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Abstract
This article analyses the formation of cisgenderist and transphobic discourses in the reporting of the Daily Mail during the Thatcher era (1979-1990). It explores the emergence of a discursive strategy that focused on the containment of forms of gender expression that the socially conservative newspaper saw as a threat to the normative understandings of gender that it cherished. At the same time, it discusses how the paper managed the tension between its desire to contain and marginalize these individuals existed and its need to fetishize them for the purposes of commercial and political gain. It ties its reporting on trans people to other important trends in conservative politics, including the moralistic campaigns of Mary Whitehouse to regulate television broadcasting, and the forms of political homophobia that appeared under the government of Margaret Thatcher.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Owen Jones, ‘Anti-trans zealots, know this: history will judge you’, The Guardian 15 December 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/15/trans-backlash-anti-gay-zealotry-section-28-homophobia.
2 See, e.g., Fone, Homophobia; Hatheway, Gilded Age Construction; Healey, Russian Homophobia.
3 James Kirkup, ‘Is Britain FINALLY coming to its senses over transgender madness?’, Daily Mail (DM) 3 March 2019, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6765249/JAMES-KIRKUP-Britain-FINALLY-coming-senses-transgender-madness.html.
4 Fae, ‘The Press’, 134.
5 Moyra Ashford, ‘Such emphasis on beauty leads to panic at 35’ The Sunday Times Aug 18 1985; Anthony Clare, ‘The Roots of Sexual Perversion’, The Sunday Times 6 March 1988; Annie Woodhouse, ‘When the husband’s secret comes out’, The Guardian 19 July 1989.
6 Linda Avery, ‘The Legal Labyrinth that faces the transsexual’, The Guardian 4 Oct.1982. Wendy Cooper, ‘The Man who Never Will Be’, The Guardian 18 Nov. 1986. Liz Hodgkinson, ‘‘Life after the man of the house becomes a woman’, Sunday Times 23 Oct.1988.
7 Fae, ‘The Press’
8 Heyam, Before we were Trans 146, 147 for the position that queer individual’s sexuality should be seen as integral to their gender identity, and a critique of recent efforts to separate queer experiences of gender and sexuality. See also Valentine, Imagining Transgender.
9 Bingham, Family Newspapers, 173–174; Bengry, ‘Profit (f)or the Public Good?’.
10 Shelley: Transpeople, 32–33.
11 Wickberg, ‘Homophobia’.
12 Bettcher, ‘Transphobia’.
13 See, e.g., Rao, Out of Time, 35, for the latter point. See also Namaste, ‘Gender-bashing’, 588.
14 Bettcher, ‘Transphobia’.
15 This is Herek’s understanding of homophobia, which can also be applied to transphobia. See Herek, ‘Beyond “homophobia”’, 14.
16 Richardson, Analysing Newspapers, 26-27.
17 Machin and Mayr, How to do Critical Discourse Analysis, 78.
18 Ochs, ‘Narrative’, 193. Richardson, Analysing Newspapers, 74.
19 Suffee, ‘Homosexuality and the law’, 260, 264-265.
20 Oram, Her Husband was a Woman!, 149; Playdon, The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes-Sempill, 222–226.
21 Playdon, The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes, 222.
22 Stryker, Transgender History, 19. Oram, ‘Cross-Dressing and Transgender’, 255.
23 Stryker, Transgender History, 19.
24 Jonze, Tim. ‘Julian Clary: I have the right to be a camp, effeminate homosexual’, The Guardian 23 September 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/sep/23/julian-clary-i-have-the-right-to-be-a-camp-effeminate-homosexual.
25 Stryker, Transgender History, 18.
26 Stryker, Transgender History, 19.
27 Like Heyam, I would use ‘they’ to avoid imposing a gender on historical individuals, rather than to specifically claim that the individual identified as non binary. Heyam, Before we were Trans, 29–30.
28 Addison, Mail Men, 173–174, 189–190. Curran and Seaton, Power without Responsibility, 126.
29 Smith, New Right Discourse. For the influence of the growing divide between left and right on the press, see Williams, Read all about it! 213. See also Curran, Gaber and Petley, Culture Wars.
30 Steele, ‘The Formative Years’, 59.
31 Smith, New Right Discourse, 197.
32 Smith, New Right Discourse, 183.
33 Richard Kay, ‘Eton collared over ‘gay manual’ for boys of 13’, DM 22 May 1987.
34 Curran, Gaber and Petley, Culture Wars, 28, 53.
35 Curran, Gaber and Petley, Culture Wars, 35–37, 103.
36 Brooke, Sexual Politics, 236.
37 Heyam, Before we were Trans, 147. Valentine, Imagining Transgender, 42–46; Suffee, ‘Homosexuality and the Law’, 260, 264–265.
