Gina Chua (1960 - ) journalist

Chua was born in Singapore, educated in the Philippines, did a bachelors’s degree in mathematics at the Universityof Chicago and a master’s in journalism at Columbia University in New York. Chua worked at the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation and the Straits Times, was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal in Manila and Hanoi, and later served as editor-in-chief of The Wall Street Journal Asia and the South China Morning Post. Chua served as a senior editor for The Wall Street Journal in New York, and began working for Reuters in 2011, where Chua introduced new tools and built top-class data and graphics teams.

After earlier confiding in her boss and a few others, she transitioned, at age 60, in late 2020 while working at home during the Covid lockdown. She informed her colleagues by email, and Reuters changed her profile photo and gender on their website. Chua changed her English name from Reginald to Gina, but left her Chinese name, which she chooses to keep private, unchanged.

Following new reports about her transition, Chua has been getting emails from parents about their trans children, about themselves, and from colleagues themselves thinking about transition.

She was appointed executive editor of Reuters in April 2021, a newly created role. A year later she left Reuters to become the executive editor of Semafor, a new media startup.

In December 2023 she wrote:

“If 2023 is anything to go by, 2024 will see a continued wave of attacks on trans people, driven by politicians who believe they can weaponize our existence as a wedge issue to electoral success and victory in the “culture wars.”

And if 2023 is anything to go by, I predict 2024 will continue to see many mainstream news organizations unwittingly and unquestioningly accept and adopt those right-wing frames and talking points in their coverage, contributing to falling public support for trans rights, and more broadly for LGBTQ+ people and other marginalized communities.

I hope desperately that I’m wrong. But I fear I’ll be right.”

• “Reuters appoints Gina Chua as executive editor”. Reuters, 21 April 2021. Online.
• Jillian Eugenios. “At the helm at Reuters, this trans executive says she's finally living in the light”. NBC News, June 1, 2020. Online.
• Katie Robertson. “A Top Editor Becomes Her ‘True Self’ “. New York Times, June 4, 2021. Online.
• Juwan Holmes. “Reuters’ Gina Chua is hoping to stage a future where trans people flourish in media”. LGBTG Nation, July 21, 2021. Online.

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