Cartoon ignorant

To the editor:

What are you thinking? The hateful, ignorant and bigoted political cartoon you ran suggesting that transgender people are dupes of some twisted ideology is frankly disgusting. It’s also a disgrace to the Review’s proud and long tradition of supporting vulnerable and underserved people.

What happened to your ethics? Not to mention your understanding of scientific and medical research? I am horrified by your lack of knowledge and compassion.

Ann Lovejoy

Bainbridge

Not local culture

To the editor:

Having lived here for only 32 years, I know I am a “newcomer” in many ways. Still, I need to express my confusion. This paper has always been local and filled with local voices and perspectives. It was one of the few papers that decried sending Japanese residents to concentration camps during World War 2. It was a community response.

Of course, island residents have a wide range of opinions, but if those opinions need to be expressed, let them do it. Communities discuss concerns and perspectives within the community. What is the need or purpose of dragging in opinions from voices that know nothing of our local, accepting culture?

George Shannon

Bainbridge

Do better

To the editor:

I am emailing today to express not only concern but absolute disgust with your recent posting of the opinion piece containing tons of transphobia, sexism and frankly disgusting misinformation. I would think the BIR would want to hold themselves to a higher standard than aligning itself with Nazi rhetoric. I will be making sure all businesses and people who I am around on the island know what kind of writers you’re keeping on your paper/news. Do better.

Savannah Johnson

Bainbridge

No hate speech

To the editor:

I’m horrified by “Not Accepting Trans…” by Christine Flowers, a woman from Delaware who publishes her hate speech disguised as “opinion” in papers across the country. On Bainbridge we have countless wonderful trans community members and countless beautiful trans youth, all of whom deserve our support and protection at this critical time.

We know that hate speech can embolden those who are willing to commit heinous crimes. If we allow this to continue, we put people’s lives at risk. I ask the Bainbridge Review to stop printing hate speech and stand with our trans community the same way it stood with our Nikkei community in World War 2.

Jessica Star Rockers

Bainbridge

Stain on legacy

To the editor:

The Bainbridge Island Review was the first newspaper to reject the bigotry of the Japanese-American internment during World War 2. That position was courageous at the time and has been a proud legacy for this newspaper in the decades since.

So I was especially appalled when I saw “Not Accepting Trans Definitions Not Cruelty, Just Biology” by Christine Flowers in this very same newspaper. Aside from being biologically and factually incorrect, the OpEd elevates the moral panic and bigotry of our time. Running that article is an affront to our BI community and a shameful stain on your legacy of moral clarity when it comes to minorities.

Rakesh Bharania

Bainbridge

Upset by columns

To the editor:

I have been angry, appalled and disheartened at the recent pieces you’ve published that spread lies and hate, and that ignore the local values and issues important on Bainbridge Island. Specifically, your anti-immigrant article this past fall that implied that immigrant students aren’t worth teaching and hurt school budgets. That article was not only offensive and full of misinformation, it was also tone deaf to our local school district’s current situation. BISD’s budget is buckling under BI’s housing crisis; enrollment is declining as families can’t afford to live here. We would be lucky to have (and our budget would benefit from!) every student it could possibly enroll—immigrants and non-immigrants alike.

And now this recent anti-trans article that tells our trans community members that they do not exist. What are you thinking, Bainbridge Review? This is a community based in a very specific and very notable history of striving—and failing—and striving to be welcoming and embracing of all its members. (I write this on the eve of Leaving Our Island day.) It’s one thing to show various well-argued, thoughtfully reasoned viewpoints from your own community members. It’s another to platform a homophobic and transphobic writer who doesn’t see how telling a trans girl that they’re not really a girl is cruel. Clearly, Christine Flowers doesn’t know or love any trans people. Then again maybe no one on your staff does either—in which case maybe you need to do some Diversity, Equity and Inclusion hiring (ahem) so you can get some perspective.

Janna Cawrse Esarey

Bainbridge

Trash columns

To the editor:

We, community members of Bainbridge Island, are horrified by your recent publishing of these articles, but not limited to only these: “Not accepting Trans definitions not cruelty, just biology” by Christine Flowers Feb. 28; “Foreign-born students hard to teach—and it’s costly,” by Joe Guzzardi, Nov. 8, 2024.

Your publication has been trash for a long while with many anti-Black, anti-Critical Race Theory/Diversity Equity and Inclusion, anti-Immigrant and now anti-LGBTQIA+ opinion pieces. You have misquoted and misnamed BIPOC community leaders for many years as well. Although your racist and transphobic opinion pieces have also been local BI writers, these current opinion pieces are not even from here. Did you purchase these articles to use them as click bait to help fund your dying and discredited news outlet?

You need to take accountability for this reporting. These types of articles hurt people. These hateful and vile opinion pieces bring harm to the members of our community that are most marginalized by society. Is your goal to hurt communities that are most vulnerable? That is what you are telling us when you publish these articles. You are also telling us that your values do not align with ours of justice, repair and accountability.

Many of us have already stopped subscribing, but now we will actively boycott and protest. Get ready for it, we are organizing and will not tolerate this hate in our community. This island has a long history of justice focused and community well-being publishing. You have violently broken away from these historical BI principles.

I expect Bainbridge Review to answer these questions here and get back to us. I know that you have heard from many community members already.

Rachael Reese

Bainbridge

Hateful column

To the editor:

In a time of rising intolerance and persecution of our trans neighbors, the op-ed by Christine Flowers in the Feb. 28, 2025, issue of BI Review was beyond the pale. That you chose to platform the small-minded and hateful rhetoric in both the op-ed and accompanying cartoon with a prominent half-page placement turned my stomach.

Do our trans friends and family not have enough to deal with in the second President Trump era that you feel the need to import such backwards thinking from out of state? In the same issue, you celebrated the tenure of editor Steve Powell, but the decision to run this content is a stain on whatever legacy he hoped to leave, and his retirement can’t come soon enough.

Wes Kim

Bainbridge