While I can rationalise a your framing of transphobic commentators as gas-lit, otherwise well-meaning people, I really dislike the mischaracterisation of gender dysphoria as mental illness. It isn’t. And presenting trans kids’ experience in this way actually supports the calls for removal of medical interventions in favour of psychotherapy and conversion therapy made by many observers ignorant of endocrinology and sexual dimorphism in early developmental biology. We have to be more careful with the language used to create more familiar analogies for cis people. Much of the misunderstanding of trans people today stems from such other attempts to construct and simplify explanations for others. Gender dysphoria is not a pathology. It is the natural consequence of brain and secondary sexual development following alternate dimorphic pathways during gestation. It’s not a disease and it’s not an abnormality. We are just a less common consequence of biological diversity that presents a challenge to a species whose brains are optimised for categorising things and a society craving the simplicity of two discrete and internally consistent options. The scientific explanation is the least open to misunderstanding but requires time and a genuinely open-minded listener. Whichever form an attempted explanation of “transness” takes though, we must question how it may be misconstrued, twisted or selectively quoted for use as a cudgel for the people we are trying to protect.
I fully agree with you, and like the way you have put this, and I am aware that the DSM-5 diagnosis was done to serve a practical purpose, and the focus should be on addressing the distress, not the gender identity itself - the need is not to cure the gender identity, but rather to alleviate the distress of the incongruence. And perhaps I should have focused more on this distinction in terms of which it is not a mental illness pathology in the way that depression is, but I wanted my emphasis to be more on the lack of choice trans people have which is analogous to the lack of choice, albeit for different reasons, that a cancer patient has. If my audience learns that being trans is not an indulgence of the woke liberal left, but an unchosen 'medical condition' for which doctors have treatments, albeit the treatments are for the distress, not the gender identity, than I think it is worth being less than accurate on this. On the other hand, I will try to do better next time I write about this, as you are absolutely correct!
I also sent them an audio recording—they didn't acknowledge mine either. After listening to the whole series, it's no surprise they wanted to cherry-pick.
It's not just one. The NYT purged all its pro-equality writers back in '23 after 2000 former and current writers wrote a letter condemning the obvious anti-Trans editorial bent discernible in every department of the publication. The NYT subsequently said it wouldn't print anything by those people ever again and fired or forced current contractees to quit.
A real filthy piece of business.
There are no more left leaning major daily papers. Huffpo is center center right at best, WaPo has gone full fascist and the WSJ attempted to pretend to be centrist until '22 but is now raving MAGA.
When I hear right-wingers bitching about "leftwing mainstream media", I want to ask, WHERE?!?!? Where do they see ANY left leaning major outlets? A recent IPIRG study shows 80% of all media outlets are clearly rightwing or lean rightwing. But MAGAs won't be happy until no dissenting voices remain whatsoever. They should move to Russia where 92% of media is government owned and it managed and the remainder is compliant, with zero independent outlets. Ze-rO.
Yes yes, we are so very radical. We would like to be able to use the bathroom, have access to medical care, and not be discriminated against based on who we are. Ya know, treated like human beings with basic dignity. Very scary stuff!
I am writing because I am disgusted and outraged by your repeated dissemination of anti-trans articles. NYTs reports have repeatedly been cited in legal briefs used to justify bans on gender-affirming care. In yesterday’s devastating Supreme Court ruling that stripped medical rights from transgender youth, Times articles were cited seven times to support the decision. Now, fresh off the ruling you helped legitimize, your paper has published at least six more stories spreading misinformation on transgender healthcare, amplifying anti-trans voices, targeting Democrats for supporting trans rights, and laying the groundwork for even harsher crackdowns. You should be ashamed of yourself as a publication and as writers. What you have written has had a direct and harmful effect on the transgender community. I expect you to issue an apology to the trans community and make a concerted and sincere effort to do better moving forward.
Honestly I think papers like the NYT are hugely responsible for the amount of disinformation about us right now. I saw, over the past ten years in real time as papers like the NYT had articles initially on transgender people as an interesting anamoly - feature articles about Jazz Jennings or other trans people, relayed with the tone of a zoo animal, but at the very least interested in our stories and who we are as people, devolve into hand-wringing misinformation laden pieces about regret. "Is the science really settled? We ask one detransitioner with a personal grudge and no actual trans people. You decide!"
The way the news has entirely scrubbed many detrans individuals' religious conversions or ulterior motives, ties to large groups, etc has also not helped us. The news has the ability to control hearts and minds more than we believe, and it feels like honestly all the info on the internet has gone from actual information about the trans experience to misinformation laden pieces about a select few detrans activists.
