Open Letter Addresses Transphobia in NY Times

Over 180 journalists, including New York Times contributors, have signed an open letter to the publication calling out its biased coverage of trans issues. In the letter, the signers say they have “serious concerns about editorial bias in the newspaper’s reporting on transgender, non⁠⁠binary, and gender nonconforming people.”

The list of signatories includes a few prominent Times journalists, including opinion contributor Roxane Gay, culture reporter J Wortham, and former reporter Dave Itzkoff. It counted a far greater number of writers, such as Ed Yong of The Atlantic and Jia Tolentino of The New Yorker, who contribute only occasionally, and others such as actors Lena Dunham and Cynthia Nixon.

In the letter, they say that the legacy paper has treated coverage of topics on gender diversity with an “eerily familiar mix of pseudoscience and euphemistic, charged language.” The letter points out that the Time‘s coverage often omits sources’ associations with anti-trans groups and takes issue with the recent decision to not renew a contract with trans opinion writer Jennifer Finney Boylan.

In a statement to NPR, Times spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander defended the stories, saying they were reported: “deeply and empathetically.”

“Our journalism strives to explore, interrogate, and reflect the experiences, ideas, and debates in society—to help readers understand them. Our reporting did exactly that, and we’re proud of it,” he says.

Organizations such as GLAAD, which had signed the original letter, were dissatisfied with this response.

“The New York Times‘ response is as ill-informed as its coverage of transgender people. It is shameful that the Times’ response blatantly ignores today’s letter from 180+ of their own contributors and does not address the 120+ organizations and leaders who signed the letter alongside GLAAD,” the organization wrote.

“The Times is not only standing behind coverage that hundreds of leaders in journalism, media, and LGBTQ advocacy are speaking out against but boasting that they are proud of it.”

Particular articles the letter took umbrage with included a January article by correspondent Katie Baker that focused on the challenges schools face when students change their gender identity without their parent’s knowledge. Authors of the letter say Baker miss-framed the issue and failed to make clear that related lawsuits brought by parents against school districts are part of a legal strategy tied to groups that have identified trans people as an “existential threat.”

Another article under scrutiny was Emily Bazelon’s piece about children questioning their gender identity. While she noted that the number of adults who decide later to de-transition was low, she posited the question, “How many young people, especially those struggling with serious mental health issues, might be trying to shed aspects of themselves they dislike?”

This reductive rhetoric surrounding trans youth lacks solid scientific evidence. The reporting on trans issues at the NY Times, and other news publications that would ignore the swaths of medical professionals and associations which all support gender-affirming care, does nothing but further right-wing sentiments aimed at extinguishing us.