“It’s like we are not human”: discourses of humanisation and otherness in the representation of trans identity in British broadsheet newspapers

ABSTRACT This paper examines how transgender identity is represented across articles from three British national newspapers: The Guardian, The Times and The Telegraph. Transgender identity has become a highly contentious issue in areas of western culture, especially Britain, and even within feminism itself, with heightened visibility leading to a backlash against the rights of trans people to protection, and even recognition, in law. However, the influence of the broadsheets, Britain’s so-called “quality” newspapers, in shaping the debate over transgender rights is under-researched. Using feminist critical discourse analysis (Michelle), I assess how the above newspapers position transgender subjects to alternatively legitimize or “other” transgender identity. Despite polarisation on issues of trans rights between newspapers, this paper finds that both “pro-trans” and “anti-trans” articles appropriate a feminist lexicon to define womanhood and gender in ways that justify their stance and foster division within wider society. I conclude that (white, cisheteronormative) feminism has become a vehicle for mainstream news media to further political agendas that can be crudely cast as either “progressive” or “conservative”.


Introduction
The dynamism of gender has been widely discussed in the field of gender and language studies since the 1990s, emphasising the plurality that exists within gender identity (Judith Butler 1990;Raewyn Connell 1987;Michelle Lazar 2014;Camila Montiel Mccann 2021;Mimi Schippers 2007;Candace West and Don Zimmerman 1987).As a result, there has been a marked increase in research on gender beyond the binary, including on transgender (or "trans") identity.In recent years, such research has largely been in response to the marginalisation of transgender people in some cultures, with transphobia particularly prevalent in Britain.According to Stonewall's "LGBT in Britain: Trans report" (Chaka Bachmann and Becca Gooch 2018), 41% of trans people in Britain have experienced a hate crime or incident related to their gender identity.Moreover, the current Conservative British government has refused to amend the 2004 Gender Recognition Act (GRA), despite widespread support for reform (Gendered Intelligence 2019).The GRA is a law that governs how transgender people can get their gender identity legally recognised.However, through the GRA, a transgender person must submit their case to be reviewed by a panel made up of legal and medical professionals, including psychologists (Sally Hines 2010).Hence, enshrined into the institutional process of gender identification are pathologizing processes that perpetuate the "othering" of trans identity.Indeed, the increasingly populist tendencies of the far-right British government has seen the trans community become a scapegoat, fuelling the so-called "culture wars" that distract the population from other political crises, such as austerity (Shon Faye 2021;Ruth Wodak 2021).In light of this, research on transgender identity is increasingly necessary to both inform the public and challenge misconceptions.
Yet, much recent language research is concerned with trans self-representation and tends to emphasise the role of social media (Lucy Jones 2019; Abigail Oakley 2016; Zach Schudson and Sari van Anders 2019).In terms of mainstream media, up-to-date research is more limited.Laurel Westbrook (2010) has compared the use of the term "transgender" across mainstream and trans media in the USA, and a more recent publication by Angela Zottola (2021) examines trans representation in both the British and Canadian press.Of the British press, Jaime Bolzern, Nandi Mnyama and Dean McMillan (2019) found that British newspapers are particularly irresponsible in reporting on cases of suicide by a trans individual, demonstrating a callous disregard for trans lives.However, this research was limited to the reporting of suicide and, as with Zottola (2021), examined a mix of tabloid and broadsheet newspapers.Indeed, much sociolinguistic research on the British press has focused on the more explicitly biased tabloids, or a mix of tabloid and broadsheet newspapers, neglecting to thoroughly investigate the broadsheet, or "quality", newspapers alone (see Judith Baxter 2018; Andrew Chadwick, Cristian Vaccari and Ben O'Loughlin 2018;Roger Fowler 1991;Teun Van Dijk 1991 for wide-ranging sociolinguistic analyses of the British press).The perception of broadsheet newspapers in Britain as somehow inherently respectable (with a higher price-tag and a focus on political and economic news, as well as investigative journalism) means that they are in a unique position for reproducing hegemonic discourse by appearing to be most rooted in epistemological truth and, hence, offering a "reflection" of society devoid of the bias shown in the tabloids.Hence, the present analysis of broadsheet press aims to reveal the increasingly subtle and coded ways that transphobic discourse can be (re)produced to shape wider perceptions of the trans community and, ultimately, provide legitimation for a politics of inequality.
Applying a feminist critical discourse approach (Michelle Lazar 2005), I expose how hegemonic femininity is reproduced by broadsheets with an allegiance to the right-wing British Conservative (Tory) government-The Times and The Telegraph-to "other" trans identities and, therefore, justify discourses of anti-trans discrimination.The left-leaning The Guardian, on the other hand, situates trans identity within discourses of human rights and social justice, taking up an ethical challenge to discrimination.Below, I discuss the subordination of transgender identities according to the concept of hegemonic femininity, and the role of media in (re)producing this marginalisation.I then situate my work within feminist critical discourse analysis.The subsequent analysis will first discuss trans positioning in The Guardian, and move on to examine articles from The Times and The Telegraph.The conclusion will summarise the themes and patterns identified in the discourse analysis and highlight areas for further research.

