I always thank people for using my photographs, whether on the cover of a magazine (thanks, @Washingtonian!) or on a blog post that uses them to help the world learn to love better.
I will terminate the license, as I did this time, for a publication that uses my photo to promote anti-human values. I’ve done this less than a handful of times, to some publications that we’d all recognize, some surprising.
What’s so interesting to me is that when I terminate the license, my photos are always (100% of the time) removed quickly, politely, without incident.
That’s what happened here; they even removed the offending caption underneath my photo.
Here’s my termination notice for this publication:
From: Ted Eytan
Subject: Terminating license to use my image in your article
Date: April 5, 2018 at 6:30:43 PM EDT
To: letters@Ahoy __________!
I see that you’ve used one of my images in this post:
http:__________
I’m writing to inform you that license to use such image is terminated. Please remove my image from this website immediately.
While I appreciate the confusion cited around people using pronouns in the workplace and healthcare today described in the article, the caption underneath my image + the commentary below it crosses the line from trying to understand into frank transphobia.
At any point I am happy to explain to the author and your staff why the use of pronouns is appropriate and useful, doesn’t harm anyone, and is really a simple, non-controversial thing to do. Just like living in this century 🙂 .
It’s not difficult, no one is lecturing anyone, and 99.9% of the people I meet express relief and are pleased to know that everyone is welcomed, as almost 40% of Americans now know someone who is transgender or gendernonconforming.
If this makes no sense to you, no worries, just remove my image and proceed in good health.
All the best, from Washington, DC.
Regards,
Ted
________Ted Eytan, MD MS MPH (“he, him”)
Washington, DC USA
It’s curious because one would think a publication espousing violent views directed at other human beings would be equally violent in their response to someone like me. Yet they are not. Makes me think that the people in these publications are also secretly hoping to help the world learn to ❤️ better, too.
These are the humans attached to the nametags, by the way.
It’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate, and we don’t tolerate transphobia. We don’t even tolerate TransVisibility – we live #TransVisibility 🙂 .
Content redacted due to triggering content
Source: Content redacted due to triggering content