Responsible Journalism and Transgender Children

Coy - a young trans girl who recently
won a legal fight over toilet usage

All too often, newspaper and magazine journalists fall into the trap of writing articles and having absolutely no idea of what they are talking about.  They get the terminology completely wrong, they misinform their readers about what the medical profession are doing, they state personal prejudices and and make evidence-free, scientifically erroneous statements.  What chance does  the average reader have of forming a balanced judgement against such ill-informed articles??   Absolutely none, unless the reader takes it upon themselves to undertake a lot of research into the matter.
Very often the journalist will insist that this is some form of child abuse, whereas it is just the opposite - it would be child abuse if the parent(s) deliberately made their child suffer the torment of going through puberty and then when they transitioned at a later date have to undergo painful and extensive treatments (eg laser/electrolysis to remove facial hair) and quite complicated and often dangerous surgeries (eg Facial Feminization Surgery etc).
This type of biased reporting is needlessly cruel - journalists, please gain a little knowledge about what you are writing about and consider the implications that you story will have on others - rather than how much you can earn from your mis-reporting.
Below is a link to an article which criticises such articles:-
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diane-ehrensaft-phd/gender-nonconforming-kids_b_1311204.html