Does The New York Times Have An Anti-Trans Bias?
They might, but the the thousands of journalists making that claim have not proved their case.
I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality of American politics. If you were sent this email or are a free subscriber and would like to subscribe, you can sign up here.
Get Your Facts Straight
These days, trans rights and gender therapy are in the news almost daily — as Republican legislators in red-state America race to the bottom to see who can pass the most destructive and hurtful laws affecting the trans community.
Yet, to many journalists and trans activists, the real enemy is closer to home — the New York Times. Last week hundreds of such journalists, who have contributed to the Times, signed an open letter accusing the paper of bias in its coverage of trans issues. According to the letter writers (who now number in the thousands), the Times has “treated gender diversity with an eerily familiar mix of pseudoscience and euphemistic, charged language while publishing reporting on trans children that omits relevant information about its sources.” In a follow-up missive, the groups claimed to have produced a “well-documented complaint of editorial bias.”
But even a cursory investigation shows that this simply isn’t true — and that the evidence of anti-trans bias at the Times is unconvincing. The journalists who signed on to it should be embarrassed.
For example, in reference to Emily Bazelon’s long read on the issues of gender therapy, the letter-writers make the following accusation:
Bazelon’s article “The Battle Over Gender Therapy” uncritically used the term “patient zero” to refer to a trans child seeking gender-affirming care, a phrase that vilifies transness as a disease to be feared. Bazelon quoted multiple expert sources who have since expressed regret over their work’s misrepresentation. Another source, Grace Lidinksy-Smith, was identified as an individual person speaking about a personal choice to detransition, rather than the President of GCCAN, an activist organization that pushes junk science and partners with explicitly anti-trans hate groups.
Let’s tackle this one by one. First, Patient Zero. Here’s the section from Bazelon’s piece.
Cohen-Kettenis helped establish a treatment protocol that proved revolutionary. Patient Zero, known as F.G., was referred around 1987 to Henriette A. Delemarre-van de Waal, a pediatric endocrinologist who went on to found the gender clinic in Amsterdam with Cohen-Kettenis. At 13, F.G. was in despair about going through female puberty, and Delemarre-van de Waal put him on puberty suppressants, with Cohen-Kettenis later monitoring him. The medication would pause development of secondary sex characteristics, sparing F.G. the experience of feeling that his body was betraying him, buying time and making it easier for him to go through male puberty later, if he then decided to take testosterone. Transgender adults, whom Cohen-Kettenis also treated, sometimes said they wished they could have transitioned earlier in life, when they might have attained the masculine or feminine ideal they envisioned. “Of course, I wanted that,” F.G. said of puberty suppressants, in an interview in “The Dutch Approach,” a 2020 book about the Amsterdam clinic by the historian Alex Bakker. “Later I realized that I had been the first, the guinea pig. But I didn’t care.”
"Patient Zero" is a term that usually refers to the first person to fall victim to a disease -- and the letter-writers have a point that another term would have been better (though F.G. notably refers to themselves as a "guinea pig"). Still, Bazelon's piece was tens of thousands of words. If the letter-writers are to be believed, and bias against trans-Americans is systematic at the Times, one might expect to find an example more glaring than this one.
What about the claim that multiple sources have expressed regret about speaking to Bazelon? The letter-writers link to a podcast discussion. That hardly qualifies as "well-documented" evidence — and as Charles Homans, an editor at New York Times magazine, pointed out to me on Twitter, “neither of the podcast interviewees are actually quoted in the piece, and their most substantive claim … re: the factual content of the piece is wrong.”
On the subject of Grace Lidinsky-Smith (her name is misspelled in the letter), the letter-writers complain she is "identified as an individual person speaking about a personal choice to detransition, rather than the President of GCCAN, an activist organization that pushes junk science & partners with explicitly anti-trans hate groups."
Here’s how Bazelon identifies her:
Others decide they want to fully detransition and return to their cis identities. Grace Lidinsky-Smith, who is 28, has written about her regret over taking testosterone and having her breasts removed in her early 20s. She told me that she wished she’d had the kind of comprehensive assessment the last Standards of Care endorsed for adults. “That would have been really good for me,” she said.
The letter omits that Lidinsky-Smith was not quoted talking about her decision to detransition ... but rather, her complaint was about the type of care and information she received when she transitioned (more on this in a second).
That notwithstanding, the letter provides no evidence that shows GCCANN partners with anti-trans hate groups or pushes junk science. Are we supposed to assume the letter-writers are acting in good faith, have the evidence, and just forgot to link to it? It’s pretty galling for hundreds of journalists to accuse the Times of wrongdoing and then engage in this kind of shoddy argumentation.
