AP Legitimizes Genderbender With Idaho Inmate Who Castrated 'Herself'

August 4th, 2007 6:52 AM

Is it so hard to tell a male human being from a female one? I guess to the AP it is because in a story from the 31st, the tale they told of a male inmate castrating himself with a broken disposable razor blade became the story of a male inmate castrating "herself" with a razor blade. One wonders what the AP Stylebook says about that little gem?

BOISE, Idaho - An inmate who castrated herself with a disposable razor blade after prison officials refused to treat her for gender identity disorder should have female hormone therapy paid for by the state, a federal judge said.

Someone should inform the AP that a female cannot castrate herself. It is a physical impossibility. If'n ya gots something to castrate, you ain't no woman in the first place!

Worse than that little AP paean to political correctness by allowing the gender bending mental illness of an inmate to determine the gender used in their story is the fact that they are reporting that this inmate won from the state free hormone therapy that will help him permanently, if artificially, transform into a female.

Jenniffer Spencer, who was born biologically male, sued the Idaho Department of Correction and its physicians, claiming that her constitutional rights were violated and that she was subjected to cruel and unusual punishment when the doctors failed to diagnose gender identity disorder and treat her with female hormones. Instead, the department and its doctors repeatedly offered Spencer the male hormone testosterone.

The ridiculousness of the state paying for criminals to get sex changing therapies, treatments and operations aside, the AP calls Randall Gammett a "she" throughout the story. He is certainly a confused fella, but a "she" he isn't.

What happened to just reporting the "facts"?

But, this isn't so far off the mark as a practice for the AP, is it? After all, as they have allowed this whacked out, criminal to call himself a "she" with their blessing and participation, they similarly allow any number of far left Democrats to identify themselves with a less descriptive and more centrist sounding "moderate" Democrat label all the time. It never seems possible for the AP to call any Democrat a "liberal" or a "left wing" one, does it?

So, we can safely say that the AP goes out of its way to coddle mental patients all the time, I guess.

Yet the AP seems to take the opposite track with their reports on Republicans, those who truly are centrist or even left leaning Republicans, who suddenly become "extreme," "far right," or "right wing" in the AP's reporting.

I think they need to revisit their "labels" page in that much abused stylebook.