Trans Coverage: The Right Pronoun

The Guardian's readers' editor, Chris Elliott, devoted his weekly Open Door column to "the right pronouns and respect for transgendered people".
There had been complaints about the paper's coverage of Mikki Nicholson winning the British Scrabble Championship, and the death of immigration lawyer, David Burgess, known outside of work as Sonia Burgess.
Elliot summarises the advice of Trans Media Watch; "Where possible ask people how they wish their gender to be defined. If you can't ask them, use pronouns that most closely match their presentation."
But he also notes; "The Guardian's style guide [the new print edition was published last week] currently has no entry for transgendered people. To have one would clearly help journalists who may not understand the different terms referring to members of the broad transgendered community..."

David Burgess/Sonia Burgess: A Personal Ad

If someone who discovered a cure for cancer died, and the tabloids discovered they'd had a slightly unconventional sex life, Fagburn imagines the headlines would read;
'Cancer Boffin's Kinky Sex Shame'
The Evening Standard yesterday broke the news that the highly-respected human rights lawyer, David Burgess, had placed an advert on a fetish website as a "pre-op" transexual escort, Sonia.
Today's papers can hardly contain their excitement about 'Sex-swap Lawyer's Escort Ad' (The Sun).
Perhaps this excitement by the tabloids is relief - after they got so much so wrong about poor Gareth Williams.
Or as The Sun announced on August 26th; ''Murdered Spook Was A Cross-Dresser.'
The Lawyer pays tribute to Burgess's "trail-blazing" work on immigration law here.

Sonia Burgess/David Burgess: Identity Crises

'Tributes for tube death lawyer'
"Human rights specialist Sonia Burgess, known professionally as David, was killed by a train at King's Cross station," The Guardian reports.
A woman has been charged with murder.
"Tributes have been paid to a "trailblazing" human rights lawyer who died after falling under a tube train.
"Sonia Burgess, 63, known professionally by her legal name David, was struck by a train at King's Cross station during the evening rush hour on Monday."
This was taken from the Press Association story - the PA had foregrounded Burgess being talented, over being trans; 'Tributes to "trailblazing" Tube murder lawyer'
Other papers did the reverse - and struggled to find the right word.
The Sun in a story headed 'Tube death man was a lawyer called "Sonia"', called Burgess a "transvestite".
They used the above two photos side-by-side, captioned; "Two identities... Sonia and David"
Things are confused by the fact that the family knew her as Sonia - as shown in their statement - but Burgess was still working as David.
A situation most newspapers' style guides won't cover.*
In The Mirror Burgess was a "cross-dresser" - "Although legally a man, his family called him Sonia and were fully aware, as were his work colleagues, of his two identities."
Initially Burgess had been described by the Mirror online as "a cross-dressing man".
The Daily Mail chose "transgender" - "It is not clear whether he was undergoing medical treatment to become a woman."
The Times went for the unwieldy, "a transgender person".
In The Express and The Telegraph Burgess was a "transvestite".
The ever pompous Telegraph put the word in inverted commas - or "scare quotes" as they're known in the trade.
The paper added; "Police say he is officially referred to as "cross gender" or "gender variant".

* Trans Media Watch has Guidance for the Media online. It would have been best to use the umbrella term transgender - or simply trans.