angle as a representation of them.
Erin Flaherty
wrote on October 29 2009 @ 10:54 am: [report]
i can’t believe they would handle this story so insensitively. (oh wait, yes i can.) what a missed opportunity for seventeen to make some progress. instead they managed to shape this article into a jerry springer episode.
Erin G
wrote on October 29 2009 @ 11:01 am: [report]
Oh, POOOOR Sheri! She is such the victim! Never mind the transgendered teenager. “It” doesn’t have to deal with the anguish of being confused about gender identity!
Ugh, I hate what they did with this story. As if Sheri is the one with all the problems. She was lied to, oh no! Well, Derek was the one who was dealing with a serious life issue. Wtf. Our culture is an atrocity.
Secret Story Time
wrote on October 29 2009 @ 11:02 am: [report]
How could the girl not know? He/she obviously wasn’t a “boyfriend” just someone she was friendly with. And how did she find out the truth?
Seventeen Magazine was uncompassionate? Waht does the public think about this? How did this story surface anyway?
Secretia
alleigh25
wrote on October 29 2009 @ 11:05 am: [report]
While I see your point, he lied to his girlfriend, and cheated on her (which hasn’t been mentioned here yet), and she said she didn’t care that he was a girl, just that he’d lied about it. I don’t think there are many people who can honestly say they wouldn’t have a problem with that, and I don’t think it’s fair to trivialize the betrayal she felt. And, looking at the article again, there’s also the fact that she found out after her neighbors 911 to report him for assault (which may have been an overreaction, but still).
The entire point is that the person she loved lied to her and she felt betrayed, not that there’s anything wrong with being transgendered.
Yes, maybe they should have included, as you said, a sidebar, and since that’s the sort of thing they normally do, I’m not really sure why they didn’t. But I don’t think it’s as badly done as you say.
Amelia McDonell-Parry
wrote on October 29 2009 @ 11:09 am: [report]
@alleigh25 I don’t at all take issue with the girl’s side of the story and thought it was delivered well. My problem is with Seventeen and the sensationalist way they positioned the story.
Erin G
wrote on October 29 2009 @ 11:13 am: [report]
I ditto Amelia. Sensationalism damages both sides of the story.
alleigh25
wrote on October 29 2009 @ 11:14 am: [report]
@Secret Story Time—She didn’t know because he wouldn’t let anything happen “below the belt,” saying he’d been hurt in the past and didn’t want things to move too quickly, and bandaged his chest “because of a baseball injury.” She found out after the cops were called to report an assault (which, as I said, may have been an overreaction, from the couple of sentences describing it, but she’s not the one who called) and the police asked her to identify him. When she did, they told her Derek was actually Dana.
@Erin G—Really? Our culture is messed up because she was hurt about being lied to? And Seventeen is the insensitive one…? She has every right to feel betrayed. And as far as the “it” statement goes, she never refers to him as anything but him/Derek, so that has no bearing on anything. If he’d told her the truth (and, you know, not cheated on her…), she (says) she wouldn’t have cared. Whether that’s true or not, we can’t know, but lying is the real issue here.
alleigh25
wrote on October 29 2009 @ 11:20 am: [report]
@Amelia—I agree with that point. What you said came off a little stronger than that, but you’re right. Seventeen is in a bit of a tricky spot, though. They are, really, the only teen magazine that actually discusses real issues, and they do get controversial, but every time it results in angry letters, often from parents saying they don’t think teens should be reading things like that (too much of that=lost revenue). They’re not a conservative magazine, but they also have been getting less controversial (and a whole lot shorter) lately, with the new editor.
Not saying that makes up for how they presented things, but…
And since that’s 3 posts in like 20 minutes (oops)...I suppose I should leave for now.
Erin G
wrote on October 29 2009 @ 11:21 am: [report]
I’m not saying being lied to and cheated on isn’t worth anything. I’m saying that transgendered issues are taking a back seat, as Derek is in the “bad guy” role (role=story portrayal, regardless of reality). Our culture is messed up because there is no side bar in this article, our culture is messed up because no one wants to talk about transgender issues other than in a sensationalistic story from the POV of the significant other.
equnsuocha
wrote on October 29 2009 @ 11:22 am: [report]
The name Brandon Tina should ring bells for people. That is what can happen when someone is sooooo afraid to be who they are that they hide it from the world. He was raped and sodomized and eventually killed by people he thought were his friends, because he was transgendered and was outted. If she was cheated on by a “traditional” boyfriend there would be no article so this is about transgendered teens and this was done very poorly, shame on Seventeen
Erin G
wrote on October 29 2009 @ 11:32 am: [report]
@equnsuocha
Thank you! This is a very important point! Its seems that no matter what I say on this site, everyone hates me. But as far as this article goes, this is what I’ve been trying to say. Get real, people, being lied to and cheated on isn’t life threatening, its part of being human, move on, get over it. But being the target of hate crimes or simply skewed magazine articles, because of who you are…that’s a big deal. That’s a huge deal.
River
wrote on October 29 2009 @ 02:23 pm: [report]
Ok, time to point out a schoolboy error: Gender is the term for the identification of male or female (through culturally assigned roles), and is commonly misused as a term for biological sex, which is dependent on genitalia and/or chromosomes. Therefore, the statement “...not being told the “true” gender of someone you’re dating…” from the article should be changed to “...not being told the SEX of someone you’re dating…”. Derek did not lie about his gender to Sheri. However, he was not necessarily honest about his biological sex.
And I’ll get off my MoHo alumna soapbox, now.
alleigh25
wrote on October 29 2009 @ 02:54 pm: [report]
@equnsuocha—Very good point.
@Erin G—If it seemed like I was attacking you personally, I apologize. I just meant that while you’re correct that Derek had a lot to deal with too, it seemed as though you were saying that Sheri had no reason to be upset.
Now that I think about it, if they had changed the focus from “Sheri felt betrayed because her boyfriend lied to her” to “If Derek had told Sheri the truth, he could have avoided hurting her and they could have stayed together,” that would have been a much more productive (and less sensationalistic) use of an article, since it would promote openness rather than just cause girls to think, “Oh, I’m so glad that didn’t happen to me.”
To be clear, I think you all have completely valid points, I just think that we need to remember that there are two people and two sides to the story and neither is more important than the other. While the article puts Sheri first, some of your statements have seemingly dismissed Sheri, which is no less biased than what they did. That was the main point I was trying to make.
I still say the quality of the magazine has gone down with the editor switch and this is evidence of that. (And yes, at 19 I still read Seventeen fairly often. But it doesn’t have nearly as much substance as it used to, though still more than what I’ve seen in older issues, from the 80s.)
Ellis
wrote on October 29 2009 @ 11:40 pm: [report]
I don’t know if I expect anything better from Seventeen, but that piece unnerves me nevertheless. Is it unfortunate that Sheri was lied to and was upset about it? Of course. However, is that the side of the story that teens need to be educated about here? Not exactly.
canadiancutie
wrote on October 30 2009 @ 07:57 pm: [report]
This is an issue where my head and my heart are deeply at odds. On the one hand, my head sympathizes deeply with Derek and feels like they should have handled this story better, or selected a couple whose story is positive and could be portrayed as such, not such an all-around negative story which only further stigmatizes teengers like Derek. On the other hand, I feel torn because I know in my heart that had it been me in that situation, I would’ve been the one getting arrested that night, for loudly threatening to kill the motherf**ker.