Campaigning consumer group demand The Daily Mail end harassment and outing of transgender individuals.
A new petition from SumOfUs, an international consumer watchdog, is demanding that The Daily Mail stop putting lives at risk and ends immediately the newspaper’s practice of outing and harassing trans individuals.
The petition has been signed by more than 25,000 people in the UK since launching late last week and comes after Lilly Wachowski, the co-director of blockbuster films such as the The Matrix and V For Vendetta, was doorstepped by a journalist from The Daily Mail last week. The journalist threatened Lilly saying if she didn’t do an interview with the paper, she would be immediately outed.
It is not the first time a trans person has been outed by the Daily Mail. In 2013 primary school teacher Lucy Meadows committed suicide after being mocked by Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn who wrote in his column: “He’s not only in the wrong body… he’s in the wrong job”.
Littlejohn belittled Meadows, referring to her “personal problems” and played on the outdated scare tactic that LGBT people are a threat to children. 200,000 SumOfUs members signed a petition asking The Daily Mail to sack Littlejohn.
Hanna Thomas, UK campaigner for SunOfUs.org, said: “Let’s be clear. Outing of trans people literally puts lives at risk. A staggering 41% of trans people attempt suicide at some point of their lives, leaving them incredibly vulnerable when outed without their consent.
“Of course, this isn’t anything new for The Daily Mail. In 2013, after Daily Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn outed primary school teacher Lucy Meadows as a trans woman, she committed suicide after facing public ridicule, and a wildly inappropriate witch hunt driven by The Daily Mail’s coverage.”
“Enough is enough. The Daily Mail must stop outing trans people. It’s not news, and it’s not acceptable.”
To sign the petition, click here:
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