The marginalisation of the trans community
The concept of "cultural hegemony" was introduced by the Marxist Antonio Gramsci to explain the relationship between culture and power that maintains a capitalist social organisation (Antonio Gramsci 1971).According to Gramsci (1971, 12), social and economic dominance in modern society functions not through coercion, but rather through the process of manufacturing consent.This is achieved by presenting existing power structures as the common-sense organisation for social life, meaning that the subordinated working class will not rise up to challenge their lot under the belief that their social position is not only inevitable, but unchangeable (Gramsci 1971).The concept of hegemony has since been applied to explain the "normative" configurations of gender and sexuality enforced through colonisation and white supremacy (Kimberlé.Crenshaw 1989;bell hooks 2000;Tiffany Lethabo King 2019, 23;María Lugones 2010).Hegemonic masculinity and femininity are the expressions of gender that are dominant because they naturalise existing power structures (Connell 1987;Montiel Mccann 2021).For example, women whose gender practices guarantee the "dominance of men and the subordination of women" are privileged in society because they reinforce the cultural hegemony of patriarchy (Schippers 2007, 97).Thus, whilst men as a group hold a dominant position over women overall, consent for patriarchy is manufactured amongst women by giving those whose gender practice upholds patriarchal values the power to marginalise other women, and even some men.As patriarchy intersects with white supremacy and capitalism, hegemonic femininity is consequently heteronormative, white, non-disabled, materially privileged and cisgender-i.e.where a person's gender identity matches the gender that they were assigned at birth (Crenshaw 1989;hooks 2000;Lethabo King 2019;Lugones 2010;Mccann 2021).
To better understand how gender identity is enregistered with social meaning to make some identities hegemonic, we can apply Mary Bucholtz and Kira Hall 2005, 586) processes for the production of identity in interaction.These are: • "Adequation": alignment with a group, versus "distinction": the process of "othering" or differentiation from a group.• "Authentication": making claims to realness, versus "denaturalisation": the process by which identity is viewed as false.
• "Authorisation": the institutionalised affirmation of identity, versus "illegitimation": the dismissal or censor of identities by institutional power structures.
Through these processes, we can see how a hegemonic gender identity is formed through adequation, authentication and authorisation.On the other hand, transgender identity is subordinated through the processes of distinction, denaturalisation and illegitimation due to its subversion of patriarchal norms.These processes will be applied to aid the analysis of transgender representation in The Guardian, The Times, and The Telegraph.Hegemonic femininity attempts to define women, the "subject of feminism" (Butler 1990, 2), in stable and fixed terms and, consequently, it has been embraced by some socalled "gender critical feminists" as a prerequisite for belonging in the movement.For instance, the process of transitioning was described by one such "feminist" as a "mutilation", "freak show", and "lobotomy" (Sheila Jeffreys 1996, 81-88).Such terms reflect the distinction of trans people from the presupposed cisgender norm.Transness is denaturalised through associations with mental illness and disability (thereby also differentiating, and ultimately subordinating, disabled people and those with mental health issues to this presupposed "norm").This process of denaturalisation contributes to the association of trans people-particularly trans women-with deception, where trans women are not seen as "real" women but as cisgender men disguised as women, thus posing a threat to "authentic" (i.e.cisgender) women.Such misconceptions are perpetuated by the (mis)representation of trans people in the media (GLAAD 2020).Considering the minority status of trans people (in Britain, the Government Equalities Office 2018 estimates a trans population of between 200-500,000, out of a population of over 65 million), most cisgender people get their knowledge about trans identity from the media (Disclosure 2020;Faye 2021, 127;Zottola 2021).The stereotyping of trans identities, therefore, enables social ostracization, which itself enables the illegitimation of trans identity by institutions of power, including the British government.

