A public letter to Melanie Vaughan, the bride who ruined her own wedding day by being intolerant

Dear Melanie Vaughan,

"It was one of the most embarrassing things I have ever known. It ruined the wedding." you told the press.

You ruined your own wedding day, by being so quick to judge other people.

As you will recall, it, was a photographer named Kate Summers, who had started living as a woman during the months after taking your booking, then known as Dave Stonestreet. Just so you know - most of us prefer to use the pronoun she when referring to a woman.

The gender identity Kate chooses is a matter of personal choice and not really any of your business. However despite this fact, she was courteous enough to mention her change to you before the wedding, something which you claimed to be comfortable with at the time and later retracted, (perhaps when you realised outrage might have more media-potential.)

From your reaction, anyone would have thought Dame Edna Everage herself had walked into your wedding wearing a bikini, not a brunette middle-aged woman with tidy hair and a modest calf-length skirt.

Yet despite Kate's modest dress, you told the press, "I had no idea how bad it would be." Apparently you thought she would come in a trouser suit.

A woman living as a woman, turns up dressed like a woman! What an awful shock that must have been.

I notice that your other female guests are not in trouser suits, nor you, so why would you expect Kate to wear one?

In addition to unacceptable intolerance, you have shown utter hypocrisy by saying, "I'm open-minded" and "I do understand what he's going through." No you don't, or you wouldn't be moaning to the national press that Kate had ruined your wedding day when it appears that she was just to have been trying to earn an honest day's pay! And "I'm open-minded" doesn't even begin to demonstrate open-mindedness if it's followed by "but he looked ridiculous."

I very much doubt that it was Kate's intention to upstage you on your wedding day, she was probably just trying to get on with her life. It is you who has turned an occasion that was supposed to symbolise your love for Anthony, into an attack on the transgender community.

If your wedding could be ruined by a virtual stranger having a sex change, it must have been tottering near the brink of destruction anyway.

What would you have Kate do instead? Live as a man when she feels as a woman? Or would you just rather she just stayed at home and never went out to work?

You say you're not happy with the photos, but what do you expect if you and your guests held such contempt for the lady behind the camera?

By the way, are you the same Melanie Vaughan who went whining to the press when a security guard wouldn't carry your pushchair up some stairs? Granted, your fall-out with The Job Centre Plus is not riddled with bigotry and poison like this most recent complaint, but it does suggest that you might be inclined to view everyday frustrations in terms of their media potential.

However this time it's backfired. Rather than reflecting badly on Ms. Summers, your recent comments to the press have shown you to be an intolerant, spiteful and media-hungry person.

Transgender people pop up everywhere within the community - on buses, in supermarkets, at church and even at weddings, but you don't see other people running crying to "Love It" magazine.

I suggest that you make a public apology, both to Ms. Summers and the wider transgender community, if you want to emerge from this situation with even a shred of dignity intact.

Thanks

Miffed blogger