Progressive New York Times staffers are once again up in arms over the paper’s coverage of the trans issue, this time taking issue with the decision to publish an op-ed that advances a skeptical view of medicalizing children who believe they are transgender.
The backlash began on the Times internal chat last week in response to an op-ed by opinion columnist Pamela Paul entitled, “As Kids, They Thought They Were Trans. They No Longer Do.”
“I wish the leadership of this company could understand that the more ‘perspectives’ we publish that basically amount to ‘there should be fewer trans people in society’ absolutely contributes to a hostile work environment for the queer people who work here and keep this place running,” an anonymous Times staffer wrote on the company Slack, according to screenshots obtained by Washington Post media reporter Erik Wemple.
“I mean, it just feels so degrading that we have in our workforce these very prominent colleagues who are openly transphobic and the transphobia is explicitly sanctioned by this company under the guise of just asking questions/’independent journalism’ when the views that we publish in the paper would absolutely violate harassment and discrimination policies if they were spoken out loud at another employee,” the staffer continued. “This company’s commitment to diversity and inclusion is an absolute farce.”
The Times quickly deleted that message and others which violated the paper’s policy against criticizing individual employees on Slack.
“We’ve removed Slack posts from a non-workflow channel that went against the company’s communications policy,” a Times spokeswoman confirmed. “We have multiple channels for our colleagues to discuss their thoughts on our journalism but we do not allow criticism of colleagues and their work in large forums.”
No criticism against “clearly identifiable employees” is allowed under company policy, Wemple clarified. He added that management “reportedly counseled the people whose posts were removed and attempted to steer them to channels where they can voice their concerns to editors or other company officials.”
The opinion piece, published Friday, tells the story of 23-year-old Grace Powell, who detransitioned after beginning the transition process years ago. She started hormone therapy during her senior year of high school, followed by a double mastectomy the summer before college. At ages 12 or 13, she first “discovered she could be a boy,” Paul wrote.
However, Powell deeply regretted the decision later in life.
“I wish there had been more open conversations,” the young woman told Paul. “But I was told there is one cure and one thing to do if this is your problem, and this will help you.”
While the outlet has run op-eds defending “gender-affirming care” and has published news articles which treat the trans-affirmative approach sympathetically, mildly skeptical coverage of the issue has sparked internal revolts in the past.
Last February, roughly 200 Times contributors signed an open letter calling out “editorial bias in the newspaper’s reporting on transgender, non-binary, and gender nonconforming people.” Signatories argued that the outlet 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.”
One news article, for example, was said to have “misframed the battle over” whether schools should tell parents their children changed their gender identity and, as a result, misrepresented the legal challenges that schools face. Such lawsuits that parents bring against school districts, the letter states, are tied to “anti-trans hate groups” that have identified trans people as an “existential threat to society.”
Times spokesman Charlie Stadtlander defended the paper’s coverage at the time and said the articles represented only a small portion of the paper’s news and opinion coverage on transgender issues.
“Our journalism strives to explore, interrogate and reflect the experiences, ideas and debates in society – to help readers understand them. Our reporting did exactly that and we’re proud of it,” he said.
The Times has also faced intense scrutiny from colleagues and readers after publishing an op-ed by Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) in June 2020, calling for the National Guard to quell rioting following the death of George Floyd. The backlash led to the resignation of opinion editor James Bennet, who detailed his thoughts on the ideological takeover of the paper in a lengthy essay in December.