The NYT has finally come out of their Anti Trans Rights Closet and they are blatantly showing their true colors and it’s MAGAT PROPAGANDA RED! They are joining the cult of Trump and have lost ALL CREDIBILITY WHATSOEVER! BOYCOTT the NYT!!!🔥🔥🤬🤬🖕🏽🖕🏽🖕🏽🖕🏽🖕🏽
Not to say this vindicates the NYT, but there is a very moving and heartfelt guest essay in the opinion section today by Samantha Williams, the parent of a transgender daughter. Worth reading and sharing. It speaks truth to power, lived reality vs all the nonsense and misinformation.
My heart aches for our youth. It will cascade to other issues as well. Gender and body autonomy has become an issue for others to weigh in on is a misguided and clearly hateful agenda. Vote the bastards out and the media will follow the money trail for readers and viewers.... Please continue to avoid supporting or using services and companies that disallow the rights of any individual.
It's also very disheartening to read the majority of the comments from NYTimes readers on these articles, which express deep skepticism as to the necessity and benefits of GAC care for minors, and often alarm and outright opposition altogether. These comments are often based on false assumptions (e.g., that kids are routinely pressured or rushed into treatment due to group-think "ideology" or sinister "profit motives"). They usually start with some variation of "I'm a liberal, but..."
Even more disturbing is the hostility from gay commentators who want to decouple trans rights from gay rights more broadly. How can they not hear the echoes of the arguments used against gay people a generation ago in MAGA's culture war against trans people? How can they not understand that civil rights are not a zero sum game?
And every NYTimes article cites the Cass Review as representing the gold standard of current medical research on GAC for minors. The NYTimes' journalists and editors seem to be willfully disregarding credible critiques of the Cass Review, and more recent reviews that have confirmed the WPATH guidelines.
Let's not forget that the NYT teed up their audience to revel in this decision with their disgusting and biased six-part podcast.
The podcasts asked for parents of trans kids to send through their lived experiences so I sent them this and they did not even have the courtesy to reply. https://substack.com/@anomalousme/note/p-157493527?r=jrp5m
While I can rationalise a your framing of transphobic commentators as gas-lit, otherwise well-meaning people, I really dislike the mischaracterisation of gender dysphoria as mental illness. It isn’t. And presenting trans kids’ experience in this way actually supports the calls for removal of medical interventions in favour of psychotherapy and conversion therapy made by many observers ignorant of endocrinology and sexual dimorphism in early developmental biology. We have to be more careful with the language used to create more familiar analogies for cis people. Much of the misunderstanding of trans people today stems from such other attempts to construct and simplify explanations for others. Gender dysphoria is not a pathology. It is the natural consequence of brain and secondary sexual development following alternate dimorphic pathways during gestation. It’s not a disease and it’s not an abnormality. We are just a less common consequence of biological diversity that presents a challenge to a species whose brains are optimised for categorising things and a society craving the simplicity of two discrete and internally consistent options. The scientific explanation is the least open to misunderstanding but requires time and a genuinely open-minded listener. Whichever form an attempted explanation of “transness” takes though, we must question how it may be misconstrued, twisted or selectively quoted for use as a cudgel for the people we are trying to protect.
I fully agree with you, and like the way you have put this, and I am aware that the DSM-5 diagnosis was done to serve a practical purpose, and the focus should be on addressing the distress, not the gender identity itself - the need is not to cure the gender identity, but rather to alleviate the distress of the incongruence. And perhaps I should have focused more on this distinction in terms of which it is not a mental illness pathology in the way that depression is, but I wanted my emphasis to be more on the lack of choice trans people have which is analogous to the lack of choice, albeit for different reasons, that a cancer patient has. If my audience learns that being trans is not an indulgence of the woke liberal left, but an unchosen 'medical condition' for which doctors have treatments, albeit the treatments are for the distress, not the gender identity, than I think it is worth being less than accurate on this. On the other hand, I will try to do better next time I write about this, as you are absolutely correct!
I also sent them an audio recording—they didn't acknowledge mine either. After listening to the whole series, it's no surprise they wanted to cherry-pick.
So when again does that transphobic editor at the NYT get kicked out? Are her friends going with her?
It's not just one. The NYT purged all its pro-equality writers back in '23 after 2000 former and current writers wrote a letter condemning the obvious anti-Trans editorial bent discernible in every department of the publication. The NYT subsequently said it wouldn't print anything by those people ever again and fired or forced current contractees to quit.
A real filthy piece of business.
There are no more left leaning major daily papers. Huffpo is center center right at best, WaPo has gone full fascist and the WSJ attempted to pretend to be centrist until '22 but is now raving MAGA.
When I hear right-wingers bitching about "leftwing mainstream media", I want to ask, WHERE?!?!? Where do they see ANY left leaning major outlets? A recent IPIRG study shows 80% of all media outlets are clearly rightwing or lean rightwing. But MAGAs won't be happy until no dissenting voices remain whatsoever. They should move to Russia where 92% of media is government owned and it managed and the remainder is compliant, with zero independent outlets. Ze-rO.