A feminist critical discourse approach
This research analyses British broadsheet news articles using feminist critical discourse analysis (FCDA).Proposed by Lazar (2005, 10-11), FCDA aims to analyse how power and dominance are produced and resisted through textual representations of gendered social practices.As with all critical discourse analysis, FCDA analyses text at a micro-analytical level and relates this to a macro-analysis of context to explain the role of language in (re)producing or challenging existing power dynamics (Lazar 2005;van Dijk 1991).To aid the micro-analysis of the texts selected for this paper, Theo Van Leeuwen (1996) model for studying the representation of social actors is applied.This model focuses on the way(s) social actors (in the case of this paper, transgender subjects in broadsheet news articles) have their actions represented in discourse.For instance, features of exclusion (where the action is present, but the actor absent) can render an identity marginalised, whilst features of inclusion (where the actor is foregrounded and individualised) can render an identity hegemonic.By applying this model, the microanalysis of the selected articles can identify texts that aim to include and humanise trans identity, and those that aim to exclude, and thereby dehumanise, trans identity.
My first aim in applying FCDA is to expose how the British broadsheet news media represents the identity of trans people in order to further or challenge anti-trans discrimination.My second aim is to expose how a specific type of white, cisheteronormative and middle-class feminism has become co-opted by the British press to justify transphobic reporting (Anna Carastathis 2014; Sophie Lewis 2019).Lazar (2005) proposed FCDA as "analytical activism", which aims to emancipate people from patriarchal power structures by creating a critical awareness that aids the development of feminist strategies for resistance and change.Issues of anti-trans discrimination are feminist issues.As far as feminism is the social and political movement to end gender discrimination and patriarchal dominance, the marginalisation of trans people is one of the most urgent feminist issues of our time.There is a crisis within feminism, in which hegemonic femininity sets the standard of femaleness that feminism claims to protect.Just as women of colour, working class women, and queer women have been subordinated within feminism, so too are trans women-and with an increasingly alarming viciousness (Carastathis 2014;Crenshaw 1989;hooks 2000).
Drawing on data from my doctoral research, I analyse news articles centring transgender subjects.Using Nexis®, British broadsheets were searched for news articles with a strong representation of women and/or minority genders (i.e.nonbinary/gender nonconforming), throughout the period from September 2020 until July 2021.Of 1,263 articles overall, 114 in the data set centre a trans subject, and four have been selected for analysis here.Of course, there are limitations to using such a small sample size for this study.Namely, that to apply these findings to the British broadsheet press overall would be an overgeneralisation.However, the articles analysed here were chosen precisely because they are archetypal of the overall representation of trans identities by the selected newspapers.Of the trans-focused articles within the data set, the most dominant discourse (with 29 articles) was "trans rights are dangerous", followed by "trans people are people too" (with considerably less, just 13, articles).These discourses reflect the two sides of the so-called trans "debate" in British politics, and the selected articles are considered by this author to be the most exemplary of how each side is presented within the broadsheets.The selected articles from The Guardian are from a series it ran on "trans freedom fighters", which represents an explicit desire for alignment between the paper and trans rights.The articles from The Times and The Telegraph were chosen because they reflect the main topic covered by these newspapers about trans people in Britain: the (supposed) tension between trans rights and freedom of speech.Focusing on a small sample allows for an in-depth analysis of the linguistic strategies and discourse(s) mobilised by these newspapers to represent trans identities.In the next section, I analyse two articles from The Guardian that illustrate discourses of humanisation, and one article each from The Times and The Telegraph that illustrate discourses of "otherness".

Trans people are people too: discourses of humanisation in The Guardian
The selected articles by The Guardian explore trans activism and empowerment, as well as marginalisation and discrimination, and produce a discourse that positions trans people as deserving of the same rights as everyone else.Article a) was published on September 29 2020, under the heading: "'Our love is radical': Why trans activists lead the way in protest movements."Article b) was published on October 8 2020, under the headline: "'PTSD is real, I wake up crying': The activist who stood up to prison guard abuse."Both articles were part of a series ran by The Guardian on "trans freedom fighters", spotlighting the roles played by trans activists in movements beyond the fight for trans rights, such as gay liberation, Black Lives Matter (BLM), and the "Me Too" movement.In this endeavour, The Guardian is positioning trans people as social actors in wider society.Four linguistic strategies are mobilised to produce this discourse of humanisation and inclusion: speech representation, establishing a collective (adequation) and essential identity (authentication), and activation (Van Leeuwen 1996).

