Gabriel Mac

Gabriel Mac (formerly known as Mac McClelland) is an American author and journalist. From 2007 to 2012, he was a staff reporter at "Mother Jones", eventually in the position of human rights reporter. He has also written for "The New York Times Magazine", "Rolling Stone", and other publications.
Early life and education.
Mac was born in Cleveland, Ohio.
In 2002, Mac received a B.A. in English and psychology from The Ohio State University. In 2006, he received an MFA from University of New Orleans in nonfiction.
Career.
From 2007 to 2013, Mac worked at "Mother Jones", where he began as an intern, working his way up from fact checker and copy editor until he was published as a writer. From 2010 to 2013 he was a Human Rights reporter, a position that was created for Mac.
Mac has covered both domestic and foreign stories, with international locations including Thailand, Haiti, Australia, Burma, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Bhutan. Mac worked on extensive coverage of 2010's Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
He has appeared on MSNBC, PBS, NPR, Democracy Now!, the BBC, and Al Jazeera. He has been described variously as trustworthy by "Newsweek", "a total bad-ass" by "The American Prospect", and "a profane young bisexual" by "The Wall Street Journal".
In 2010, Mac published "For Us Surrender Is Out of the Question: A Story from Burma's Never-Ending War", which was about his experience in Thailand and accounts of the refugee crisis of those fleeing nearby Burma. He had initially gone to Thailand in 2006 to teach English and spent six weeks in the country, where he learned more about the Karen refugee crisis.
In July 2011, Mac wrote an essay for "GOOD" about trying to use violent sex to treat his posttraumatic stress disorder, which Mac said was triggered by reporting the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and included first-hand recounting via Twitter of being with a woman traumatized by rape. The writer Roxane Gay, a Haitian-American, was supportive of Mac recounting personal, first-hand experience in Haiti, Louisiana, and other locations Mac lived and worked as a writer. Journalist Marjorie Valbrun wrote in "Slate" that she found the article problematic from a journalist's perspective, while writer Debra Dickerson, also writing for "Slate", felt that the article was brave and fearless.
"Jezebel" published an "open letter to the editors" of "GOOD" signed by 36 female journalists and researchers, condemning Mac's lack of understanding of the context of Haiti, saying that he was perpetuating stereotypes. Journalist Elspeth Reeve wrote in defense of Mac's essay in "The Atlantic", examining the motivations behind the "Jezebel" letter. Conor Friedersdorf, another journalist at "The Atlantic", disputed the criticism that Mac was operating under a "colonialist mindset", instead seeing the "Jezebel" letter as unjustifiably scapegoating Mac. In "Essence", Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat said that she met the Haitian rape victim that Mac wrote about, and alleged that Mac did not have permission to write about the victim. Journalist Ansel Herz blogged that he felt that Mac had breached journalistic ethics. Journalists Amanda Taub and Jina Moore and others questioned the live-tweeting reportage method as well as the question of consent. Mac responded via a "Ms." interview, discussing the response to his personal essay.
In March 2012, "Mother Jones" published an article by Mac on working undercover at a warehouse as a picker doing third-party logistics.
In 2015, Mac published his second book, "Irritable Hearts: A PTSD Love Story", which described his experience with post-traumatic stress disorder. The book was a further examination of his personal journey with PTSD, which was initially the subject of the essay he wrote for "GOOD" magazine in 2011.
In 2016, Mac traveled to Cuba to document extreme birders for "Audubon."
In 2017, Mac wrote a feature for "Rolling Stone" about exploring the use of hallucinogens to treat depression and PTSD, and the underground network used by practitioners in the United States.
Since 2013, Mac has worked as a freelance journalist.
Personal life.
Mac met Nico Ansel in 2010 while reporting on the earthquake in Haiti. In 2019, he mentioned that he had "cis-hetero-married twice, wearing long white dresses," then divorced twice.
In a travel essay for the "New York Times" in October 2018, Mac mentioned in passing that he was "not just queer but also openly trans." The following year, "GQ" published a more explicit essay, written under his new name (stylized on the title page as "Gabriel Mac McClelland"), discussing his history with sexual abuse and his recent experiences with mental and medical gender transition.