About 'The Needle':

The Needle is an independent, globally focused, online-first publication being built by Artemis T. Douglas, Jane Migliara Brigham, and others. If you subscribe today, you'll get full access to the website as well as email newsletters about new content when it's available. Your subscription makes this culture newspaper possible, and allows The Needle to continue to exist. Thank you!

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Our goals as a publication are as follows:

  • The Needle is by, for, and with transsexuals.
    • Our writers are trans and our success is directly proportional to our credibility among transsexuals.
  • We focus on trans news and trans culture
    • We will do clear, piercing reporting of news and nuanced reporting of culture.
    • We believe that trans people not only have a distinct culture but deserve to have that culture celebrated.
  • We believe in writing and reporting as acts of community care and solidarity.

We have a small team, for now, but with your support we hope to continuously bring in new trans voices from all over the world.

By "global", we do not and will never mean just "the West." We want to work with and center trans voices from the actual, entire planet. We don't see that as a lofty goal but instead a material aim that grounds our coverage and is central to our decisions as an outlet.

Mission Statement, expanded:

We believe that in order to deserve the trust of our community we must hold ourselves to a higher standard.  This paper was created in part because much of the news targeting our people has failed to serve us.  We hope to do better.

‘The Needle’ is by transsexuals, for transsexuals.  We focus on trans stories told in trans voices.  Our credibility is based on the service we provide to the transsexual people.  If we cannot be of service to you all, then we have no reason to exist.

We will not fearmonger about the safety of our trans readers.  There are enough genuine reasons to panic; we shouldn't be adding fake causes to the list.  Reading the news shouldn’t make you feel like you are about to be dragged off to camps.  It should be a holistic view of trans life, both the good and the bad.

We are committed to following the Morgan Rule.  We will not attack the character of other trans people unless it is absolutely needed.  The outside world does enough of that.  No need for us to contribute to it.

When we get something wrong in reporting or elsewhere, we will issue a retraction.  We cannot allow bad reporting to fester, especially when we are all on edge.  

We believe that the transsexual people are a distinct people, and that we cannot be lumped in with whatever cultures we happen to have been raised in.  We have more in common with our fellows in faraway lands who might not speak the same language as us than we do with many of our cis neighbors.  Our media should reflect this.  

At the same time, we cannot allow the differences between us to be flattened into a monoculture.  Trans people are heterogenous (a mixed group) and not a monolith. There is a diversity of origin, characteristic, perspective, and all the other beautiful, messy parts of being human reflected across transsexuals writ large. We believe that to be “by transsexuals, for transsexuals” we must in turn reflect this diversity and celebrate it.

We will emphasize the culture of our people.  This does not mean celebrating when we are celebrated among the tastemakers of cis people, but when we are respected among our own people.  Transsexual culture is an increasingly important part of our lives, and no coverage of trans news would be complete without it.

The writers, editors, and others of ‘The Needle’ will uphold these principles as a service to our people, or we will be made irrelevant.  We hope to earn your trust as public servants.