Speech representation
Speech representation is the representation in a text of speech from a person other than the author of that text (Sofia Lampropoulou 2014, 470).Both headlines from The Guardian centre trans subjectivity by opening with speech representation from a trans subject: (1) "Our love is radical": Why trans activists lead the way in protest movements (2) "PTSD is real, I wake up crying": The activist who stood up to prison guard abuse Example 1), from article a), opens with a quote from Ravyn Wngz, a BLM trans activist.Example 2), from article b), opens with a quote from Rojas, a trans and gender nonconforming queer activist who launched a "Me Too" movement from prison in response to abuse by prison guards against trans and queer prisoners.Rojas is also featured in article a), as part of a group of contemporary activists, including Mariah Moore (an organiser for Black Trans Circles) and Wngz.Both articles are thus built around the voices of trans people, rather than the voice of the journalist framing the trans subject.
Example 3) below is taken from article b), which is presented in an interview format: (3) [Interviewer] I know there are a lot of trans and queer people in California women's prisons.Can you tell me a bit about this community behind bars?[Rojas] There were so many queer folks and GNC and trans people inside.There were roughly 4,000 people incarcerated at CCWF [Central California Women's Facility], eight people in a room, and every room had at least two trans and GNC folks.
Here, the journalist guides the discussion but does not dominate it, leaving the article to be made up almost entirely of speech representation from Rojas.The interviewer positions themselves as someone with some knowledge on the subject of trans and queer prison populations, by starting with the conclusive verb phrase "I know."However, they ask Rojas to explain and contextualise this knowledge based on their lived experience as a queer trans prisoner.Hence, Rojas is given the power and space to define their own identity and "community".In their response, Rojas uses declarative statements and figures to demonstrate their authority on the subject through authentication-they lived in CCWF with fellow trans and queer prisoners and can therefore offer specific details regarding the population that an outsider (like the interviewer) cannot.By opening the headlines of both articles with the voices of trans activists, and centring these voices within the article text, The Guardian enables trans people to construct their own narrative and identity, authorising their accounts of their gendered experience by including them in the public space of a newspaper.

Collective identity
The activists represented by The Guardian all demonstrate a sense of collective identity, emphasising themes of community and inclusion.Examples 4-6), from article a), show speech from Moore (example 4), Rojas (example 5), and Wngz (example 6): (4) "We've always led the charge.We've always been protectors."(5) "We're criminalised for being who we are."(6) "Our love is radical." These three activists all consistently use collective pronouns and determiners, such as "we" and "our", to position their identity within the wider trans community through adequation.Similarly, in article b), Rojas repeatedly uses the collective pronoun "we", for example: (7) "We were sick of it.We weren't going to let the officers abuse us anymore."Yet, when discussing the guards, Rojas switches to "they": (8) "They constantly misgender us" (9) "They make you bend over as they walk across the yard" The use of the third person pronoun "they" distinguishes the guards as the out-group and antagonists.When explaining the prisoners' protest, on the other hand, Rojas switches between collective pronouns and the generic "you".Speaking about the effect of mistreatment on the prisoners, they state: (10) "You feel shame.You want to keep it secret" (11) "You have to get super creative" By using the generic "you", that refers to an indefinite number and undefined category of people, Rojas invites the (presumably) cisgender reader to find common ground and identify with queer and trans prisoners, disrupting the narrative of otherness that traditionally marginalises both criminals and the LGBTQ+ community.This collective "us" is then positioned against a threatening and harmful "them"-the guards who criminalise and harm trans people.Hence, through adequation, the reader is encouraged to empathise with, and thereby humanise, trans people.

