rhinozz ryan

have a good one and ill hopefully pick this up again bc it's very interesting and (hopefully) mutually beneficial.

hey bullet point essay anon! after getting sleep myself and reading ur asks back, u were not needlessly aggressive and were absolutely not being a bitch.

your points, as im reading them, are as follows:

the guardian article is meaningless and based on bad science.

your assertion that the rustin email is fake remains accurate. this is based upon the writing style and formatting of the email, which you believe to not conform to any guardian writer's style and to be AI-generated.

the source for the initial leak (one of the quoted parties in the article) was legitimate and this fact became known to you after the article had already been published.

said party read your post and didn't have any issues with it.

to the best of your knowledge, no individuals were contacted by the guardian in the writing of this article.

nobody quoted in the article was trans or under 18.

my argument is as follows:

whether the article had little factual basis is immaterial: such articles are always based on bad science. the concern in the initial PSA was that the timing of this so soon after the Cass Report would give it staying power beyond that of similar articles that have run in the past.

regardless of any subsequent qualifications (i.e. Rustin), you clearly stated that "the guardian" was not working on this story and that claims "they" were should be considered "dangerous" misinformation. going through the notes of your post, this is clearly the message that a lot of people took from it.

you accordingly called for the original PSA (which included no mention of any specific journalist or email and only warned that a story about diy was in the pipeline) to be taken down. whether the email was legitimate or not is meaningless in this context, since it had nothing to do with the original post that you were ostensibly debunking.

furthermore, your belief that the email was AI-generated doesn't mean it's fake: AI has been integrated into Microsoft Outlook since last year with features for generating and editing emails. to be clear, i am not saying that the email was legitimate (I don't think it is) but that you lack the evidence to assert it isn't.

the fact that the original source was legitimate doesn't help your case - this would, in fact, make your attempt to take down the initial PSA conveying their message completely misguided.

whether or not that source approved of your post doesn't change anything for two reasons - firstly, they are not the final authority on responsible journalism, regardless of their proximity to the original information. secondly, we only have your word on any of this. if i don't trust you (which was the crux of my initial question to you) then how can i trust that any of that is true? from the outside, this could just as plausibly be reputational damage control for a failed prediction, which would be consistent with the timing of this new information after the article has already gone live.

the fact that you don't know of anyone being contacted doesn't mean that nobody was contacted - there's a lot of us out here. if i had been contacted, for example, there's no way that you would have known about it.

the fact that nobody quoted in the article was trans or under 18 does not mean that attempts weren't made to get those quotes. it could just as easily mean that mass mobilisation across online transgender support networks, (precipitated by the very PSA you were attempting to stifle) was completely effective. we don't know and we can't know.

at this point, i want to reiterate that im not attacking you or claiming that you intended to mislead anyone. i am speaking as one transgender person to another about a matter of life and death for us and the people like us. if you, as a journalist, want to speak from a position of epistemic authority then you need to communicate unambiguously and only make definitive statements when they are justified by factual evidence. to do otherwise, especially in these situations, is irresponsible. in this case there was no material harm done. the correct course of action in either case ("do not talk to outsiders about diy") was the same. in another circumstance where the facts would significantly shift the correct course of action, epistemic irresponsibility could have serious consequences.

thank u for the well-thought out and well-written response!!

first: you misunderstand one major thing i wrote (perhaps - probably - thats the fault of my wording): the source of the initial leak became known to me not after the publication of the guardian article, but after the publication of my original post on the authenticity of the email.

on your points:

my point is not that it's based on bad science (it is, but that's not of focus here). it's that the article uses information that isn't new, that isn't consequential to anything, and it uses quotes that aren't interesting. it reads like a current event report instead of a well-researched hitpiece, and it's, in my observation, gotten very little traction outside of trans spheres thus far (please correct me if i'm wrong).

in my original post, i wrote two things you reference. the first: "on the 19th, i talked to other guardian newsroom journalists, who said they also did not know of a story's existence." this is and was true - they did not know about the article, and it's worded non-absolutely for exactly the reason you bring up. the second: "the moral of the story: this is misinformation, and it's dangerous." i concede that this can be taken wrong - it was meant to be a closing statement of sorts, concluding that the email (the main focus of the post) was misinformation. in writing, i assumed it could only ever be taken the way i intended because the only part of the post that had concrete evidence for its inauthenticity was the email, but the use of the vague term "this" absolutely didn't help clarify this, and that's my mistake (especially, as you said, because a lot of people did misunderstand it in that way).

this is entirely my mistake. a bit of personal context to writing the post: i originally posted the thread on twitter and as i was writing for tumblr, i was talking to someone about the post's spread. one point i had talked about was the inclusion of the claim "I've seen several sites mention this, it's real" in the original tumblr post that i later called to delete, which at that point seemed entirely unfounded to me (and still seems dubious at best). thus, as i finished the tumblr post, i just added it in as a quick afterthought. i see how it may have contributed to the misunderstanding in point 2 and my apologies to @wakewithgiggli

that's just an addition for this post, and it's not the only thing i add as evidence - the writing style and formatting would still be extremely odd for a guardian email, even from a personal email address. it's simply not how they talk. (proving this is somewhat difficult, because it relies on other emails sent by the authors, rustin, and other guardian publishers, all of which that i viewed were private. it's the more understandable of the two difficult-to-substantiate points, of course, because the email is written like a toddler and changes both tone and format halfway through. nevertheless, see point 6.)

