Transgendered Teacher Driven To Suicide By The Daily Mail

[Zaune]

The Guardian

A primary school teacher believed to have killed herself after her gender reassignment became national news sent emails complaining about being under siege by the press, it has been claimed.

Lucy Meadows, 32, was found dead in Lancashire on Tuesday, three months after starting to live and work as a woman. Her gender transition was the subject of vigorous press interest after a letter written by the headteacher of St Mary Magdalen's C of E primary school in Accrington just before Christmas was leaked to the media.

In the newsletter, Karen Hardman told parents that Nathan Upton, a popular teacher at the school, should be addressed as Miss Meadows after the Christmas break.

"Mr Upton has recently made a significant change in his life and will be transitioning to live as a woman," the headteacher wrote.

On Friday, Jane Fae, a writer specialising in transgender issues, claimed she had seen emails sent by Meadows in January to another member of the trans community, seeking help. The email evidence has not been made public.

Fae said in an article for the New Statesman: "[Meadows] talks of her good luck in having a supportive head. But the stress of her situation is also visible. She complains bitterly of how she must leave her house by the back door, and arrive at school very early, or very late, in order to avoid the press pack.

"She talks of the press offering other parents money for a picture of her; of how in the end they simply lifted an old picture from the Facebook pages of her brother and sister without permission. A Year 5 drawing removed from the school website was simply recovered through the magic of caching."

Helen Belcher, director of TransMedia Watch (TMW), which monitors media coverage of trans issues, stressed on Friday that while the circumstances surrounding Meadows's death were unclear, "we know that Lucy suffered a huge amount of monstering and harassment by the press when she was very vulnerable around Christmas. That level of press attention could not have helped her mental state one bit."

Belcher said she made a complaint on 20 December to the Press Complaints Commission. The Daily Mail had published a picture of Meadows drawn by a child before she began her transition, showing the teacher dressed as a man with long dark hair.

Richard Littlejohn, a columnist on the Mail, also wrote an article headlined: "He's not only in the wrong body … he's in the wrong job", in which he asked whether anyone had thought of "the devastating effect" on the pupils of Meadows's change in gender.

He wrote: "Why should they be forced to deal with the news that a male teacher they have always known as Mr Upton will henceforth be a woman called Miss Meadows?"

Despite the precise circumstances of Meadows's death not yet being known, Littlejohn and his paper have come in for heavy criticism. A petition has been signed by more than 3,000 people urging the Mail to sack Littlejohn and demanding a formal apology for what they claim was the stress and pain caused to Meadows by the columnist, the paper and its readership.

The petition organiser states: "No one deserves to have their lives turned upside down for their gender identity being thrown into the national spotlight."

A vigil has also been organised outside the Daily Mail offices in Kensington, west London, on Monday at 6.30pm.

The Daily Mail defended Littlejohn's column. A spokesman said on Friday: "It is regrettable that this tragic death should now be the subject of an orchestrated twitterstorm, fanned by individuals – including former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell – with agendas to pursue."

Campbell had tweeted: "I hope journalists are doorstepping Dacre, Murdoch and Littlejohn for their reaction to Lucy Meadows' suicide. The Mail really is scum."

The spokesman then quoted Guardian media commentator Roy Greenslade, who stressed in a Guardian blog that "that there is no clear link – indeed any link – between what Littlejohn wrote and the death of Lucy Meadows".

Fae said the emails passed to her showed Meadows complaining about how the media focused only on the minority of parents unhappy about her decision to teach as a woman.

"Lucy writes of how parents themselves complained that their attempts to provide positive comments about her were rebuffed," Fae said. "The press gang, it seems, were only interested in one story: the outrage, the view from the bigots. The stench of money hangs around – it's widely believed among those connected with the case that money was being offered for these stories."

Jennie Kermode, chair of TMW, said: "What we want to come out of Lucy's death is for people in the media to think about what they are writing and the way they are writing it. We are very keen to advise journalists and we want people in the media to know we are here if they have any questions to ask."

I think I'm taking the evening off college on Monday night.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Change your name again, second round of cosmetic surgery to further alter your facial features, leave the country.

That would be about the minimum required to have a normal life after that, the kind of life everyone else takes for granted.

Since the FIRST round is rarely affordable, suicide starts to become the best option possible.

Which functionally means the Mail is a pack of murderers.

[UnderAGreySky]

"Which functionally means the Mail is a pack of murderers"

And that doesn't even surprise me.

