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Why did this LGBT website just out a bunch of activists?

Oops.

 

Mary Emily O'Hara

IRL

Posted on Jun 3, 2015   Updated on May 28, 2021, 4:32 pm CDT

Last week, the LGBT women’s site SheWired published a listicle of “11 Young Queer Activists You Need to Know.” The only problem? The outlet didn’t actually bother to check with the activists to see if they were queer or not.

Ferguson-based #BlackLivesMatter activist Netta Elzie tweeted about discovering herself on the list and being surprised to see herself identified as queer. 

She also discovered that an entry for two other St. Louis-based activists, Brittany Ferrel and Alexis Templeton, had incorrect information. 

As it turns out, the author of the SheWired post had not reached out to the activists listed to confirm whether they identified as queer.

Editors at SheWired—a site run by the same Here Media company that owns Out and The Advocate—apologized to Elzie and removed her picture from the post, adding a correction under her name. 

But Elzie said that wasn’t enough, and demanded that she be removed from the article entirely. SheWired has since taken down the entire article, but it a cached version can be viewed here

Photo via Ted Eytan/Flickr (CC BY ND 2.0)

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*First Published: Jun 3, 2015, 5:03 pm CDT