38 Gordon Greig, ‘Foot upset by gay campaigners’, DM 27 Sep. 1982.
39 Paul Johnson, ‘Mad King Michael in his Court of Fools’, DM 1 Oct. 1982.
40 Suffee, ‘Homosexuality and the Law’, 250–277; Heyam, Before we were Trans, 147.
41 Richard Holliday and Rupert Genge, I am simply a man who wears skirts’, DM, 27 Sep. 1982
42 ‘A transvestite’s advice’, DM 14 Oct. 1982.
43 Curran, Gaber and Petley, Culture Wars, 103.
44 Frank Chapple ‘Fancy Dress Party’, DM 24 April 1986.
45 In March 2022, Jamie Wallis came out as Britain’s first transgender MP, although this was subsequent to his election. See Aubrey Allegreti, ‘Jamie Walis comes out as UK’s first openly transgender MP’, The Guardian 30 March 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/mar/30/tory-mp-jamie-wallis-trans-reveals-rape-ordeal.
46 Smith, New Right Discourse, 185.
47 DM 20 April 1983. The use of Siobhan McDermott’s deadname has been removed from this sentence.
48 DM 2 Sep. 1986.
49 Curran, Gaber and Petley, Culture Wars, 84-85.
50 DM 9 April 1986.
51 Gaber, Curran and Petley, Culture Wars, 15.
52 For a useful background on the politics of gay liberation, see Jagose, Queer Theory, 37-43.
53 Namaste, ‘Gender-bashing’, 589.
54 Oram, ‘Cross-dressing and transgender’, 260.
55 Oram, ‘Cross-dressing and transgender, 260.
56 Oram, ‘Cross-dressing and transgender’, 260, 272.
57 Black, ‘Whose finger on the button?’, 553, 560.
58 June Southworth, ‘The Importance of being Mary’, DM 14 June 1980.
59 See, for example, Mary Whitehouse, ‘Today’s Children are Deprived- of their Childhood!’, DM 27 Jan. 1981.
60 DM 23 June 1979.
61 Black, ‘Whose finger on the button?’, 560.
62 Playdon, The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes, 248.
63 Lorimer, ‘1966 and all that’.
64 Lorraine Kisly, ‘Crossing the frontiers of sex’, DM 4 April 1974.
65 Herbert Kretzmer, ‘The anarchist in love with an admiral’, DM 7 Sep. 1989.
66 See, eg., ‘Father of two becomes woman’ DM 6 March 1954.
67 For this background, see Stryker, Transgender History, 91-95.
68 ‘The boring wasteland of weirdo Warhol’, DM 12 Feb. 1981.
69 Suffee, ‘Homosexuality and the Law’, 252–253, 261–262.
70 Waugh cites Warhol and Hackett, The Warhol 60s.
71 See again Machin and Mayr, How to do Critical Discourse Analysis, 78; Ochs, ‘Narrative’, 193. Richardson, Analysing Newspapers, 74.
72 ‘Aunty Claire is Pure Agony’, DM 10 Oct. 1984.
73 ‘What Stanley Baxter really finds a drag’, DM 17 Oct. 1981.
74 DM 8 Dec. 1989.
75 For the more subversive character of this form of parody, see Butler, Gender Trouble, 186.
76 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 59.
77 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 104. For an accessible articulation of Bhabha’s arguments, see Nayar, Post-colonialism: A Guide for the Perplexed, 26-28.
78 Addison, Mail Men, 154-156.
79 Fae, ‘The Press’. Oram, Her Husband was a Woman!, 131.
80 Smith, New Right Discourse, 189.
81 Bingham, Family Newspapers, 173–174.
82 Aubrey Chalmers, ‘Secret Life of a Kinky Government scientist’, DM 19 April 1984.
83 ‘Sex op man suspended’, DM 16 March 1979.
84 Serano, ‘Skirt Chasers’.
85 Herbert Kretzmer, ‘Misfit gets even with Mum’, DM 30 Oct 1981.
86 For a Critical Discourse Analysis informed discussion of hyperbole, see Richardson, Analysing Newspapers, 65-66.
87 Shelley, Transpeople, 46.
88 Gill Swain and David Williams, ‘The vicious hatred of Houdini Martin’, DM 12 October 1983.
89 Machin and Mayr, How to do Critical Discourse Analysis, 78.
90 Richardson, Analysing Newspapers, 51-52.
91 ‘David Martin found hanged in his cell’, DM 14 March 1984.
92 ‘The nights when he was Davina’, DM 12 Oct 1983.
93 Richardson, Analysing Newspapers, 74.
94 Ochs, ‘Narrative’, 193. Richardson, Analysing Newspapers, 74.
95 ‘£1,500 for drag photos of David Martin’, Gay News 3 February 1983.
96 Playdon, The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes, 254.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
W.J. Berridge
W.J. Berridge, School of History, Classics and Archaeology, The Armstrong Building, Newcastle University, Newcastle, NE1 7RU, UK; E-mail: [email protected]; Twitter: @WBerri85