Essential identity
By representing trans identity through an essentialist narrative, The Guardian authenticates it through the very same means that have been used to authenticate the patriarchal binary gender model (i.e.conceiving of gender as intrinsically linked to sex and coming with pre-determined characteristics).In article a), contemporary trans activists are positioned in succession to two historical trans and gender nonconforming figures: Sylvia Rivera and Pauli Murray, active in the gay liberation and civil rights movements respectively.This reflects the aim of the article: to establish the category "transcestors" in order to produce a historical lineage which debunks the notion that trans identity is a mere trend or the result of a progressive agenda.The notion of historical longevity and tradition produces the idea of an inherent "transness", which is reproduced by the speakers in the present day in both articles.For example, Moore argues that: (12) "We've always been freedom fighters" (13) "We're naturally birthed this way" Moore emphasises the role of nature in shaping their gender identity.Lexis like "always" and "birthed" posit that trans identity is inherent, unchangeable and thus, ultimately, unchallengeable.Just as gender has been presented within the binary model as natural from birth and determining behaviour, trans identity is presented as irrevocably entwined with activism.Hence, transgender identity is made recognisable by being framed within already culturally-approved means of understanding and "doing" gender (West and Zimmerman 1987).
In article b), Rojas summarises the treatment of "Trans, GNC, and queer folks" by the prison guards, stating: ( 14) "It's like we are not human, period." Rojas challenges the dehumanising narrative imposed on them by the guards through simile.By stating that the guards treat them "like" they are not human, Rojas presupposes that they are, of course, human.Thus, it becomes the actions of the guards that are unhuman, rather than the identities of the prisoners.Referring back to example 5), also a quote from Rojas, the in-group "we" (the queer and trans prisoners) is passivated by the action of the out-group (the guards) for their very existence-the reason for the social act of criminalisation is the collective trans identity itself.The sentence is circular-the trans subject ("we") is the same as the object ("us").Thus, the trans and gender nonconforming subjects are "criminalised" for the act of existing.Meanwhile, the social actors who do the criminalising (the guards) are backgrounded.Though their agency has an effect on the ingroup (to criminalise them), the subject position remains with Rojas and their community.This appeals to the humanity of the reader who, it is presumed, knows the inherent wrong in persecuting someone for being who they are and, implicitly, what they have no control over (i.e.someone's sexuality, race, or gender identity).In this case, the narrative that positions trans people as "not human" is flipped and, instead, those who dehumanize trans people are framed as "not human" through exclusion (by denying them subjectivity).Though homogenizing trans identity, both articles use essentializing as a mode of humanisation because it positions trans identity as inherent and therefore authentic(ated).

Activation
The Guardian uses this series to directly undermine anti-trans discrimination by highlighting those whom it impacts-trans people themselves.Yet, trans people are not presented as passive victims in their oppression, but as empowered and agentive activists-a strategy also employed by feminists to challenge the passivation of women in society (i.e. by reframing sexual assault victims as "survivors").Article b) centres around Rojas' activism in starting the "#MeToo Behind Bars" movement, which builds on the recognisable label for the feminist movement against sexual violence.Hence, Rojas' activism is not restricted to so-called "trans issues," but is shown to be aligned with feminist issues that have driven "Me Too." Rojas is introduced in the article with the standalone sentence: (15) Tired of daily harassment and violence by prison guards, Rojas decided to fight back.
Immediately, the syntax gives the reader the sense that Rojas is a force to be reckoned with.Rojas is faced with a problem in the first clause ("daily harassment") and, in the subordinate clause, they act on it ("fight[ing] back").To go back to earlier quotes from article a), trans people are framed as leaders through similar language.Moore states in example 12) that trans people are "freedom fighters" who have historically "led the charge".By invoking the battlefield through such verb phrases and nominalisations, The Guardian positions trans people as powerful social actors through an inclusive history that highlights trans agency across social justice movements.

Trans rights are dangerous: discourses of otherness in The Times and The Telegraph
Both of the following articles from the right-wing broadsheets focus on transness as a threat to society by mobilising the "freedom of speech argument".This argument, as it is weaponized by far-right politicians and commentators, frames politically correct (PC) language and anti-discrimination policy, which is meant to prevent causing harm to marginalised groups, as infringing on the human right to freedom of expression Hayden on Twitter (indeed, transgender people experience higher rates of online abuse -Anastasia Powell, Adrian Scott and Nicola Henry 2020; Erika Sparby 2017).In both of these articles, strategies of speech representation, collective and essential identity and activation were mobilised.However, in this case, it was to dehumanise trans identity by recasting the victim.

