How one writer's coverage of the trans community changed his life
Lessons learned while writing “Going to Trinidad.”
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When word got out three years ago that I was researching the remote former mining town of Trinidad, Colorado, and its unlikely role as what The New York Times once indelicately called “the sex-change capital of the world,” I was quickly declared unfit for the role.
A transgender blogger wondered why a cisgender male was proposing to write about this forgotten chapter in gender history. “Nobody I know in the trans world appears to know this person,” she tweeted to her followers. “Why *should* we trust [him]?” She later suggested I partner with a trans writer for my book project, advice later echoed by the LGBTQ editor at a progressive website. The editor criticized everything about my proposed project, including my vocabulary choices in describing it.