(i'm not entirely sure what this is saying, but i think it's based on point 4? hopefully that answers it)

this point irks me a bit because it is a central issue in journalism ethics: if someone doesn't want information by them published but you can only support your claim with that information, do you publish it? the textbook answer - and the answer i always stand by - is no. my description of it is thus a vague sketch, and it somewhat, well, has to be. (i just shot someone a dm. if they give me a go-ahead to publish anything more, i'll reblog this post with an addendum and update the original response.) i get that it relies on trust. i get that it's hard to trust me as some random person on the internet. even if i were established as a journalist, with my name everywhere, it'd still be hard to trust exactly where i got my info. but there's nothing i can really do - i either explain what happened but partially redacted or simply leave people hanging, and i think the latter is more harmful.

yes, that's true. but the article has no indication of a mass contacting spree, nor do any other claims from those in direct contact with the journalists. if good evidence for the emails exists, please please please let me know (signal: rhinozz.1337)

see point 7 (it covers basically the same points)

in your conclusion, you bring up something that's something i generally fundamentally disagree with: how if a journalist cannot report fully supported, definitive, unambiguous facts, reporting is irresponsible. the line of where is too uncertain to report is difficult for me, even alone, to grapple with. i, more often than not, live report or do in-depth current event reporting on things such as protests and airstrikes, and most information is based on rumors. that's the far end of the spectrum, where things are entirely unconfirmed and, well, impossible to confirm in the first place; the course of action common for the field is to note that the information is indeed a rumor or unconfirmed. on the other end of the spectrum is, of course, factual and publicly verifiable information. but unless you see something with your own eyes, this is almost always very difficult for on-the-case reporting. so somewhere in the middle is that line. somewhere in the middle has to be that line, or most investigative journalism is as good as guessing, really. upon writing the original post, i found myself within the line, in the safe zone and happily able to post. i still stand by that.

to reword your ask: the guardian published a brief summary of some content within the cass review and 6 meaningless pull quotes, all on election day (of all days). the article means absolutely nothing, and the graun knows it. (CW transphobia, but you can read the article here if you so wish.)

the email that i originally reported on continues to be fake. as far as i'm aware, and as far as all that i've talked to are aware, it is fake. it does not match the writing styles or formats of either of the credited authors, nor rustin, nor any other guardian writer i'm aware of. multiple individuals have additionally alleged the main body of the passage is AI-generated, and i believe that to be true.

what was not fake was the source of the original 4chan post. i was alerted of where original report stemmed from - a brief PSA posted by one of the quoted parties in the published piece - shortly after publishing. (said party told me that my posts were fine and did not need to be edited, corrected, or amended.)

with that being said, as far as i'm aware, no individuals were contacted by the guardian. the email did not imply it would occur and the original PSA (and thus 4chan post) mentioned it as a precautionary measure. no individuals were quoted in the guardian post were trans, nor under 18. no other emails or claims have surfaced besides the one my original post fact-checked.

apologies for getting to this late i do NOT know how tumblr works lmao

i do independent investigative research/reporting and fact-checking. you'll see me in articles by @nyancrimew, but i've really done more work for groups like geoconfirmed, which involves the tracking of war and the atrocities that occur during it.

one of the most significant eras of my research was geolocations and investigations relating to the hizbullah-israel conflict and the bombardments that came before and after the temporary armistice in november 2023. various groups reported on the region, and along with local journalists, i talked to foreign correspondents, including those representing both the US and UK's guardian. they simply had information that could not be ignored.

i'm trans and extremely outspoken about trans issues, including in the UK (where a good amount of friends are from). i'm deeply critical of the graun and of rustin, the author referenced in my post. i believe they are have horrible opinion and feature pieces alike, especially on queer issues. and i think that if the people i talked to checked my twitter and found neos in bio, they'd be horrified (lmao)

so no: i'm not buddy-buddy with guardian journalists. i simply have communication channels from previous work. i'm not affiliated with the publication, nor supportive of them in the slightest. i just think they have no reason to lie about an article they wouldn't be ashamed of (for the terf publication they are), in clear violation of both their code of ethics and general journalistic ethics as a whole.

UPDATE: the guardian has published an article referenced by the original 4chan post, which was legitimate. the email continues to be fake. the article appears not to have contacted trans people or under-18s. and the message remains the same: don't talk to journalists about your personal information or history. you can see a recap and response to this publishing here. tl;dr: claims that the guardian's Susanna Rustin is writing a piece on diy hrt and contacting trans people for comment is false.

on the 18th, this post appeared on 4chan's /lgbt/ (slurs in thread: link). a screenshot was posted to reddit, then to tumblr. you've probably seen it:

today, the 23rd, another screenshot popped up on various discord servers, then was reposted variously to twitter. it shows a supposed email from guardian journalist and notorious TERF Susanna Rustin, claiming as the original 4chan post does.

it's now been shared around, and it's with good intentions. the message is useful: don't share your personal information or medical data with journalists, especially ones that happen to be TERFs.

but the post does this through misinformation and fearmongering. i'm still waiting on my response by email from Rustin, but she's reiterated twice (once, twice) that she did not write the email and is not working on such a story. on the 19th, i talked to other guardian newsroom journalists, who said they also did not know of a story's existence.

the moral of the story: this is misinformation, and it's dangerous. it spreads a fine message here, but it does it through spreading anxiety and terror.