Speech representation
The headlines of both articles are as follows: (16) Opinions on trans women may break the law (article c) (17) Judge strikes blow for freedom of speech by defending the right to offend (article d) In example 16), trans women are positioned as the object, rather than the subject, of the article-even though it is about a law aiming to protect trans people from discrimination.The choice of words to frame anti-trans sentiment minimises the harm caused in order to justify this decentring.What is in fact legislation to prevent hate speech is framed as the outlawing of people holding "opinions".The use of the term "opinions", as opposed to "harassment" or "discrimination", authorises anti-trans ideology by presupposing that anti-trans language is an unproblematic reflection of one's own thoughts or feelings.
This necessitates the suppression of any understanding of language as social and constructive, favouring the view that language is devoid of power and somehow separate from context (where trans people are especially vulnerable to abuse).In fact, throughout article c) the voices and experiences of trans people are backgrounded.This has the effect of further silencing the marginalised, transforming issues affecting trans people (like rampant discrimination) into issues affecting cisgender women.Likewise, in example 17), the actions of the judge(s) who ruled in Hayden's case are placed before that of Hayden and anti-trans harassment is reframed as "the right to defend."Re-presenting hate speech and harassment as not merely an opinion but a right paradoxically draws on human rights discourse to effectively suppress the rights of trans people to live free from discrimination.Indeed, throughout article d) the voices of the judges and of the cisgender female defendant dominate the text.Hence, the interpretation of the case that positions Scottow as the victim is the interpretation that is prioritised.Below is an example from the third paragraph of article d): (18) [The judges] said it would be a "serious interference" with the right of free speech if "those wishing to express their own views could be silenced by, or threatened with, proceedings for harassment." Here, the reframing of harassment as a right to free speech is made again through a paraphrasing of the judges' ruling.The judge is then directly quoted and, in this quote, they position cisgender people (like Scottow) as the negative beneficiaries of trans people (Van Leeuwen 1996).Once again, cisgender women are foregrounded and trans people are objectified and positioned as the aggressors, suppressing the fact that it was a cisgender woman, Scottow, who attempted to silence and threaten a trans woman, Hayden, on Twitter.That those who have no experience of being trans have their voices foregrounded over trans people in both articles furthers the othering of trans identity by denying trans people subjectivity.An "us versus them" narrative is manufactured, in which the "us" that the reader is encouraged to align with is not characterised as antitrans, but rather as pro-free speech, and trans people are not marginalised citizens, but tyrannical threats to society.

Collective identity
Both articles c) and d) exploit feminist stereotypes of women as victims in order to successfully other and demonize trans people (Baxter 2018, 85).Cisgender people, especially cisgender women, are positioned as the victims of a trans agenda.Returning to example 17), the text positively frames anti-trans sentiment as the judge "strikes [a] blow for freedom of speech", rather than against trans rights.Once more, the trans community, activists and allies are backgrounded-their actions are framed as aggressive by presumably being the force which placed the judge on the defensive, but their identities themselves are absent.Like article c), hate speech is re-framed as "the right to offend."Implied through this is that cisgender people have rights to freedom of speech, but the alien trans "other" does not have the right to protection against discrimination.This distinction reproduces the notion that trans people are not authorised citizens in British society.Trans activation is positioned as working against cisgender women, rather than as a part of women's movements (as in article b).The example below, from article c), illustrates this: (19) Lucy Hunter Blackburn, founder of the women's rights activists Murray Blackburn Mckenzie, raised concerns last week that anyone who describes a woman as an "adult human female" would face a police investigation.
The founder of "Murray Blackburn Mckenzie", a trans-exclusionary lobbying group, is characterised as a "women's rights activist", implying that trans women are not "real" enough women to be included within the collective identity of "women" and, thus, within the fight for women's rights.Hence, the "us versus them" framing of articles a) and b) is flipped so that the "us" that the reader is presumed to identify with excludes trans people and, in particular, excludes trans women from the definition of "woman".

