Is the NYT an Anti-Trans Paper?
We’re just asking questions. One of those questions is “Why is the New York Times so biased against trans people?”
by Evan Urquhart
Many observers are wondering if the New York Times has a problem with anti-trans bias, as both op-eds and reported pieces at the Times seem to stem from the same anti-trans perspective. From professional comedians to reporters to ordinary people, questions abound about the paper’s ability to cover one of the biggest stories of the current moment in the unbiased and professional manner that the so-called “paper of record” has long purported to embody.
So, who all are criticizing the Times, exactly? Trans people ourselves have had concerns for years about the mainstream media’s turn against both hard science and the value on acceptance, and into a both-sides or “just asking questions” stance. The Times, while not only place affected by this shift, has long been one of the main sources of consternation in the trans community. Now, though, it’s not just trans people who are concerned about biased coverage in the nation’s 3rd largest newspaper. Cisgender reporters at other news outlets have begun to show concern about the Times’ trans coverage, leading at least one reporter to issue a call for any anonymous sources at the Times who would be willing shed light on the issue.
The Times’ bias has also attracted the attention in the world of comedy. Ryan Ken, a nonbinary staff writer for Last Week Tonight with Jon Oliver, posted a short video satirizing the Times’ trans coverage on TikTok. Their satire has has gone viral on both TikTok and Twitter.
Where is all this criticism coming from? In part it stems from bias in the opinion section. While the Times has never had a regular trans columnist, until recently they had one trans contributer, Jenny Boylan, but Boylan has moved on and there are no trans voices writing for the opinion section currently. On the anti-trans side, however, there is robust representation. One columnist in particular, Pamela Paul, has become known for shallow, poorly sources takes in the classic “old person shouts at cloud” style. Paul’s most recent column was one in this vein, a nostalgic look back at a classic childrens’ album titled “Free to be… You and Me” which veers off into excoriating the trans rights movement for the fact that gender roles were not successfully abolished my Margo Thomas in the 1970s.
The old canard that transgender people reinforce traditional gender roles is laughable on its face, but it’s also completely contradicted by the evidence that trans boys and girls are no more or less likely to conform to gender stereotypes than cisgender children.
Of course a great many people are lightly transphobic, and one would expect the demographics of the Times writers and its audience to produce this sort of thing, once in a while. If this had been the first time Paul indulged in a poorly researched, biased bit of writing on trans issues it might be better to ignore it. But Paul wrote a similarly anti-trans (and similarly shallow and uninformed) column less than two months ago. Paul wrote an even harsher column that accused trans people of “erasing” women two months before that. Transphobia, in fact, seems to be one of Paul’s primary focii as an opinion writer.
It’s also important to note that Paul is ostensibly not one of the Times’ conservative opinion columnists, who tend towards being anti-trans and poorly sourced when they write about trans issues, much like Paul herself. (Paul was at one time married to one of the Times’ conservative columnists.)*
Concerns about the New York Times’ coverage are not confined to its opinion pages, however. Even more alarming is the ways that anti-trans bias seem to have crept into some of the reported pieces. Chief among these was the Times’ recent report on puberty blockers, a story which was not only biased and misleading on the science, but also ignored some basic tenets of journalistic ethics. The article, by Megan Twohey and Christina Jewett, fell so far below the standards one expects of the Gray Lady that criticism of the reporting reached far beyond trans people and even beyond journalists (though sadly not as far as the misinformation itself, most likely).
The puberty blockers piece came on the heels of another reported story, this one on the process of determining medical guidelines in WPATH, by Emily Bazelon. It was criticized as being skewed towards the assumption that children are being fast tracked into medical transition without evidence. That piece was not nearly as biased as the one on puberty blockers, but it had some hallmarks of a credulous cisgender reporter, new to the topic, who gave excess weight to nebulous concerns from anti-trans activist groups while undervaluing the concrete medical evidence.
The New York Times publishes a massive number of stories every day, by a wide variety of reporters, on every imaginable topic. Their opinion section, while it has some idiosyncrasies, features a variety of views from many different writers, some of whom support trans rights. As recently as September one of these, Farhad Manjoo, wrote about the current moral panic over trans issues (although they framed it as a problem on the right, while some will argue that the Times itself has become a main driver of this phenomenon). However, because the Times has not reckoned with their failures on this issue it means the biased reporting is tainting the more neutral product. Every neutrally reported story I found on trans issues contained this large panel, linking to the terrible puberty blockers article. This makes more neutrally reported stories themselves a vector for misinformation and moral panic.
Whatever is going on at the Times in relation to this issue, the stakes for trans people are high if the paper doesn’t correct course and add some much needed balance back into both its opinion and journalistic offerings on the issue. The Times is read widely and enjoys a level of respect and credibility that tends to ingraine its errors into the psyches of policy makers, business leaders, and ordinary people. This Times is not supposed to be some right wing rag that publishes white nationalist screeds and blithely whips up a moral panic targeting a struggling minority. It’s high time they remembered that, and started acting like a mainstream newspaper and not the Daily Caller.
*CORRECTION: We originally stated that Paul “is” married to one of the Times’ conservative columists. She was married to conservative columnist Bret Stevens at one point, but has subsequently divorced and remarried.