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The Institute reached out to Petrin for a discussion on the role of identity in reporting and newsrooms.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Traditional journalism training often treats a reporter’s personal identity as something that must be put aside to achieve objectivity. How can an intersectional background actually enhance, rather than compromise, a reporter’s journalistic accuracy and rigor?
Petrin: All of us bring our own experiences, backgrounds, and expertise into our reporting. When we talk about setting identity aside for objectivity, the reality is that no one’s really setting much aside while reporting.
As a trans person and a data reporter, I see this play out constantly with data categories. Data relies on fixed definitions, but queer people are notoriously tricky to count. We might report ourselves one way in one dataset and describe ourselves differently in another because the language in a survey doesn’t exactly fit our lives. In traditional journalism, someone might dismiss a fuzzy dataset as “bad data,” but living as a trans person who has to navigate institutional forms with no accurate options gives me a unique perspective.
When you experience those friction points firsthand, you can spot the underreported stories and the systemic gaps that mainstream news misses. Bringing that perspective to reporting actually builds a broader public understanding across different human experiences.
How do you utilize your identity to build authentic rapport with sources who are normally deeply distrustful of mainstream media?
Petrin: Sharing an identity with someone makes them trust you more, sort of by default. But I think it also makes me, as a reporter, much more conscious of all the steps and processes you need to take with sources to make sure you’re not being extractive. I’ve had conversations with people who wanted to talk to me because they trusted me and wanted someone to tell their story but didn’t fully understand the implications of being on the record or searchable on the internet.
Yes, we had a point of shared trust through being trans, but it also made me acutely aware of the ways that a lot of people are not getting that basic education and trust-building that journalists should be doing with all their sources. It’s made me want to lean into building educational resources that help reporters build less extractive processes into their interviewing through the Trans Journalists Association.
What practical advice do you have for an editor who wants to support an intersectional reporter on a tough beat without accidentally siloing them or tokenizing their identity?
Petrin: The more you have good standards and policies written down, the less you run into situations you don’t know how to handle. I often hear editors say, “Well, we’ve never had a trans reporter, so we don’t have policies for that.” In reality, you probably already have trans journalists in your newsroom; you just don’t know it yet.
When applying for jobs, I always make sure to ask about their policies on trans healthcare, about pronouns, about trans identity. It’s not that they need to have specific policies about those written down, but the existing baseline policy should be robust enough that they account for every employee, every possible experience, and every possible identity. It should be a combination of having good policies and treating people like human beings through thoughtful questions, and not making assumptions.
Lived experience can give a reporter deep empathy, but it can also make covering identity-targeted news cycles emotionally taxing. What boundaries or practices do you use to protect your mental health while maintaining professional excellence?
Petrin: I have a work phone! If someone asks invasive professional questions on my personal line, I redirect them to my work phone. I try to be conscious of my communication routes, especially in a world of perceived 24/7 access through email and text.
It’s also important to protect yourself from tokenizing experiences, like being invited simply to represent an identity rather than for your professional expertise; it can be really exhausting and dehumanizing. When people reach out with vague requests for “a trans reporter,” I ask about what specific expertise they’re looking for because the trans community is not monolithic. For example, covering climate policy’s impact on queer communities requires a completely different skill set than covering protest movements.
What risks are involved in leaning on your identity when working as a journalist?
Petrin: There are a lot of risks depending on how vocal you are. The biggest risk for marginalized journalists is getting trapped in other people’s poorly developed rules, and I think at the end of the day, you have to make your own decisions that align with your values and reflect the work you want to do and the life you want to live, as well as finding people who share a similar vision of journalism.
I’ve had physical encounters while traveling on assignment, but I was always aware of the risks and made a series of intentional, strategic decisions about how to engage with that. It takes a lot of time and energy, and frankly, you need a good amount of mentorship and support to navigate threats and harassment.
Reporting on LGBTQ+ and trans issues can expose journalists to intense online and real-world harassment. What concrete steps should newsroom leaders take to protect the safety and mental health of reporters on these beats?
Petrin: Revisit all your policies proactively. Don’t wait for a crisis to decide how you handle digital harassment, identity-based risk, or physical safety during travel. As a responsible, ethical newsroom and workplace, you should be developing and revising policies so that you can provide any kind of support possible.
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