Then last night while getting ready to go out for dinner my doorbell rang. Standing on my front porch was a man I did not recognize.
“This might be a little awkward,” he said in an English accent.
He proceeded to explain he was a journalist from the Daily Mail, which was the largest news service in the UK and was most definitely not a tabloid. And that I really had to sit down with him tomorrow or the next day or next week so that I could have my picture taken and tell my story which was so inspirational! And that I really didn’t want to have someone from the National Enquirer following me around, did I? BTW—The Daily Mail is so definitely not a tabloid.
After he had given me his card, and I closed the door it began to dawn on me where I had heard of the Daily Mail. It was the “news” organization that had played a huge part in the national public outing of Lucy Meadows, an elementary school teacher and trans woman in the UK. An editorial in the “not-a-tabloid” demonized her as a damaging influence on the children’s delicate innocence and summarized “he’s not only trapped in the wrong body, he’s in the wrong job.” The reason I knew about her wasn’t because she was transgender it was because three months after the Daily Mail article came out, Lucy committed suicide.
— Filmmaker Lilly Wachowski, in a statement to the Windy City Times, on being forced to come out as trans by UK newspaper the Daily Mail. Wachowski, along with her sister Lana, is the co-director of The Matrix Trilogy, Sense8 and Bound. Lana came out as trans in 2012. The Daily Mail, despite all claims to the contrary, is literally a tabloid newspaper. We would say “shame on the Daily Mail” for running these types of pieces outing people before they’re ready — but let’s be honest: The Daily Mail is a garbage paper that has no shame.