Essential identity
This notion that that trans women are not "real" women is crucial to the justification of anti-trans ideology.In example 19), Hunter Blackburn raises the concern (without any evidence) that "anyone who describes a woman as an 'adult human female' would face a police investigation [under the amended Hate Crime Bill]."The appropriation of biology implicit in the terminology "female", predicated by the dual category "adult human", works to present as fact that only certain women (presumably those with the "correct" combination of female chromosomes, genitalia and gonads) are women.This binary categorical pair of "real" women versus trans women is made again, through the positioning of another "feminist" in example 20) below.
(20) Susan Smith, director of For Women Scotland, a pressure group that opposes extending full women's rights to trans women Implied through this characterisation is that trans women are "fake" women who do not deserve the rights of "full" (i.e.cisgender) women (or even "full" humans, for that matter).Once again, trans women are excluded from the category "women", denaturalising their gender identity by authenticating only cisgender womanhood.
As in article c), article d) reproduces this binary categorical pair.The examples below show how Scottow is first introduced (21) and how Hayden is introduced (23-24).
(21) Scottow, 40, a mother of two (22) a trans woman who reported [Scottow] for calling her a "racist", a "pig in a wig" and "a man" (23) Stephanie Hayden, 47, a lawyer from Wembley, London [who] obtained a gender recognition certificate in 2017 that recognised her in law as a woman In 21), Scottow is personalised through a quintessentially feminine label, as a "mother"connoting both a nurturing character and indicating biological femaleness, a necessary prerequisite in both articles for being a "full" woman.On the other hand, the reader is first introduced to Hayden through the abusive labels used by Scottow on Twitter ( 22), where she is reported to have called Hayden a "pig in a wig" and a "man"-both harmful labels that cast trans women as either not human or "really" men dressed up as women, which manufactures the association of trans women with deceit and danger (GLAAD 2020).The article then introduces Hayden, in example 23), through functionalisation, as a lawyer, offering no personalisation.Hayden is then dehumanised through the suggestion that her womanhood is superficial as the article focuses on the fact that she obtained a gender recognition "certificate", which means that she is recognised "in law" as a woman.This leaves implicit that Hayden is not a woman anywhere but the law, and thus her womanhood becomes tenuous because it is based on a piece of paper issued by the government, rather than by any essential identity (i.e.mother).

Activation
As in articles a) and b), trans people are presented in The Times and The Telegraph as active and agentive-but in a threatening, rather than liberating, way.The examples below are taken from article c): (24) Activists who promote the view that a trans woman is not a woman will be breaking the law (25) Campaigners for freedom of speech fear the bill will be used "as a weapon" by [trans] activists to try to frame dissenting views as "hate speech" In 24), the "view that a trans woman is not a woman" is presented innocuously, authorising prejudice by backgrounding the negative beneficiaries of such statements (trans people) and thus suppressing the impact of discrimination.By labelling such statements as "opinions" and "view[s]," the presupposed intent is framed as innocent and, by extension, so are its perpetrators.Furthermore, note the positive evaluation implicit in the labelling of transphobic "feminists" in example 25) as "Campaigners for freedom of speech."This is juxtaposed to the hostile and aggressive characterization of trans activists who, it is claimed, may use the bill "as a weapon".This justifies the refusal to extend rights to trans women by positioning them as dangerous, rather than vulnerable.
Interestingly, in article d), Hayden's reaction to harassment is positioned as more disruptive and anti-social than the harassment aimed at her by Scottow.This fulfils the narrative essential to the "freedom of speech argument"-that progressives and advocates of political correctness are "crybabies and snowflakes" (McIntosh 2020).Building on the culturally-embedded trope of the "Loony Left", this narrative presents the desire to avoid causing harm through language as symptomatic of an assault on traditional values by the hyper-sensitive political left (McIntosh 2020;Temple 2008).The article frames Hayden, and advocates of trans rights and PC-culture, as "enemies of free speech."On the other hand, Scottow is given the space to position herself as a victim of this trans agenda, as shown in example 26), a direct quote from Scottow: (26) "Women fighting for their rights against an aggressive LGBT lobby have been silenced for the past three years." Trans rights advocates are positioned as powerful, agentive and aggressive-effectively waging a war on powerless ("silenced") cisgender women.This presupposed victimhood of cisgender women is completely contrived given that Scottow is being quoted directly in a major national newspaper and keeping in mind the statistics quoted earlier in this article-not to mention that trans people are a minority in Britain (Government Equalities Office 2018; Hines 2010).In fact, cisgender people hold all positions of power in government and the current Tory regime has rejected reforms that would make it easier for trans people to be recognised appropriately in law (Gendered Intelligence 2019).However, the construction of cisgender people-particularly cisgender women-as victims of transgender people is necessary in order to construct the right-wing populist narrative of victim-and minorityhood in which the power of the dominant is under threat from a trans/progressive "agenda" (Wodak 2021).The effect of this strategy is to encourage cisgender women to focus their energies on opposing trans rights rather than joining forces to tackle patriarchal supremacy.

