Such an important subject, thank you! I've got a comment that isn't directly on point, but that is relevant and came up among Prism & Pen editors the other day.

Check out this headline, which is rather sensationalized even though it appears in very feminist-oriented queer publication:

"Mum catfished man on gay dating site, threatened to release sexual images then outed him"

( https://www.thepinknews.com/2024/03/06/mum-outed-bisexual-man-fabguys/ )

There isn't much more to the story than that, at least according to what got published. For unknown reasons, a woman catfished and outed a bisexual man, and she's just been handed a suspended prison sentence.

Obviously, this isn't murder or anything like it. But when I started reading the story, I wanted to know what her status as a mom had to do with it. I figured it would be pertinent in at least some minor way.

I was wrong.

Beyond the incidental fact that she has children, her motherhood is not part of the story.

So why is it a big part of the headline in this publication and elsewhere in the British press?

Could it be that we're presumed to feel special outrage because she's a woman and a mother? That she in some unspoken way betrayed her "nurturing" gender?

Are we supposed to feel more angry at her than we would feel at a man who did the same thing?

After all, it's very rare for anyone to be sentenced to prison, even with a suspended sentence, over outing queer people.

I'm not arguing that this woman didn't deserve criminal consequences, but that headline sure makes me wonder if she's being treated equitably, at least in the court of public opinion.