The Trump administration is trying to define transgender people out of existence. Last month, the New York Times reported that the US government is seeking to deny trans people the most basic recognition by claiming that gender is “determined by the genitals that a person is born with”.

The leaked memo sparked outrage and fear about a policy that could cost lives and prevent millions of Americans from existing in public spaces. The Guardian in the US is committed to covering this important civil rights fight, but when the time came for us to report on Trump’s attacks, we encountered problems. Some trans people wouldn’t talk to us.

That’s because, days earlier, the Guardian published an editorial that we believe promoted transphobic viewpoints, including some of the same assertions about gender that US politicians are citing in their push to eliminate trans rights. Guardian journalists in the US had no input in the editorial, which we felt was misplaced and misguided, and nearly all reporters and editors from our New York, Washington DC and California offices wrote to UK editors with our concerns.

The editorial was an attempt to make sense of a growing debate about trans rights in the UK. While focused on the Gender Recognition Act, the editorial and resulting conversations have exposed some of the fundamental divides between American and British feminism and progressive politics – and highlighted for us an alarming intolerance of trans viewpoints in mainstream UK discourse.

The editorial used a UK legal debate about IDs to argue that trans rights “collide” with cis women’s rights; that equality for trans women “could adversely affect other women”; and that allowing trans women to access public spaces threatens cis women’s “safety”. These arguments were met with particular dismay in the US as they echo the position of anti-trans legislators who have pushed overtly transphobic bathroom bills.

The editorial’s unsubstantiated argument only serves to dehumanize and stigmatize trans people

The editorial’s unsubstantiated argument only serves to dehumanize and stigmatize trans people. Numerous academic studies have confirmed that trans-inclusive policies do not endanger cis people. On the contrary, there is overwhelming evidence that trans people, particularly women of color, are victimized at disproportionately high rates and suffer abuse in places of public accommodations. Levels of HIV and depression are at crisis levels, all brought about through extreme prejudice and social and economic marginalization.

Trans people are also three times more likely to be sexually assaulted than cis people, which made it all the more troubling that the editorial pointed out that they can be excluded from rape support services in the UK. Like cis women, trans women are subject to gendered violence and misogyny.

In the US, there is also growing mainstream recognition that phrases such as “male-bodied” and claims that “gender identity does not cancel out sex” are outdated and offensive. We believe this framing reduces trans women and men to their body parts and anatomy, and it erases intersex and non-binary people. Biologists have increasingly recognized that there is a wider spectrum than two sexes, a view that more than 1,600 scientists supported in a recent letter responding to Trump’s memo.

Guardian journalism has repeatedly uncovered the severe abuse of trans women behind bars, and we believe these harms should drive the conversation on trans prisoners’ rights.

The Guardian has a proud history of fighting for the voiceless, the vulnerable and the disenfranchised. It was with that legacy in mind that our journalists who write and edit stories on LGBTQIA rights, women’s rights, politics, immigration, technology, business, criminal justice, gun policy and more decided to publicly voice our concern. Some of us have also seen first-hand the discrimination and violence trans women face.

Cis women’s intolerance should not be a legitimate reason for limiting the rights of trans women. The idea that all trans women should be denied civil rights because a trans woman might someday commit a crime is the essence of bigotry and goes against feminist values.

Statistics show that, compared to cis people, trans people are five times more likely to experience police harassment and nine times more likely to have attempted suicide at some point in their lives. But rights aren’t based on numbers, they’re based on the belief that everyone deserves the same basic freedoms.

The spirit of the Guardian is something we deeply believe in – it’s about fairness and equality. We should work to hire trans people on staff. And our journalism should be grounded in the principle that trans women are women, and that trans people should have the right to feel safe to live as themselves.

Sam Levin is a news reporter in Oakland, Mona Chalabi is data editor in New York, and Sabrina Siddiqui is a political reporter in Washington DC