From HRC: http://www.hrc.org/blog/entry/cleveland-plain-dealer-coverage-insults-transgender-murder-victim/
by Paul Guequierre
April 30, 2013
Cemia Acoff, a transgender woman was brutally murdered outside Cleveland, Ohio. After her body was found, the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s initial report engaged in anti-transgender and sensationalist coverage, and they have yet to make amends for the worst of it.
The newspaper’s headlines have read, “Oddly dressed body found in Olmsted Township pond identified” and “Brutal slaying marks the end of Cleveland man’s fight for acceptance.” Transgender people are the victims of hate crimes at alarming rates and the transgender community faces discrimination in employment, public accommodations, and in the press far too often. The Cleveland Plain Dealer should know better. The paper’s anti-transgender headlines, pronoun misuse, and questionable reporting are reprehensible.
We call on Ohio’s largest newspaper to do right by the entire LGBT community and apologize for its inexcusable coverage of a tragic murder. Cemia Acoff deserves better.