The NYT sucks.
I hope it fails and gets sold to China.
Yes yes, we are so very radical. We would like to be able to use the bathroom, have access to medical care, and not be discriminated against based on who we are. Ya know, treated like human beings with basic dignity. Very scary stuff!
Disgusting. I just wrote the NYT the following message, using Erin’s writing as inspiration:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/15/admin/contact-newsroom.html
I am writing because I am disgusted and outraged by your repeated dissemination of anti-trans articles. NYTs reports have repeatedly been cited in legal briefs used to justify bans on gender-affirming care. In yesterday’s devastating Supreme Court ruling that stripped medical rights from transgender youth, Times articles were cited seven times to support the decision. Now, fresh off the ruling you helped legitimize, your paper has published at least six more stories spreading misinformation on transgender healthcare, amplifying anti-trans voices, targeting Democrats for supporting trans rights, and laying the groundwork for even harsher crackdowns. You should be ashamed of yourself as a publication and as writers. What you have written has had a direct and harmful effect on the transgender community. I expect you to issue an apology to the trans community and make a concerted and sincere effort to do better moving forward.
Thank you for the link, I just wrote them as well.
Thank you for sharing the link! I just sent them a message, and will encourage others to do the same.
A larger and louder boycott of the NYT is in order. 🤬🤬🤬
Honestly I think papers like the NYT are hugely responsible for the amount of disinformation about us right now. I saw, over the past ten years in real time as papers like the NYT had articles initially on transgender people as an interesting anamoly - feature articles about Jazz Jennings or other trans people, relayed with the tone of a zoo animal, but at the very least interested in our stories and who we are as people, devolve into hand-wringing misinformation laden pieces about regret. "Is the science really settled? We ask one detransitioner with a personal grudge and no actual trans people. You decide!"
The way the news has entirely scrubbed many detrans individuals' religious conversions or ulterior motives, ties to large groups, etc has also not helped us. The news has the ability to control hearts and minds more than we believe, and it feels like honestly all the info on the internet has gone from actual information about the trans experience to misinformation laden pieces about a select few detrans activists.
Continues to make me ill. Fuck NYT.
The NYT has finally come out of their Anti Trans Rights Closet and they are blatantly showing their true colors and it’s MAGAT PROPAGANDA RED! They are joining the cult of Trump and have lost ALL CREDIBILITY WHATSOEVER! BOYCOTT the NYT!!!🔥🔥🤬🤬🖕🏽🖕🏽🖕🏽🖕🏽🖕🏽
Not to say this vindicates the NYT, but there is a very moving and heartfelt guest essay in the opinion section today by Samantha Williams, the parent of a transgender daughter. Worth reading and sharing. It speaks truth to power, lived reality vs all the nonsense and misinformation.
Which I GAR-UN-TEE will be used by the "Times" and its defenders to show how even-handed, fair, and utterly unbiased its coverage of the issue is.
No doubt. I hope that Samantha Williams can share her message and story in other outlets as well
Toilet paper has more journalistic integrity than the NYT
Agreed. TP is certainly more useful.
My heart aches for our youth. It will cascade to other issues as well. Gender and body autonomy has become an issue for others to weigh in on is a misguided and clearly hateful agenda. Vote the bastards out and the media will follow the money trail for readers and viewers.... Please continue to avoid supporting or using services and companies that disallow the rights of any individual.
It's also very disheartening to read the majority of the comments from NYTimes readers on these articles, which express deep skepticism as to the necessity and benefits of GAC care for minors, and often alarm and outright opposition altogether. These comments are often based on false assumptions (e.g., that kids are routinely pressured or rushed into treatment due to group-think "ideology" or sinister "profit motives"). They usually start with some variation of "I'm a liberal, but..."
Even more disturbing is the hostility from gay commentators who want to decouple trans rights from gay rights more broadly. How can they not hear the echoes of the arguments used against gay people a generation ago in MAGA's culture war against trans people? How can they not understand that civil rights are not a zero sum game?
And every NYTimes article cites the Cass Review as representing the gold standard of current medical research on GAC for minors. The NYTimes' journalists and editors seem to be willfully disregarding credible critiques of the Cass Review, and more recent reviews that have confirmed the WPATH guidelines.
Utterly, totally disgusting, harmful, complicit. Who is pushing this agenda at the Times?
How acceptable would this law and decision be if you replaced " transgender " with " black " ?
The new york times has no redeeming value, not even as a liner for a bird cage. It is garbage and reading it causes brain damage.
The NYT is pretty much the MAGA paper of record. I wouldn't use it to line a birdcage.