Yesterday we reported on In Touch’s shocking cover featuring a photoshopped image of Bruce Jenner in makeup above the headline ‘My Life As a Woman’. At the time, gossip blog Hollywood Life reported that Jenner had planned to come out as transgender on the cover of The Advocate – which The Advocate editor-in-chief Matthew Breen has now strongly denied:
“I’m astounded that Bonnie Fuller’s Hollywood Life would claim to have ‘all the details’ on Bruce Jenner’s ‘big magazine plans’ because their story is a total fabrication — like InTouch’s distressing Photoshopped cover. Neither publication has any insider source with knowledge of The Advocate‘s planned coverage.”
Buzzfeed investigated the magazine’s cover further, and identified that it was created by transposing Jenner’s face onto a photo of British actress Stephanie Beacham:
The Advocate also reached out to trans activists and received a number of comments condemning the cover. Kate Bornstein, author of Gender Outlaw, released a passionate statement:
“DAMN IT. BRUCE JENNER IS BEING BULLIED, AND PUBLICLY SHAMED FOR NO OTHER REASON THAN BEING TRANS. I’m so sorry for B.J.”
Monica Beverly Hillz, a trans woman and former RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant, was just as critical:
“I think it’s so wrong in so many ways for them to poke fun and do such things to someone … they know nothing about just to make money and make a mockery of trans people everywhere. They need to educate instead of just doing nonsense like that.”
GLAAD President Sarah Kate Ellis issued a statement calling on the media to stop gossiping about Jenner’s gender:
“This nonsense has to end. Speculating about a person’s gender identity only inflames the invasive and gross scrutiny that transgender people face every day at school, at work, or even when just walking down the street. It’s long past time that media outlets stop gossiping about Bruce Jenner’s gender.”
Women’s magazine Cosmopolitan struck out, calling the In Touch cover “bullshit”:
“What the cover boils down to is rank, sensationalized transphobia and gleeful bullying.
This is hugely problematic. The twisting of hearsay, rumors, anonymous sources, and a few paparazzi photos into a such an invasive clickbait-y narrative is a glaring Journalism 101 fail, no matter what the story. In this particular case, it’s worse still because it involves, possibly, outing a person without his confirmation or consent, and that’s a widely understood breach of media ethics.”
So far there has been no comment on the story from either In Touch or Hollywood Life.