Conclusion
The Guardian, The Times, and The Telegraph all use speech representation, adequation, authentication and activation to make their cases for or against the discrimination of trans people in Britain.The articles from The Guardian are sympathetic to the trans community and encourage sympathy from the reader by producing the discourse that "trans people are people too".They achieve this by foregrounding the voices of trans people, who are then able to establish and normalise the trans community, and by positively framing trans agency as emancipatory.On the other hand, themes of otherness and dehumanisation (re)produce a discourse in the right-wing broadsheets that "trans rights are dangerous" to wider society.The Times and The Telegraph both mobilise this discourse by backgrounding the voices of trans people and instead foregrounding the voices of transphobic so-called "feminists", denaturalising transgender womanhood, and positioning trans agency as a threat to the rights of cisgender women and the public as a whole.They achieve this through the appropriation of feminism and the deployment of the "freedom of speech argument".
The "freedom of speech argument" is based on an intentional misconception of language and symbolic power (Claire Kramsch 2020).The right claim that the left (typical supporters of PC language) is restricting their rights, presupposing that the left has symbolic power and that the right does not (Kramsch 2020;Van Dijk 1991, 203).Of course, in Britain, the political right does not lack power-the right-wing Tories have an 80-seat majority in parliament and have been in power for over a decade.Another presupposition of the freedom of speech argument is that language is not a social act, but merely a reflection of a person's opinions.Language is, of course, a social act-we do things with language.Just as we could theoretically go out and cause people physical harm, we can also cause people harm through language (Temple 2008, 149).But just because we can, does not mean that we should, nor does it mean that the act of harming someone should go unpunished.Yet, The Times and The Telegraph make the case that trans people do not deserve the basic trust that they will not be harmed.To justify this, moralising arguments are appropriated: freedom of speech is appropriated from human rights discourse, and feminism is appropriated in order to reframe trans people as villains, rather than victims.This cynical appropriation of feminism is enabled only through the categorisation of "women" according to hegemonic femininity, in which only cisgender women count as "full", authentic women and citizens, and are thus perceived to be more entitled to civil and human rights than trans women.
Conversely, The Guardian resists the objectification of trans subjects by presenting them within narratives of action and agency that are situated as a part of wider society, rather than opposed to it.However, I by no means want to suggest that The Guardian is wholly or consistently supportive of the trans community.In fact, just last March (2021), they too ran an article on Scotland's Hate Crime Bill adopting an almost identical stance to The Times' article cited here.This in itself is indicative of the wider issue of legitimising the so-called "trans debate" at all.The notion that trans lives, trans rights and even the existence of trans identity is up for debate enables the objectification of trans people that leads to dehumanising discourse and, ultimately, discrimination.The fact is that the trans community is so rarely given a platform in any form of mainstream media, that the "debate" surrounding their rights rarely includes trans people at all-as evidenced by the exclusion of trans voices in the articles from The Times and The Telegraph.Hence, trans people are dehumanised and denaturalised as their identity is debated and used for political fodder.Consequently, the wider public do not see trans identity as authorised, meaning that discrimination is not challenged because trans people are simply not seen as "fully" human.The transphobic stance of the British government, apparent in its refusal to amend the GRA, is made acceptable by discourses reproduced in the British press which position transness as illegitimate, unnatural and "other".In order to challenge the rampant transphobia of British society, more than just a few sympathetic articles from one newspaper are necessary.The British news media must be held to account according to the ethical standards that we have come to expect from reporting around other marginalised identities (i.e.standards that condemn homophobia).
This paper aims to contribute to that accountability by providing much needed research on trans representation across mainstream news media in Britain.As the British government continue to establish their "war on woke", trans rights have become a political weapon to generate a moral panic against progressive politics which otherwise threaten right-wing conservative ideology.In particular, by examining news articles in the broadsheet press, this paper fills a gap in research on the "quality" newspapers, which are uniquely situated to manufacture the consent necessary for white supremacist capitalist patriarchy because their perception as the gatekeepers of "good" journalism and reliable news means that they are able to authorise certain worldviews and illegitimate others.As with the tabloids, the British broadsheets are strongly ideologically aligned and, as shown in all of the articles cited here, use the so-called "trans debate" in order to further their wider agendas, whether that be progressive and anti-Tory, or conservative and pro-Tory.Much more research is needed on the representation of trans identity across global media, particularly work that goes into more depth to explore how the debate is used to further far-right populist agendas.In the meantime, this paper positions itself as a jumping-off point for an emerging wave of research on news media and anti-trans discrimination.Furthermore, it encourages a feminist reckoning with the problematic anti-trans stance of much mainstream British feminism.Feminism, as I see it, is the collective struggle to end gender discrimination, that necessitates solidarity among all women and gender-oppressed people.This solidarity must no longer be synonymous with the homogenising of womanhood and femininity.