McPeek declined to comment for this story. "It's a specifically nonhuman way in which trans people are dehumanized every day." And it is mired in an intense history of prejudice against transgender people," one conference attendee told The Washington Post, saying she did not want her name used in an article that could be critical of NLGJA. "It is technically, factually literally dehumanizing language. "So I am especially saddened by the irony that my poor choice of words has hurt others in the same way."īut attendees and others across the nation were still livid days later. "As a gay man, I have been on the receiving end of hateful words and judging glances, especially while being 'out' in a high-profile position in television news," he wrote. Late Tuesday, McPeek released a statement on Twitter, his first public statement about the incident since it happened Saturday.
The quip was especially jarring because NLGJA has been trying to be "an inclusive organization for transgender and nonbinary audiences." Hours before McPeek took the microphone, the group's conference had hosted a diversity and intersection workshop to report on "often-ignored communities with greater sensitivity and understanding." McPeek, a weatherman for Sinclair Broadcast Group-owned WSYX (Channel 6) and WTTE (Fox Channel 28) in Columbus, started the ceremony in Palm Springs, California, by welcoming "ladies and gentlemen, things and its" - something that critics took as a derogatory reference to the transgender and non-cisgender people in the suddenly outraged audience. So it was no surprise that his attempt to open his volunteer emcee gig this past weekend with a joke landed with a thud, then sparked anger that caused people to storm out of the closing ceremonies of the national convention for NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists. The journalists in the ballroom had spent an extended weekend learning why, exactly, Marshall McPeek should not have said what he said.
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