October 23, 2025 (Updated )
Media coverage of the trans community has exploded during the past decade. According to trans youth charity Mermaids, 2019 saw roughly three and a half times as many articles as in 2012, while research by PinkNews found stories in the Daily Mail increased fivefold between 2016 and 2023.
Yet, at the same time, LGBTQIA+ voices are fighting to be more than just punchlines and afterthoughts, against a backdrop of press ‘debates’ about the rights, and even existence, of the trans community.
The same research by Mermaids found that stories were overwhelmingly more negative than in 2012. So, what’s changed? And whose voices are missing?
The political climate for trans people is undeniably toxic, with opinions passed around like an inflammatory political football. Party manifestos in 2019 barely mentioned the trans community — the 2024 manifestos couldn’t be more different.
It follows on from a raft of changes that certainly didn’t make life any easier for trans people. In 2020, plans to reform the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) were scrapped and, in 2023, Westminster also blocked Scotland from passing a similar bill; an unprecedented move in the history of the devolved governments. This chicken-and-egg scenario only fuels more coverage, but not trans voices.
Collecting primary data from BBC News, The Guardian, and The Sun, we analysed 58 news stories between 2021 and 2024. To see how each outlet portrayed the trans community in their most engaged stories, pieces containing the word “transgender” were taken from the top three pages of Google search results.
Within the 58 stories sampled, just 33 per cent of sources were trans people. Of the 145 references The Guardian makes to individuals across 25 trans-related stories, less than 12.5 per cent are trans sources who are directly quoted or spoken to by a journalist at the publication. The Sun published 15 stories that fit the criteria of the dataset, in which a total of two trans voices are directly platformed. Its ratio of trans sources to cisgender sources is 1 to 2.7. Finally, out of its 18 stories, the BBC references 119 sources — 13.5 per cent of which are trans voices directly quoted or spoken to by the BBC.
This echoes earlier academic research: a 2023 study by Camila Soledad Montiel McCann at the University of Liverpool looked into how the community were represented in the press, concluding: “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.”
“What you’ve basically got is the UK’s biggest media, at their very best, trans-sceptic,” says jane fae, director of trans-advocating organisation TransActual. “That’s what we’re coping with — a hostile press, bad faith. The main nationals don’t even talk to us. And what we see very often in these stories, are quite fundamental aspects of trans life, trans policy, whatever, being put together without a trans voice.”
At the same time, many trans journalists feel that the stories themselves focus on the wrong topics. For example, our analysis found that half of the BBC stories in our dataset were sport-related. Danny*, a trans journalist, believes stories should centre on more relatable and human stories. “It’s the boring nuts and bolts of trans reality that I don’t think the media has any understanding of,” he says. “What matters to me is […] will I be able to access my hormones? Will I have to pay £50 a bottle for testosterone for the rest of my life, or is the NHS going to start providing it?”
Jamie Wareham is the founder of QueerAF, an independent media outlet for the LGBTQIA+ community. He agrees that larger publishers need to do a better job. “The media does, in a word, a terrible job at doing justice to stories about Trans+ communities because it doesn’t do the work to understand their lived experience —or to ask Trans+ people to share their side in the first place. Nuanced stories about their lives are not given the time of day and that’s what’s missing.”
For example, a recent investigation by TransActual and QueerAF revealed that six months after the Cass Review’s release — which concluded there was no real evidence base for prescribing puberty blockers to young people — a third of trans patients are being refused hormone replacement therapy prescriptions by their GP. This is affecting hundreds of trans people who might be forced to medically detransition, but received muted coverage in the wider press.
jane fae (L), director of TransActual, and actor, DJ, and LGBTQIA+ advocate, Ki Griffin (R)
However, even if you look past the subject matter, reporting can be dehumanising and insensitive. From our primary data, one article from The Sun deadnames the subject of its story. Deadnaming is the use of the name a person was known by before they transitioned. It can be unintentional, disrespectful, or a deliberate act of violence. Many media guides, such as from Transgender Europe and the Trans Journalists Association, stress that a person’s deadname should never be outed in the press.
In theory, there are safeguards in place, such as the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), the regulatory body for publications including The Sun. Its published guidance for journalists reporting on sex and gender identity advises that reporters “may use various methods to ensure coverage of sex and gender identity is accurate”. Clause 12 of the Code also addresses the use of prejudicial and pejorative language as part of wider rules on discrimination.
But IPSO isn’t clear about whose definition of “accurate” it’s referring to. A person with gender-critical views may not believe that someone’s sex can be changed. Their understanding of gender identity would be very different from that of a trans person. Similarly, Danny explains the protections offered under Clause 12 only apply to individuals. “The issue with IPSO is Clause 12 prohibits prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual’s sex and gender identity. In other words, groups are fair game, individuals are not. So, you can get your Telegraph or Guardian or Times journalist writing whatever they like about trans people as a group.”
A spokesperson for IPSO clarified to Journo Resources that complaints brought under Clause 1 (Accuracy) are “assessed on a case-by-case basis”, depending on “what information was known publicly about an individual and also who was making the complaint”. They added: “Currently, Clause 12 (Discrimination) only applies to individuals and not groups.” While IPSO stresses that the Editors’ Code of Practice is reviewed regularly and that they welcome suggested amendments, the current guidelines leave room for interpretation. Without more clarity and a definitive list of what is transphobia, there’s space for some journalists to express prejudice towards their sources.
Ki Griffin is a transmasculine non-binary actor, DJ, and LGBTQIA+ advocate. He says these problems also seep into in-person interviews: “I think the thing that concerns me the most is how you’re treating your interviewees in the room. I’ve had a handful of interviews where I’ve been misgendered in the room, but then it’s been corrected in the text. I can feel the air of uncomfortableness as a journalist approaches, because there’s this sense of general prejudice.”
So, what is best practice for journalists when approaching trans issues? While telling stories that matter and platforming trans voices is vital, that starts with a culture of inclusivity, respect, and understanding. If you’re covering a story about the trans community, ask whose voices are being heard; directly platforming a subject’s voice is a really powerful way to humanise them in the eyes of the reader. Omitting them makes it difficult to foster empathy, and takes away the subject’s agency to shape their own narrative.
It really matters that journalists prioritise the lived experiences and voices of trans people when having conversations that relate to them — but also in wider news coverage. As Laurel Westbrook and Stef M. Shuster wrote in 2023: “Though it is vital to attend to oppression and inequality, telling stories about trans joy helps scholars, trans people, and the public understand the full complexity of trans people’s lived experiences.” In other words, trans voices shouldn’t just be limited to stories about being trans. “It’s exhausting to have to defend your lived experience,” explains Jamie.
When writing, being diligent about pronouns and chosen names is incredibly important. Guidelines from Transgender Europe also warn against headlines that sensationalise or misrepresent people, as well as clichéd or stereotypical images, such as trans women putting on makeup or high heels. When engaging in the conversation, committing to a truer and fuller depiction of the issues trans people face will help build common ground much more than reaching for a simplistic headline. The fear of getting things wrong can be scary, but being receptive and educating oneself is a proactive way to combat that risk.
Ki suggests: “I think that just comes down to trusting your instincts as a journalist sometimes to interview people who are interesting and will openly go into an interview wanting to connect with you if you approach it as wanting to connect with them.”
Danny adds: “If you don’t know something, try and ask someone who might know better than you. It’s what you should do when you don’t know everything about literally any other journalistic topic. Talk to people, listen to people. Be a better journalist.”
