The New York Times released an anti-trans podcast packed with disinformation. However, one of the most interesting portions was the interview with the first patient to take blockers.
I love how, in their attempts to make us look bad, they actually prove our point and show us to be perfectly normal while showing everyone just how unhinged they really are.
A couple of years ago, I wrote an email to an anti-trans politician who was attempting to ban gender-affirming care at a university student health center. I wrote to him as a medical professional but explained that I also transitioned when I was 19. He wrote me back, and pretty much said: but these kids are NOT like you, their experience is different. It's amazing to me how they just can't really believe that we can thrive. They can't see a trans adult and make the connection back to a trans kid, a trans childhood. It's like they lack imagination and insight on a fundamental level. They so desperately want to be *right* about these kids that they literally cannot understand the concept of a thriving trans adult. Just like how these podcasters refuse to see how a 50yo doctor was once a trans kid. This politician couldn't understand that these kids were just like me, that I am thriving because I was able to access care, and that I was once a trans kid!
I'm 34-years post SRS/GCS, and but for the screaming antis, these have been the most awesome and happy years of my life. The antis are the ones who've caused me trauma, not my transition. About that I am angry. Yet, I have never for one moment regretted my transition.
All of us here know that gender-affirming care is LIFE SAVING care and we need to shout this from the rooftops in order to drown out the relentless anti-trans propaganda coming from the Legacy Media who only carries water for the transphobes. We need to elevate our own stories and loudly broadcast how our own lives were saved by transitioning. We need more journalists who actually cares about our lives to interview us and not present this both-side BS that the NYT presents. We need people to show the world how the Cass Review relied on junk science and pushes an anti-trans agenda that is doing FAR more harm than help right now.
I don't know how to make this happen but it needs to happen RIGHT NOW because the transphobes are winning.
I can’t for the life of me figure out why people care so much about trans folks, other than having a political punching bag that can’t fight back due to small numbers. I did read a theory about the Christian far right that the existence of trans and nonbinary people threatens their narrow world view about gender, hence the 2 gender EO that Trump issued (written by fanatic OMB director Russell Vought of Project 2025 infamy.) The NYT is being highly irresponsible IMO in producing this podcast series.
I groaned when I saw this podcast announced in the NYT daily email, because cis people should not be leading the conversation on trans healthcare. Hopefully most of us would take offense at, for example, a race relations podcast with no nonwhite hosts.
I was one of those misrepresented in their article on pubertal suppression a couple of years ago. The NYT is an anti-trans news rag, with an undeserved and misleading journalistic pedigree.
It was an article by Megan Twohey, whose article on Harvey Weinstein launched the "Me Too" movement. That was the ONLY reason I agreed to be interviewed by her and featured in the piece. It was in 2022, and titled "They Paused Puberty, But At What Cost?" Despite my extensive discussions with her about the need to expose the disinformation and lies associated with Christian Nationalist/MAGA demonization of trans youth and gender-affirming care, she overrepresented 'detransitioner' narratives and regurgitated the disinformation I alerted her to.
The New York Times is both a manipulator and a victim of the Overton Window when it comes to covering the trans+ population. Their propensity for applying pseudo-journalistic moral equivalency to anti-trans hate mongering is irresponsible, dangerous, and deadly.
I too wonder who and/or what is behind the transphobia of NYT. In any case, they need to hear from us. LOTS of us. And Erin, have you attempted to submit an op-ed? I wonder if they would publish it…
Erin, thank you as always for your stellar reporting - it's been a lifeline, and we're so grateful. We don't take for granted how much it takes to do this work (even under the best of circumstances, much less now) and just - thank you.
"The narrator repeatedly steps in to assure listeners that these individuals are “different” from transgender people in America today, emphasizing that their “protocol” was different."
And of course the chief difference between the DSM4 and DSM5 is that in the current versions, you actually have to personally want medical transition for it to be even possibly endorsed. Has Laura ever explained how that is a net devolvement into inaccuracy for such endorsements? I'd like to see her try to 'splain that one!
"I know many normal, cis people who are complete losers," says it all about the state of the “debate.”
And of course one dirty little secret is less than a quarter of the patients at the supposedly “captured by gender ideology” Tavistock clinic that prompted the Cass review received any medical intervention at all, and then on average after 6 appointments and several years. Did that get mentioned? I suspect not.
I’d welcome genuinely even-handed assessment of trans medicine including proportionate space for the antis, but neither the NYT nor anyone else is offering that.
Thank you for listening to the podcast so I don’t have to. I’m an ally who has written extensively about my alliance in Substack (see my Strange Soup posts). While nothing from NYT would change my mind about trans people, I don’t need to be angrier than I already am.
This is so disappointing of the NY Times, but I am not surprised. After all, just over half a century ago the NY Times thought it was doing the right thing by showing "both sides" of the debate over homosexuality that was unfolding furiously in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Today, we need reporters like Erin Read and every trans individual able and willing to engage in the debate over gender, to refute any and all errors in this news story and other reports that cite data from publications like the Cass Report.
I love how, in their attempts to make us look bad, they actually prove our point and show us to be perfectly normal while showing everyone just how unhinged they really are.