No. The Science Is Not Settled
What is even more troubling, however, is that the letter-writers don’t even get basic facts right. Consider this paragraph:
“Puberty blockers, hormone replacement therapy, and gender-affirming surgeries have been standard forms of care for cis and trans people alike for decades."
Quite simply, this is not true. At the very least, it’s highly misleading. It’s true, for example, to argue that gender-affirming surgeries have taken place for decades. However, it’s not true to say the same about puberty blockers. Conflating the two suggests that the science of all three is settled when that is not remotely accurate (moreover, the authors are conflating procedures generally used on adults and one used with adolescents and children).
What’s even more troubling is that this argument elides the fact that health systems across Europe (Sweden, Finland, and the UK) are reining in the use of puberty blockers because of concerns they are overprescribed and may not be effective. Indeed, the aforementioned article by Emily Bazelon offers an exhaustive look at this issue and the divides within the medical community over puberty blockers and gender therapy in general.
I sense that this is the real target of this letter: preventing the medical community from more seriously addressing the issue of whether gender therapies, which have exploded in use over the past several years, are working.
Indeed, I couldn’t stop thinking about this Twitter thread from a person whose child will start puberty blockers at 10.
I don’t doubt that they love their child and want what’s best for them, but it is a vast exaggeration to suggest that puberty blockers are reversible or that there are no long-term risks from prescribing them to a 10-year-old. Indeed, it’s not even clear if puberty blockers effectively reduce distress. Of course, we should all want children to pursue their preferred gender path … but we should also ensure they and their parents get the best healthcare information. And if someone is telling this person and their child that puberty blockers are safe and reversible, I fear that is not happening.
To be clear, this is not an esoteric question for me. I’m not delving into details on this (so don’t ask), but suffice it to say, some of the issues I’ve raised in this post are ones that I will likely need to wrestle with in my own life. And I want to get the best information for my family. I fear that this letter seeks to block journalists from asking important and challenging questions about gender therapy. It is not an effort to ensure better coverage of trans issues. It’s intended to shut down debate and limit what is considered acceptable and what is not. That is dangerous for gender-fluid and trans kids.
The issues around trans rights and gender therapies are incredibly complex, and there is broad disagreement in the medical community. We should encourage journalists to explore these issues with rigor and empathy. I believe the Times is handling that mission well. No matter how well-intentioned, the writers of this letter risk doing more harm than good.
What’s Going On
I love President’s Day … because it gives me a chance, once a year, to write about the presidency.
Speaking of presidents … the one we have today is pretty good.
I don’t know how Sarah Wildman wrote this piece about her ailing daughter. It’s beautiful and gut-wrenching.
This chat between a reporter and Bing’s new AI chatbot is one of the more disturbing/fascinating things I’ve ever read.
My friend Sasha Smith wrote a really fun piece about “Paul’s Boutique.”
Shaquille O’Neal’s reaction to Mac McClung winning the slam dunk contest is truly priceless.
Musical Interlude/Today In Bob Dylan
Thanks for writing this article. So many questions normal for any medical procedure seem to be overlooked.
Why so many want to change gender?
Why is the personal turmoil of adolescence in a changing world not considered before surgery?
What damage does this do to other causes wearing the Progressive or Liberal banner?
A few decades ago we were singing Peggy Seeger's "I'm gonna be an engineer" and women were moving from very limited choices in employment and life. Many of us didn't wear make up all the time and valued functional comfortable clothes over fashion without considering that a symptom of a gender problem for us personally. Men's clothes are often sturdier, a different problem.
http://www.peggyseeger.com/listen-buy/peggy-seeger-live/peggy-seeger-live-song-texts/im-gonna-be-an-engineer
Decades passed but somehow gender definition has gotten tighter, even as women move into more fields. Is it marketing?
The pink and blue gender reveals are big events that didn't exist decades ago.
All those Unicorns w rainbow hair, princess overload defining femininity, etc.
Some tools are sold for kids the tools are gendered with color. Why wouldn't this contribute to confusion?
Is some gender dysphoria among women due to economics and the lack of validation of our work still?
http://www.paulaprinciple.com/about/
Thanks for posting about Grace Lidinsky-Smith
Her blog is really interesting. She writes here about the impact of getting out of the city and a challenging hike on a cold day. Food for thought.
https://hormonehangover.substack.com/p/the-opposite-of-gender-dysphoria
An excellent and well written article. One of your best