Solidarity facts: The dpa waves the transgender flag

Various perceived truths about gender have been circulating for some time. The German Press Agency (DPA) is publishing the most important ones as facts. A guest article.

Is gender "assigned" at birth? According to the dpa fact-checking team, yes. "Trans people do not identify with the gender assigned to them at birth," is a phrase that Germany's largest news agency routinely broadcasts to the local media.

But what does "attribute" mean? The Duden dictionary clarifies: "to believe, to be of the opinion that something specific belongs to a person or thing, is peculiar to it." Therefore, if the gender of a newborn is "believed" or "meant," it means something like: it could be, but it doesn't have to be. In this way, the dpa fact-checking editorial team needlessly decouples gender from verifiable reality.

The delegates of the 128th German Medical Association, among others, object to this and explain: “From a medical, sexological and biological perspective, a person’s sex is a reality that can be determined on the body and, in most cases, clearly identified; it is by no means freely available but rather unchangeable.” If one therefore detaches the process from felt truth, sex is determined at birth – or by ultrasound before birth.

Committed to one's own facts

The dpa fact-checking team didn't even need experts to come to this conclusion. Trans people know what gender they are: the one they don't want to be. A trans woman, for example, may be biologically male, but identifies as female—and not as a gender that is "believed" or "supposed" to be female.

Consequently, dpa editors have elevated a language policy that is more common on the left of the political spectrum to the status of a fact. This would primarily be a violation of their own claim: "committed to the facts." What could be the reasons behind this?

"Saying that someone was 'assigned female at birth' is the indirect, more polite way of communicating that they are biologically female. The terminology can also serve to signal solidarity with trans and nonbinary people," write philosopher Alex Byrne and evolutionary biologist Carole Hooven in a guest article in the New York Times . But is it the job of a news agency to spread alternative facts to signal solidarity?

There are certainly formulations that are "committed to the facts" and yet not rude. "Trans people do not identify with their gender" would be one such formulation, or "Trans people do not feel a sense of belonging to their gender."

A matter of definition: “The dpa reports strictly non-partisan”

However, the fact-checkers' transgender solidarity goes even further. One editorial report states: "Trans men are men who were assigned the gender 'female' at birth." For the average person, such a definition is certainly misleading. It's important to consider whether trans men, i.e., biological women, are truly men for the purposes of a news agency. One can take a pragmatic approach and focus on the facts.

For example, the term "man" is still used by those whose reproductive system is geared toward sperm production. This is the widely accepted definition of "man," or "is man"—even if we didn't have a language for it and if trans men didn't exist. Thus, "trans men are men," as well as "trans women are women," are de facto requests for change by a group, political demands that are appropriately displayed on posters at queer demonstrations.

However, when dpa editors make fixed definitions of political demands, this has little to do with being “ strictly non-partisan ”; nor with being “not committed to any political direction” or “groups.”

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Of course, the dpa could resort to “non-partisan” definitions that are also understandable to the average citizen, such as “trans men are born female but identify with the male gender.”

The way fact-checkers are currently handling the issue is counterproductive: the costs and benefits are disproportionate. The dpa supplies all German journalism; its reports can be adopted without further verification . But "alternative facts" and media trust do not go together. Likewise, the dpa's fact-checking business is unlikely to benefit if it is clearly acting as a kind of PR organ for trans activism. Media consumers don't want to be misled – or have a news agency tell them that trans people should be thought of entirely independently of gender. It's likely that this will ultimately do trans people a disservice. Interpretive authority does not equal political gain; this should also be considered, or especially so, in editorial offices. Tolerance and acceptance for trans people, accompanied by real political measures, require effective persuasion. This is one of the reasons why the dpa fact-checking team should start putting its own principles above perceived truths in the course of its work.

Inez Mischitz is a freelance translator, a member of the Berlin Green Party, and lives in Prenzlauer Berg. She writes, among other things, about women's issues that are actually men's issues.

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