Recently, The Advocate published a letter to the editor that claimed the gender-neutral pronouns used in the obituary of 17-year-old Belle Adelman-Cannon were “baffling.” The letter repeatedly misgendered Adelman-Cannon.
The Advocate quickly took down the story and issued a brief apology, but this story never should have been published in the first place.
The Advocate also published a response to the letter from Adelman-Cannon’s family. I would like to send my condolences to the Adelman-Cannon family. I am incredibly sorry you have to deal with something like this being published during such a difficult time.
I am saddened and disappointed that The Advocate decided to publish the initial letter to the editor and would like to clearly state the Reveille’s stance on gender identity: We will never misgender, deadname or use otherwise bigoted language to address any person, nor will we ever publish any writing that does.
Using they/them/their as a singular, gender-neutral pronoun is grammatically correct under AP Style, a style guide of journalism rules used by newsrooms worldwide. Deliberate deadnaming and misgendering of people by Reveille employees is a fireable offense.
News publications are meant to serve as watchdogs for their communities and represent every person in those communities. This includes LGBTQ+ people.
Publishing something that is deliberately hurtful towards any groups of people will never be appropriate. Misgendering any person should never be tolerated. 
I know it’s incredibly difficult to see the largest news organization in the state publish something like this. I also know that the Reveille is far from perfect. In our over 130 years of existence, the Reveille has certainly published content that was inappropriate and never should have been given a platform.
We cannot change the mistakes we have made, but we can do better. We must do better.
I know The Advocate will work to fix this mistake. We will also work to ensure we provide coverage to every group on LSU’s campus and the Baton Rouge area.
The Reveille is meant to provide important, timely and sometimes silly/entertaining stories to everyone. We do not want any member of the Baton Rouge community to feel disrespected or forgotten.
We will work hard to provide better and more fair coverage, especially towards members of the LGBTQ+ community. You deserve better from your news organizations. You deserve better from us.