Just big applause for this piece 👏
A couple of years ago, I wrote an email to an anti-trans politician who was attempting to ban gender-affirming care at a university student health center. I wrote to him as a medical professional but explained that I also transitioned when I was 19. He wrote me back, and pretty much said: but these kids are NOT like you, their experience is different. It's amazing to me how they just can't really believe that we can thrive. They can't see a trans adult and make the connection back to a trans kid, a trans childhood. It's like they lack imagination and insight on a fundamental level. They so desperately want to be *right* about these kids that they literally cannot understand the concept of a thriving trans adult. Just like how these podcasters refuse to see how a 50yo doctor was once a trans kid. This politician couldn't understand that these kids were just like me, that I am thriving because I was able to access care, and that I was once a trans kid!
I'm 34-years post SRS/GCS, and but for the screaming antis, these have been the most awesome and happy years of my life. The antis are the ones who've caused me trauma, not my transition. About that I am angry. Yet, I have never for one moment regretted my transition.
All of us here know that gender-affirming care is LIFE SAVING care and we need to shout this from the rooftops in order to drown out the relentless anti-trans propaganda coming from the Legacy Media who only carries water for the transphobes. We need to elevate our own stories and loudly broadcast how our own lives were saved by transitioning. We need more journalists who actually cares about our lives to interview us and not present this both-side BS that the NYT presents. We need people to show the world how the Cass Review relied on junk science and pushes an anti-trans agenda that is doing FAR more harm than help right now.
I don't know how to make this happen but it needs to happen RIGHT NOW because the transphobes are winning.
I can’t for the life of me figure out why people care so much about trans folks, other than having a political punching bag that can’t fight back due to small numbers. I did read a theory about the Christian far right that the existence of trans and nonbinary people threatens their narrow world view about gender, hence the 2 gender EO that Trump issued (written by fanatic OMB director Russell Vought of Project 2025 infamy.) The NYT is being highly irresponsible IMO in producing this podcast series.
Seriously, I don’t know what I’d do without your reporting - just be terrified all the time that supporting my kids was dangerous or wrong.
I groaned when I saw this podcast announced in the NYT daily email, because cis people should not be leading the conversation on trans healthcare. Hopefully most of us would take offense at, for example, a race relations podcast with no nonwhite hosts.
I was one of those misrepresented in their article on pubertal suppression a couple of years ago. The NYT is an anti-trans news rag, with an undeserved and misleading journalistic pedigree.
Of course please ignore if you prefer, but I would love to know more about that!
It was an article by Megan Twohey, whose article on Harvey Weinstein launched the "Me Too" movement. That was the ONLY reason I agreed to be interviewed by her and featured in the piece. It was in 2022, and titled "They Paused Puberty, But At What Cost?" Despite my extensive discussions with her about the need to expose the disinformation and lies associated with Christian Nationalist/MAGA demonization of trans youth and gender-affirming care, she overrepresented 'detransitioner' narratives and regurgitated the disinformation I alerted her to.
The New York Times is both a manipulator and a victim of the Overton Window when it comes to covering the trans+ population. Their propensity for applying pseudo-journalistic moral equivalency to anti-trans hate mongering is irresponsible, dangerous, and deadly.
I too wonder who and/or what is behind the transphobia of NYT. In any case, they need to hear from us. LOTS of us. And Erin, have you attempted to submit an op-ed? I wonder if they would publish it…
I had never seen this side of the NYT. How can they support & promote such biased “journalism “. Canceling my subscription.
Erin, thank you as always for your stellar reporting - it's been a lifeline, and we're so grateful. We don't take for granted how much it takes to do this work (even under the best of circumstances, much less now) and just - thank you.
"The narrator repeatedly steps in to assure listeners that these individuals are “different” from transgender people in America today, emphasizing that their “protocol” was different."
And of course the chief difference between the DSM4 and DSM5 is that in the current versions, you actually have to personally want medical transition for it to be even possibly endorsed. Has Laura ever explained how that is a net devolvement into inaccuracy for such endorsements? I'd like to see her try to 'splain that one!
"I know many normal, cis people who are complete losers," says it all about the state of the “debate.”
And of course one dirty little secret is less than a quarter of the patients at the supposedly “captured by gender ideology” Tavistock clinic that prompted the Cass review received any medical intervention at all, and then on average after 6 appointments and several years. Did that get mentioned? I suspect not.
I’d welcome genuinely even-handed assessment of trans medicine including proportionate space for the antis, but neither the NYT nor anyone else is offering that.
Thank you for listening to the podcast so I don’t have to. I’m an ally who has written extensively about my alliance in Substack (see my Strange Soup posts). While nothing from NYT would change my mind about trans people, I don’t need to be angrier than I already am.
This is so disappointing of the NY Times, but I am not surprised. After all, just over half a century ago the NY Times thought it was doing the right thing by showing "both sides" of the debate over homosexuality that was unfolding furiously in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Today, we need reporters like Erin Read and every trans individual able and willing to engage in the debate over gender, to refute any and all errors in this news story and other reports that cite data from publications like the Cass Report.