The worst part for me is Bill Simmons apology in Grantland[*]. With phrases like "we definitely screwed up", "moving forward", "we appreciated the dialogue", it reads more like a server-outage postmortem, rather than a somber response to the death of a person.
Also, the article 2769 words too long, which is about 2700 too many.
Uses of the Word “Mistake:” 15
Uses of the Word “Mistake” in Reference to Actions on the Part of Grantland
Writers & Editors: 14
Uses of the Word “Mistake” in Reference to the Actions of the Outraged: 1
Compliments Given to Grantland Writers & Editors: 12
Manic Pixie Dreamgirl-Esque Words Used to Describe the Late Dr. V: 5
Total Sentences: 214
Sentences Mostly About Dr. V: 9
Mentions of the Motivations and Feelings of Grantland Writers & Editors: 23
Mentions of the Mean Things Others Have Done: 17
Mentions of the Sad Feelings of Grantland Writers & Editors: 9
Mentions of the Sad Feelings of Dr. V’s Family & Friends: 1
Mentions of Dr. V’s Feelings, Any Kind: 0
Instances of “Apolog[y/ize]:” 3
Instances of “Sorry”: 1
Instances of the Word “Sorry” Directed at Anyone But Caleb Hannan: 0
One important fact that this apology made clear for me was that they were never actually planning on outing her before her suicide:
"2. You need to make it more clear within the piece that Caleb never, at any point, threatened to out her as he was doing his reporting.
3. You need to make it more clear that, before her death, you never internally discussed the possibility of outing her (and we didn’t)."
If you read the original piece without this knowledge it sounds like they wrote an article outing her, told her they would publish it and she then killed herself. What actually seems to have happened is that they only wrote the version of the article outing her after her death.
Still, I don't get why this piece insists on their lack of intention to out her in the published article, while admitting they outed her to an investor.
Feels like 'we dont want to tell the world about it, we just told it to some public figure in your field'
I think this is unfair - the author isn't responsible for a suicidal (from past incidents before the journalist every was involved) and clearly mentally-ill person spinning a web of lies about their life (lies about where she worked, studied etc, that aren't related to her gender) and as a result provoking curiosity about their claims by a journalist who has got his teeth into a fascinating story.
That's all a separate issue from the person's decision to change gender (apologies if this is the wrong verb to describe what she did, I don't intend it to be).
People are vulnerable. And there is a lot of... cruft, attached to sex changes. And not only that, it appears that some family members essentially cut him/her off. So, that's basically a lot of pain all tied up in with the decision to sex-change.
I don't think any of us would have an easy time imagining ourselves in those shoes, but I'd bet that many of us would have an even harder time dealing with it, given how closely we cling to our specific gender trappings.
Some sensitivity to this may have helped.
It would be easier for a person to be honest with the world if the world (and her family, apparently) at least accepted, if not completely understood (because ultimately, it's so subjective that you barely can), gender-change decisions like that.
You clearly aren't familiar with Simmons' writing style. For instance, in my opinion the best thing he's even written was the Oscar Robertson section in The Book of Basketball. He manages, in the course of only a handful of pages, to just about perfectly capture the difficult balance of the O's legacy. His enormous talents, his extremely difficult personality, which got in the way of success, and of course the way that the ever-present racism of the era he played in deeply affected both those things. And I'm not the only one who feels that way. In the second edition, Simmons includes a footnote from Jason Whitlock, one of the most vocal (and, it must be said, controversial) media members about racial issues in sports, and he says essentially the same thing. My point? Simmons uses that language throughout the section. It's his style. He's informal, he's straightforward, he's self-deprecating, and he's funny, and it's why he's been so successful and will continue to be. His language in the letter would be troublesome if it was a departure from his usual writing, but it's not, and so as an avid reader I don't take it as flippant or dismissive.
As for your comment about it being 2700 words too long, the original post here is the only professionally published article I've read on the subject since Simmons' statement (which includes articles on Salon, Washington Post, Deadspin, etc.) which continues to phrase the events as though Hannan acted maliciously. The reason for the length of Simmons' apology was to make clear that Hannan and the editorial staff were extremely unfamiliar with trans* issues, and that it was that lack of education, and not personal hate or bigotry, that caused Hannan to make the mistakes (which Simmons, it should be noted, takes full responsibility for) he did. He didn't realize how grave it is to out someone in the trans* community in life or death, and to him it fit the narrative he found, of an inventor whose life was a complete lie. Again, he didn't understand that keeping a gender identity secret is done out of necessity in our culture, and is not in any way a statement of one's personal veracity. Grantland also published an op-ed by ESPN's Christina Kahrl, who is transgender, in which she eviscerates Hannan and the editorial staff's actions (http://grantland.com/features/what-grantland-got-wrong/). Note that at no point in her attack on Hannan's actions does she attribute it to maliciousness. To quote, "revealing her gender identity was ultimately as dangerous as it was thoughtless."
EDIT: I guess I should I add something, just so I don't get accused of anything. I attended one of the most progressive high schools in the country, and now attend one of the most progressive colleges, and know many LGBTQ and trans* individuals, with a few of the former counted among my closest friends. I believe that one's identity is theirs and theirs alone until they choose (if ever) to come out, and I also strongly believe that active sexual and gender discrimination is a hate-crime. My point is not that Grantland was not horribly horribly wrong. They were. My point is that it was a lack of education that caused their errors, and that the opportunity should be used to continue educating, which Simmons' piece, even if it seems at times to be attempting to shoehorn in an excuse, does. I know the errors they made, but I'm sure the vast majority of Grantland's readership does not.
Also, the article 2769 words too long, which is about 2700 too many.
http://grantland.com/features/the-dr-v-story-a-letter-from-t...