ESPN killed a trans woman. And the author was told “eh, just don’t do it again?” by everyone above him. He still has the job he used to kill a trans person because killing a trans woman isn’t bad press.

I want you to understand this story. It’s here if you can stomach the problematic, transphobic language and the incredibly problematic responses that they’ve made (oh, we should have checked first, but ‘he’ shouldn’t have hidden that ‘he’ was trans so whoops is among the most disturbing writings on this whole story.)

Dr. V is a woman who was in deep stealth. She was very much in the closet to everyone that she met and this was a good thing. She’d spent a lot of time and energy making sure people respected her and treated her decently in a new life because, let’s face it, when you transition people treat you like shit fairly often and she didn’t want that anymore.

She invented this putter. It’s an interesting piece of kit, and the design is still selling if you care about golf. Essentially it’s using physics phenomenon to balance out some of the forces, I haven’t really looked into the technology but she had a lot of professionals saying it made an impact in their putting, to the point that some refused to share details because they were still on tours and they viewed them as “invaluable.”

She asks, when he starts the article, that it be about “the science, not the scientist.” She asks that he focuses on the invention and not her. He agrees, they write about this for a while, he writes an article, it’s interesting, they meet, discuss the physics, and he goes to keep writing.

Then he stumbles across the fact that she might be trans.

And he starts doing all this research. She doesn’t have degrees in her name from the schools she said she did, she didn’t have the job experience under her name … so he researched and found out she was transgender, she experienced serious discrimination to the point she had to sue a former employer, that her closeted life had been somewhat different then what she had disclosed (you mean someone who was trans hid the thing they can be murdered for well? what?) and that she has hidden this as hard as she can.

So he continues to dig. Including calling her investors and friends and telling them she was transgender and giving them information about who she was before she transitioned.

He told people she didn’t have the experience or degrees she was says she had. That not only was she trans but she was a fraud (despite getting confirmation from someone externally that she was, in fact, the person with the experience just not to THAT name.)

She offered to show him the proof that she had the degrees, if he would sign something that he wouldn’t publish it. He said he “couldn’t take that deal.” She’d probably be alive if he had.

She killed herself before it was published.

And you know what’s happened because of this?

Nothing. No-one has been fired. The editor even said that they didn’t want to “make the author feel bad.” But I couldn’t care less because this transphobic murderer isn’t my friend or co-worker. He’s just someone who couldn't care about whose life he destroyed. I spent this morning crying after reading this article, because it was such a clear reminder that we’re the only ones who will stand up for ourselves.

I’m tired of this. I’m tired of finding out we can be beaten to death in front of police officers and have nothing happen. I’m tired of finding out that the reason we were called f***gots still rings true - we are valued as less then the price of a match. They think of us as fire starters.

Fine. Let’s start a few fires.

Let’s show them that we’re not taking this shit sitting down. They aren’t allowed to do this to us with impunity anymore. We’re not going to let these people kill us without a fight. Every single one of us has been fighting since we came out of the closet. No more standing down.

And I’m calling in every single person that has every claimed to be an ally to trans people. This is disgusting, this horrible behavior needs to stop, and you could help. We need as many voices as possible.

Make ESPN send a message, clearly, to anyone who works for them either directly or indirectly - outing a transgender person is horrible and unacceptable. The resulting suicide should be taken seriously and should be held under actual journalistic scrutiny.

Calab Hannan should be fired. Anything short of permanently losing his position is an insult to the transgender community, and saying that kind of unethical dribble passes for journalism lowers the standard of any publication he touches.

This kind of damaging, horrible behavior should not go unanswered. Bill Simmons should be reprimanded for his horrible handling of the situation - both for his horrid, offensive, and hurtful response and for his distasteful handling of the entire situation.

Anything you can share, tweet, post to facebook, tell your friend about over backlava ... anything will help. Spreading this around so more people see it will help. We need to respond to this or this will keep happening.

Let’s light a few fires.