I don't know from where I get this, but the name "Richard Littlejohn" is firmly tagged in my head as someone who is a horrible person and an asshole. I'm not keen to google him to figure out just what issue made me associate him with those traits.

[HMS Sophia]

Im currently applying to be a teacher and this... Really upsets me. I don't have much to add bar shock, outrage and sympathy.
Also, fuck the guardian writer who said there was no clear link between the mail and the suicide. Eight.

[HMS Sophia]

http://action.sumofus.org/a/daily-mail- ... s/?sub=taf

That's a petition for an apology, and for the removal of the writer responsible (littlejohn). They nearly have the required number, but the more the merrier.

[Vendetta]

Also, fuck the guardian writer who said there was no clear link between the mail and the suicide. Eight.

The reason they said that is because if a real publication stated or even implied a causal link Littlejohn would sue their balls off thanks to the UK's shitty as fuck libel laws.* It would be impossible to prove that there was a causal link, and under British law that is what the Guardian would have to do if they said there was.



* NB The only reason this will not happen to random people on the internet is because no-one cares, not because there's no legal protection from libel law here.

[Ahriman238]

My sympathies to the victim, any surviving friends and family, and the poor students who were ruthlessly USED by a cynical corporation to inspire outrage against a beloved teacher, whom they have now lost.

Every transgendered person I've known (only a few, I admit, and not necessarily a representative sample) has had to deal with massive shit from friends, family, work. It doesn't have to be discrimination or outright rejection, a lot of the time it's just an awkwardness where there was none. From everyone. Leaving you alone. I cannot imagine having to cope with that from over a hundred people, and then add media attention and community outrage to the heap.

Fuck Littlejohn, Fuck the Mail, the Guardian, the administration, certain parents mentioned, and everyone else who had a hand in this. Fuck them up the rear with a baseball bat. Wrapped in barbed wire.

[HMS Sophia]

The reason they said that is because if a real publication stated or even implied a causal link Littlejohn would sue their balls off thanks to the UK's shitty as fuck libel laws.* It would be impossible to prove that there was a causal link, and under British law that is what the Guardian would have to do if they said there was.

I had a feeling it might be.
So it's less "There's nothing" and more "We aren't saying there is a link, honest"?

[Zaune]

More like, "We can never be certain enough to send Littlejohn down for murder, but..."

[Lord Pounder]

Littlejohn is a vile disgusting human being who quit The Sun for The Daily Mail because The Sun wasn't xenophobic enough for his tastes. Worthless fucker makes Kelvin McKenzie look like Mother Theresa.

[OneEyedTeddyMcGrew]

The Daily Mail's reply to the people that are quite rightly calling them on their bullshit is something to behold.

"It is regrettable that this tragic death should now be the subject of an orchestrated Twitterstorm, fanned by individuals – including former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell – with agendas to pursue"

This is an OFFICIAL SPOKESMAN saying that. Fuck me, guys. Stay classy.

EDIT: It should be noted that the Daily Mail has some serious form in this. There was another firestorm a few years ago when Jan Moir drew a link between the premature death of ex-pop star and the fact that he was in a same-sex civil partnership in one of her columns (Of course, she never outright said that he died because he was infected with TEH GAY. Just implied it heavily enough so that a blind man could see it) Oh, and this was published less than a week after his death.

In short, fuck them and the horse they rode in on.

[HMS Sophia]

A vigil is being held outside their offices tonight. The petitions have reached some ridiculous level of signatures (the one I linked is over 120,000). And their only response is "Stop targeting us with your petty agenda's"...
Fuck this shit.

[OneEyedTeddyMcGrew]

It should be also be noted for any of the non-Brits that may not know the details is that Richard Littlejohn, Peter Hitchens and Melanie Phillips are basically the closest things Britain has to Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Ann Coulter. So their screeching bullshit should be held in exactly the same contempt.

[Zaune]

I don't think any of those three have ever been responsible for someone hanging themselves, though.

[Lord Relvenous]

I don't think any of those three have ever been responsible for someone hanging themselves, though.

Not for lack of trying.

[Highlord Laan]

I've always had a liking of poetic justice. Therefore, I hope Littlejohn is harassed, chased, heckled, mistreated and insulted to the point of suicide. Or at least to the point of an emotionally broken, whimpering, sleepless ball of weeping subhuman filth.

[UnderAGreySky]

I don't think any of those three have ever been responsible for someone hanging themselves, though.

Aren't these the same guys, along with Bill O, that vilify abortion service providers. That resulted in the murder of Dr. Tiller, at the very least. Not far from this case, I'd say.