NEVER HAVE PRONOUNS been so provocative.
Many of us, including journalists, are struggling in unknown territory opened up by the horrific slaying of Eddie Araujo, a 17-year-old Newark transgender teenager. It's a place that's confusing and different.
Eddie called himself Gwen and, sometimes, Lida. Born a biological male, he identified as female. Luckily, Gwen was cherished as much as Eddie was in a close-knit family. Yet, even after she buried her child in a dress, Sylvia Guerrero still uses the pronoun "he."
Scores of upset Chronicle readers have complained in recent weeks that we do the same in our coverage of the case. "Can't you show Gwen some respect?" said one. Another said, "Why, why, WHY does The Chronicle continue to refer to 'Eddie Araujo' and use masculine pronouns when, by all accounts I have read ... she called herself Gwen or Lida and identified as a woman?"
WELL, SOMETHING SHIFTED at The Chronicle on Monday. In a front-page story on Berkeley High School student Jack Thompson, a female-to-male transgender, we used the pronoun "he" throughout. It ran that way because reporter Kelly St. John left a notation on the story that no pronouns be changed in the editing process. St. John decided that there was no other way to write this story, and rightfully so. (Saf Francisco Chronicle)<p>***I will leave the merits of the controversy to another forum, but one has to pause at the thought of a copy desk frozen into inaction because of a reporter's "notation" on a style point.***
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