For many Americans, the discovery of a significant transgender community in our society is still a relatively new thing.

Not surprisingly, your ombudsman and The Blade’s editors got a wide range of reaction to Kirk Baird’s major story that ran in the paper’s Aug. 28 Living section: “Inside Out: For transgender people, a difficult but liberating journey to becoming their true selves.”

I thought this was an excellently written and edited package, illustrated with staff photographer Katie Rausch’s revealing photos. Particularly important was an insert explaining transgender terminology, and a story examining how many transgender men and women there are in the United States — and what abuse they suffer.

Reader reaction varied, from the anonymous caller who told me “I never thought the editors of The Blade had that much guts. Congratulations,” to the anonymous letter writer who said we were showing a side of life “worse than Sodom and Gomorrah.”

However, some of the most interesting objections were raised by the woman who is one of the main focuses of the story, Audrey Remusat, who was born biologically male.

Ms. Remusat did not object to the way she was portrayed now, but she objected to the writer referring to her as having been male in her past when she was, in fact, biologically male.

“For instance,” she complained, one line in the story said “a happy child, at the age of 5, he began to question his identity in subtle but important ways.”

What bothered her about that is that she wants to rewrite the past. “Although I was assigned male at birth, the moment I came out, my entire past changed with me. I became a little girl instead of a little boy,” she said, and she wanted the story written — and the online version changed — to reflect that she was always female, and that the same be done for the other transgender people in the story.

Your ombudsman strongly disagrees.

Changing the past to make it fit with present convenience is what editors did in George Orwell’s nightmare novel 1984.

Audrey Remusat may have always been a woman psychologically — but had someone asked her at age 5 who and what she was, she would have said a boy.

She also would have given her former name, which she regards as a “dead name” and thinks should never be used. “All it does is enable people to harass us by using the wrong pronouns and ... further shame and discriminate against us.”

I can sympathize — but still disagree. Actually, there is one part of this I don’t think the editors handled correctly. The writer made up pseudonyms for those who have since changed gender.

Audrey, for example, was “Steve.” I don’t think it is ethical for journalists to make up false names, period, even if we indicate to the readers they aren’t real. We ought to have used the former real first names of those mentioned in the story — or no name at all.

Journalists are not and should not be in the business of changing reality or altering the past — no matter how unpleasant.

Mike Pearson, features editor of The Blade, said “Our job was to balance all viewpoints, while giving readers a coherent timeline for what Audrey and others have experienced. It defied logic to refer to her as a little girl when she was 5 or 8, or to discount the feelings of her parents, who spoke of ‘mourning’ the loss of their son when Audrey announced her intention to transition.”

Your ombudsman agrees. Donald Trump probably wishes he wasn’t once strongly pro-choice, and as late as 2000, even supported partial-birth abortion.

Hillary Clinton may wish she hadn’t once been a Republican who campaigned for Barry Goldwater when she was 17.

But it would be a lie to write that Mr. Trump was always anti-abortion, or that Mrs. Clinton was always a liberal Democrat.

Transgender people deserve to be treated with the same understanding and respect all of us deserve, and I think Mr. Baird’s story did that. But a newspaper cannot alter the past.

■

Elizabeth Pollock of Maumee is one of a half-dozen readers who have written your ombudsman to express concern that The Blade is becoming too biased toward Donald Trump in its news coverage. She was disappointed that on Sept. 9, the story “Donald Trump touts school choice in Cleveland” was on the front page, while stories about Mrs. Clinton were on Page 3.

Your ombudsman does think that on occasion in this campaign, the coverage has seemed slightly pro-Trump. There is no question that — while The Blade has yet to endorse any candidate — the opinions expressed on the editorial page have been more favorable to the Republican nominee than what’s been in most papers.

That, however, is any paper’s right.

I did think — as did several readers — that the news story on Sept. 8 “Trump, Clinton map military plans” spent too much time outlining Mr. Trump’s views and didn’t mention what former Secretary of State Clinton thought until relatively late in a story about their joint appearance at a national security forum.

But I found nothing wrong with putting the school choice story on the front page the next day, especially since he spoke in Ohio and Blade politics writer Tom Troy covered the story.

There was also an index box directing readers to stories inside the paper, including Mrs. Clinton’s attack on her rival.

While I think the newspaper needs to strive for fairness, there is always a correct bias in favor of local news.

Incidentally, if I had been the editor that day, the story I might have more prominently displayed was the one in which Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson revealed he didn’t know anything about Aleppo, the center of the Syrian refugee crisis.

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In my last column, I discussed reader reaction to The Blade’s graphic coverage of murdered Sierah Joughin’s injuries.

Reader Jerry Brown said he didn’t have a problem with the newspaper reporting the facts, but said he thought it was a shame the editors did so “to sell more papers” on the day of the funeral.

“I have no respect for the lack of consideration for the timing of the story,” he wrote me. Well, I can tell you that the thought of selling more papers with those details never entered the editors’ minds.

The vast majority of copies of The Blade are home-delivered, and those who handle the news aren’t thinking of how to sell papers.

They are dealing with news, which is what is happening now. News isn’t often pretty, but it is timely, and whether it is convenient or not, the newspaper’s job is to report the facts when they surface.

Anyone who has a concern about fairness or accuracy in The Blade is invited to write me, c/​o The Blade; 541 N. Superior St., Toledo, 43660, or at my Detroit office: 555 Manoogian Hall, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48202; call me, at 1-888-746-8610 or email me at OMBLADE@aol.com.

I cannot promise to address every question in the newspaper, but I do promise that everyone who contacts me with a serious question will get a personal reply. Reminder, however: If you don't leave me an email address or a phone number, I have no way to get in touch with you.

Jack Lessenberry is a member of the journalism faculty at Wayne State University in Detroit and a former national editor of The Blade.

First Published September 18, 2016, 4:00 a.m.