I so love that this guy wrote to the AP to let them know that he & his husband use the term “husband” with each other. Apparently the AP is supposed to not use the terms for same sex couples unless those people use it themselves.
So he went on record and wrote to the AP to let them know that in his case, and in his husband’s case, they should go ahead and use “husband”.
I understand that the AP will only refer to my lawfully wedded husband, Michael Gallagher, as my “husband” if you are aware that we have regularly used those terms.
As this determination is being made on a case-by-case basis, I wanted to let you know, for your records, that we use these terms.
You can write to them to: Tom Kent, the standards editor, tkent@ap.org, [and] David Minthorn, AP stylebook editor, dminthorn@ap.org.
I really do want to write to them but I think trying to explain that we’ve gone from husband & wife to wives to sometimes just “legal spouse” – because the legally married part often needs to be underlined – might just throw the AP if they’re still pussyfooting around couples who are, and stay, the same legal gender.
And we in the trans community wonder why journalists get it wrong so often.