Yesterday, Representative Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) lambasted the New York Times for allegedly publishing anti-trans content that has aided Republican states in their efforts to stop children from obtaining sex changes.
The paper “has been providing a platform for transphobic hate & propaganda, with horrifying consequences. Texas just entered NYT articles into evidence to push for the TX Dept of Family & Protective Services to take trans kids away from their supportive parents,” she tweeted.
Her comment is in reference to Texas governor Greg Abbott’s ordering the agency to “conduct prompt and thorough investigations of any reported instances of Texas children being subjected to abusive gender-transitioning procedures.”
It is dubious whether this claim is actually true. There is little publicly accessible evidence that Texas is using any New York Times material in this effort, and Tlaib’s source on the matter, American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Chase Strangio, dissembled when asked by journalist Jesse Singal for proof of the claim.
Even if Tlaib’s claims are true, her efforts are still misguided. In her Twitter thread, she included a link to a petition that names the specific article in the Times that Texas will apparently use as evidence in its investigations: Emily Bazelon’s essay in its magazine published back in mid- June. According to Tlaib, this story is part of an effort to feature “non-trans writers who scapegoat trans people and debate whether trans people even have a right to exist.”
Bazelon’s piece, titled “The Battle Over Gender Therapy,” reports that the American medical community is quite divided over giving sex changes to children. It also notes that some people who stop identifying as transgender cite the social influence of transgenderism on their original decision to transition. Additionally, some parents feel pressured to immediately seek sex changes for their children if they identified as transgender, according to Bazelon.
Notably, Tlaib never claims that Bazelon’s reporting is untrue. After all, how could she? In the article, Bazelon writes that she talked to 60 experts, children, and parents over eight months, evidently a robust effort.
Even then, most of the piece is simply reporting. There is very little, if any, of Bazelon’s opinion in her work. It is mainly a history of how perceptions and expert opinions on transgender health care have shifted over the years and what contemporary physicians, parents, and children believe about it.
The piece is far from an attack on the dignity of transgender people, nor is it a conservative argument in favor of banning child sex changes. It is simply an honest and truthful characterization of the climate surrounding an issue. But Tlaib believes that the New York Times should not have published it. Her reasoning is that the facts reported in it can be used by her political opponents to achieve an outcome that she does not like.
This is an attempt by a sitting congresswoman to pressure a major and historical publication to only report the narrative of one side of a political issue. Both the petition drive and the public-relations front of her effort are inappropriate.