5. Being trans is almost never the actual story.

Suppose you've decided to write an article about a woman who buys a zoo in the Pennsylvania countryside. It is probably relevant that her parents were biologists who nurtured her love of animals, or that they left her a fortune with which the zoo could be purchased…but it doesn't matter if this hypothetical woman is cisgender or transgender. If she's trans, her old name has nothing to do with her zoo-keeping aspirations.

Perhaps you found out, in the course of your research, that the woman in your article used to have a driver's license on which she was labeled as a man, or that her college education happened pre-transition. Suppose that this confuses you, because you don't understand trans people, and you don't think you know any trans people (how do you know?), and you have no idea what to do with this information. Here is what you do with it: nothing. The story is about the zoo, and about how this woman loves animals and has a lot of money and so was able to buy the zoo. It's not about a picture of what she looked like in college, before she changed. It's not about her old name. It's not about your speculation regarding what kinds of surgeries she may or may not have had.

And even if the aforemetioned zoo person was instead a trans politician with a decidedly anti-LGBT voting record, it's still possible (and important) to cover that person's story in a way that asks necessary questions, not sensational ones.