Newspaper faces backlash for article ‘shaming’ a transgender woman

A newspaper in Kent has faced a backlash after a reporter wrote a piece about a local transgender woman, concluding that she’s a man.

The opinion column was published in the Kentish Gazette newspaper, published by the Kent Messenger group, alongside a story about transgender people in prison.

The piece, written under the ‘Harry Bell’ pseudonym by a member of staff earlier this month, took aim at a local trans person.

It read: “One argument advanced by such people is that they have women’s brains, but are in men’s bodies.

“In Canterbury, there’s a very obvious transperson. Well, I say transperson, but it’s just a bloke with a feminine haircut who wears women’s clothing.

“With that in mind, I conducted a little experiment. I showed a picture of this person – I happen to know his name – to five women between 23 and 71 and asked them what they thought

“Each correctly said they were looking at a man. Four out of five said something even mroe telling: that he has no idea how to dress as a woman.

I”n other words, to their minds he does not possess what could be reasonably be [sic] called a feminine brain.

“It’s here, therefore, that it seems impossible to disagree with Germaine Greer when she says that dressing up a a woman and calling yourself one does not actually make you one.”

Greer, cited in the column, famously said: “Just because you lop off your d**k and then wear a dress doesn’t make you a f***ing woman.

“I’ve asked my doctor to give me long ears and liver spots and I’m going to wear a brown coat but that doesn’t turn me into a f***ing cocker spaniel.”