The letter I just wrote to the Guardian. Trigger warning for quoted hate speech. Please write your own.

Dear Editors,

I am writing to protest in the strongest possible terms to your decision to publish Julie Burchill's article “Transsexuals should cut it out”. I believe it counts as the kind of hate speech your community standards explicitly disallow. I read your paper regularly, but I have never written to complain to a newspaper before, and nor am I in the habit of calling for journalism to be censured. I believe that publishing this article was either an egregious error or a cynical ploy to use hate speech to gain website traffic.The word your community standards might use for the latter is “trolling”.

A number of phrases in the article class as prejudiced slurs, and should have been treated exactly the same as the Guardian would treat racial slurs. “Dicks in chicks' clothing”, “screaming mimis”, “shemales”, “shims”, and “bed-wetters in bad wigs” are the most obvious. Calling Brazilians “oven-ready” is also a racist slur in itself.

In addition to the explicit slurs, Burchill diplays a vicious, prejudiced attitude throughout the article. She refuses to acknowledge trans* women's self-identified gender, and refuses to acknowledge the existence or voices of trans* men either. She implies that “natural-born” women (her words) are superior, better, more worthy. She degrades trans* bodies. She likens trans* people to “dead sheep”.

I assume that, by usual practise, a subeditor wrote the headline, “Transsexuals should cut it out.” If this is the case, your subeditor should also be reprimanded for a tasteless, offensive and for many people triggering choice of pun.

I cannot understand why you chose to publish this piece. It is by any measure hate speech. It is not a free comment. It is not a valid journalistic contribution to a political debate. It is hate speech, designed to whip up hate. Publishing it was either ignorant – a failure to recognise that it is hate spech – or cynical – a decision to publish hate speech in order to attract outraged readers and attention.

The article ends with a declaration that trans* people can expect more hatred from Burchill in the future. That is an incitement to hate speech. I ask that (a) You refuse to publish such hatred in the future and (b) You apologise for publishing the original article. I do not ask that it be removed, because I believe it needs to stand as a testament to your mistake, and as an example of the hatred that trans* people face. If no action is taken to make up for the error, I will be cancelling my subscription within the week, and will not buy your newspaper again.

Yours &c.,

Harry Giles

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